|
Articles and Information
Vegan Cats?
By Dan Robinson
Within the vegan and animal rights movements, one of the most contentious and most hotly debated issues remains the concept of veganism for cats. The two hardest groups of people to convince that vegan cats are possible, are veterinarians and vegans. The general population tends to remain open minded, or at least oblivious to the concept, and are willing to listen to the discussion without dismissing it out of hand. The issue for dogs is less of an issue because dogs have a different physiology and nutritional require-ments which are generally recognized as quite adaptable to a vegan and/or vegetarian diet.
Article continues below
With all due respect to veterinarians, they generally have limited knowledge of the facts concerning feline nutrition, based on a few hours of animal nutrition in vet school. They are told that cats are obligate carnivores and that is that.
Vegans tend to buy the same argument as veterinarians and are very reluctant to study the issue enough to convince themselves that they are not going to make their feline children
deathly ill by feeding vegan. On the other hand some veterinarians and vegans are intrigued by the concept and will listen to the discussion intently with some degree of objectivity to determine if cats can be sustained safely and successfully as vegans.
And the answer is a qualified yes, when proper attention is given to providing a food that is nutritionally balanced and complete.
First, as most people are probably aware, the facts are that cats (felids) are obligate carnivores by design. And in a natural environment, wild cats, from the largest Bengal Tiger to the smallest feral domestic cat, are in fact true carnivores.
However, our domestication of the house cat, in combination with the commercial pet food industry, has bastardized the food that we feed our cats, especially in the past 50
years or so. Slaughterhouse owners were looking for a way to make the slaughterhouse waste products a profit center and consequently developed meat by-products, digests, and meals.
These products became the centerpiece for commercial pet foods and over time other non-animal products were blended as filler to help make the pet foods even more profitable.
The people who bring us our daily meat products, are the same folks who developed the commercial pet food industry. It has only been in the past 20 years or so that the big commercial pet food manufacturers started looking at pet nutrition seriously and started formulating blends of foods that would not directly kill our companion animals and would still maximize profits.
In actuality it is all about the money when it comes to pet foods. Here is the problem with most commercial pet foods. Any pet food containing meat based meals, digests, or
by-products are literally poisons. The rendering process, from which these products are formulated, contains a mixture of dead, dying, diseased, and disabled animals from the slaughter industry, along with road kill, spoiled supermarket meats (including the styrofoam packaging), euthanized animals
(including flea collars), insecticides, toxins, cross- species hormones, antibiotics and other disgusting debris that gets swept up in the processing operations.
Vets will tell you that euthanized animals are regulated and are never part of the food chain, but the facts are to the contrary. This rendered soup is then dehydrated into a powder which is then added to pet foods as a "nutritious" filler. AAFCO, the organization that supervises the animal food industry, has definitions for, and guidelines for using, these ingredients.
Read the label of your "pet food". If it contains any of the above ingredients, you are feeding a poison to your companion animals which will eventually lead to some disease that we have rarely seen in animals in the distant past. Remember, it is all about the money and the pet food industry is contributing to the illness of our companion animals which then need to contribute to the veterinary industry who prescribe food products that come from the same industry that made the animals sick in the first place.
It's a vicious circle. Don't get me wrong, veterinary medicine today is some of the most advanced and compassionate of the healing arts, and I am in awe of the work performed by a vast majority of vets. All I can say is read the label ingredients of the food you are feeding your companion animals before determining whether or not to look seriously at vegan food alternatives for your companion animals.
Dogs are a lot easier to sustain on a vegetarian diet than cats. The nutritional requirements of each species is different. Without going into too much detail about the differences, lets just say that cats have much more stringent nutritional needs that are harder, but not impossible, to fulfill from a purely vegetable
base.
I am only aware of two vegan cat foods manufactured and available in the US; Evolution and Vegecat. [Another European product exists but is generally not available in the US.]
I have extensive experience with both products and have been disappointed with the results of the Evolution food and thoroughly satisfied with the Vegecat product.
The Evolution food is premade in both canned and kibble form. Whereas the Vegecat product is a supplement that must be combined with other ingredients in order to form a fully nutritious food for cat consumption. The Vegecat product comes with a number of tested recipes that are suggested by the manufacture. The Vegan Cat Institute, an organization I created along with my feline son Teddy, for the dissemination of vegan cat knowledge, has formulated a unique blend of the vegecat supplement along with other ingredients to form a product that we call a Vegan Feline Roast.
This semi-moist product has what we consider an ideal blend of ingredients that equate to about 50% protein, 30% fat, and 20% carbohydrates along with a moisture content of about 40%-60%. Natural cat food like a mouse, lizard, bird, mole or other such prey would have approximately the same nutritional values. We are in the process of marketing this product in a ready to make dry form that can be shipped easily to anywhere in the world.
A ready to eat frozen product may become available in the future. We would warn people against trying to formulate their own vegan cat food. The nutritional require-ments for cats are quite precise and without the proper formulation, the feline parent risks doing great harm to the health of their feline companions. Cardiac, kidney, urinary, and hepatic diseases are common from people who have attempted to feed cats vegan without the proper nutritional study and background.
The folks who manufacture Vegecat have done a superb job of formulating a vegan product that provides all the missing ingredients of a meat-based diet. This product has the endorsement of the Vegan Cat Institute.
Considering that the vast majority of the commercial pet foods are filled with poisons that come from the rendering industry as well as the latest risk of contaminated vegetable products like gluten, the advantages of a properly formulated vegan cat food are enormous. Vegan cats can be extremely healthy because they are no longer being fed poisonous materials that build up over time to create unique diseases that we have never seen before in cats.
Then there is the ethics of killing one animal to feed another, when in truth it really isn't necessary.
Common Questions
The most common concern about a vegan diet for cats is where do they get their protein from if not from meat. Haven't we all heard that question before when we became vegetarians/vegans?
Actually it is not a matter of proteins but a matter of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. The answer is the same for cats as it is for humans. The amino acids can be found in both animal and vegetable sources, and in many cases the bio-availability of the nutrients are
often as good as or sometimes better in the vegetable source.
There are four constituents of major concern for a feline diet that are easiest to obtain from a meat source but can be easily obtained from other sources. These are Taurine
(an essential amino acid in cats), pre-formed Vitamin A (Retinol), Arachidonic Acid, and Cobalamin (Vitamin B-12). Taurine has been synthesized artificially since the 1930's and is added to every cat food, because the naturally occurring taurine from meat is rendered useless during the food manufacturing process.
Heat destroys the natural taurine. Retinol and Arachidonic Acid fall into the same category. B-12 is very easy to obtain from nutritional yeast, brewer's yeast, and/or sea vegetables (kelp, dulse, laver, wakame, nori, and others). Aside from the above nutrient issues, the other primary health issue involves male cats and the ability
to avoid FLUTD and other urinary problems.
In the case of both commercial vegan cat foods, a urinary pH level of 6.5 is targeted by each product. It has been my experience that Vegecat is reliably successful in doing so, and the Evolution kibble is not. Considering that the vast majority of the commercial pet foods are filled with poisons that come from the rendering industry as well as the latest risk of contaminated vegetable products like gluten, the advantages of a properly formulated vegan cat food are enormous.
Vegan cats can be extremely healthy because they are no longer being fed poisonous materials that build up over time to create unique diseases that we have never seen before in cats. Then there is the ethics of killing one animal to feed another, when in truth it really isn't necessary.
Read also:
Vegetarian Cats and Dogs
Vegan Cats: Feeding For Health
Dan Robinson has been a vegan for 18 years and has 5 years of practical experience with vegan cats. In 2005 he established the Vegan Cat Institute as a memorial tribute to his son Teddy as a way to honor his work as a spokes cat for the cause of veganism in cats. Dan's current feline son, Cash, is the Chief Feline Officer and has been vegan for three years from day one of his adoption at one year of age. The Vegan Cat Institute has a website containing additional information at www.ixamall.com/hpusa
| |
Sponsors:
|
