I’m not a vegan. But my $.02 as a cat person is this: the cat has biological dietary requirements. If you fail to meet those requirements, it is animal abuse.
By trying to squeeze a cat, an obligate carnivore in nature, into a vegan diet, either you have to be extremely careful about it to ensure you meet all their nutritional needs, or simply, and far more easily, just don’t do it.
Encouraging people who likely do not have the means or expertise to monitor how their pet is doing, to switch them to a vegan diet, is dangerous to the health of the animal.
I’m not sure I disagree with the admin on this one, though there’s probably a better way they could have handled it.
You don’t have to be super careful. You just have to make sure they get enough taurine. Any number of off the shelf products have sufficient synthetic taurine for a cat to thrive. It doesn’t make sense to get all freaked out about this one nutrient when you trust the pet food manufacturer for every other essential nutrient the cat would die without.
![[Meme] Maybe the discussion will be different this time compared to the ten others? (Edit: obligate, not mandate)](https://i.imgflip.com/920tpl.jpg){kind=link}
I’m not a vegan. But my $.02 as a cat person is this: the cat has biological dietary requirements. If you fail to meet those requirements, it is animal abuse.
By trying to squeeze a cat, an obligate carnivore in nature, into a vegan diet, either you have to be extremely careful about it to ensure you meet all their nutritional needs, or simply, and far more easily, just don’t do it.
Encouraging people who likely do not have the means or expertise to monitor how their pet is doing, to switch them to a vegan diet, is dangerous to the health of the animal.
I’m not sure I disagree with the admin on this one, though there’s probably a better way they could have handled it.
You don’t have to be super careful. You just have to make sure they get enough taurine. Any number of off the shelf products have sufficient synthetic taurine for a cat to thrive. It doesn’t make sense to get all freaked out about this one nutrient when you trust the pet food manufacturer for every other essential nutrient the cat would die without.
I assume you have a doctorate in veterinary care on which you’ve based this statement?