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Study suggests that cats may get health benefits from vegan diet

editor said:
Scientist 1: We need to cut back our our meat consumption for the sake of the environment.

Scientist 2: In the US, the canine population was responsible for between 25 and 30% of the animal production impact regarding land use, water, and fossil fuels, so we need to cut back drastically

Researcher: A fresh study has suggested that a vegan diet is not only safe for pet cats, but may have health benefits as well as reducing the environmental damage caused by the meat industry

Normal people: Well that's just great if the vegan food is proved safe, healthy and enjoyable for pets. Let's see if further research backs this up.

Urban: OMG! Obligate carnivores! Obligate carnivores! It's a worthless peer reviewed study! Dodgy journal! Tobacco industry! Human morals! Human beliefs! XL Bullys! CALL IN THE RSCPCA!
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Canines are not obligate carnivores to my knowledge? Are they?
 
Here's another study, which will no doubt be derided, dismissed, ignored by the usual suspects.

This review has found that there is no convincing evidence of major impacts of vegan diets on dog or cat health. There is, however, a limited number of studies investigating this question and those studies available often use small sample sizes or short feeding durations. There was also evidence of benefits for animals arising as a result of feeding them vegan diets. Much of these data were acquired from guardians via survey-type studies, but these can be subject to selection biases, as well as subjectivity around the outcomes. However, these beneficial findings were relatively consistent across several studies and should, therefore, not be disregarded.

There is an urgent need for large-scale population-based studies to further investigate this question, with a particular focus on assessing the dietary aspects cited to be of particular concern, e.g., taurine and folate. For guardians wishing to feed their pets vegan diets at the current time, based on the available evidence it is recommended that commercially produced vegan diets are used since these are less likely to lead to nutrient imbalances.
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The Impact of Vegan Diets on Indicators of Health in Dogs and Cats: A Systematic Review - PMC

There has been controversy within the scientific literature, and in the popular press and online media, around the safety of feeding vegan diets to dogs and cats. With an increase in adherence to meat-free diets in the human population, many ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
Callie said:
Canines are not obligate carnivores to my knowledge? Are they?
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Dogs are either omnivores or facultative carnivores, depending on whom you ask. This means that they can theoretically get by without meat, but their normal diet would be meat plus a bit of other stuff, so they're probably not going to be happy bunnies on a vegan diet.
 
Mad really - Domesticated cats are there because humans breed them and so, whilst the natural world can be unbelievably cruel at times, we can't really interfere with that (see: Dolphins killing porpoises for fun etc).
Cats, however, not only kill masses of wildlife inc things like songbirds (most of which are protected) they also seemingly enjoy torturing their prey. So; by buying a cat, you are effectively sentencing thousands of animals to a lengthy, horrific, tortuous death (unless you keep it indoors). It is also, as mentioned an obligate carnivore.

If you are a vegan or vegetarian who thinks killing animals for food or sport is immoral, I can't for the life of me see how it's compatible with your code of ethics to purchase a animal that will torture animals on your behalf. I can't see how you could be against hunting with dogs, whilst simultaneously have an outdoor cat, both are human interferences that cause suffering (cats probably more so than hunting dogs, if you exclude foxhunting).

Why not just not have a bloody cat in the first place?
 
Callie said:
Canines are not obligate carnivores to my knowledge? Are they?
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No they are not, but the deliberate misunderstanding of omnivory (based, I suppose around the fact that humans are) is another massive can of worms. Omnivory is, if you like, a spectrum. Dogs would naturally obtain much of their nutrition from meat (they can manufacture vitamin c, as per most carnivores therefore do not need it in their diet). There have been quite a few arguments on here around this.
 
editor said:
Here's another study, which will no doubt be derided, dismissed, ignored by the usual suspects.



The Impact of Vegan Diets on Indicators of Health in Dogs and Cats: A Systematic Review - PMC

There has been controversy within the scientific literature, and in the popular press and online media, around the safety of feeding vegan diets to dogs and cats. With an increase in adherence to meat-free diets in the human population, many ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
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You do know that critical analysis is an essential part of science, don't you?
 
Why stop at cats? Why don’t vegans follow foxes or badgers around and stop them eating meat? To make things easier maybe they could fit an electroshock device to meat-eating animals that doesn’t trigger if they eat fruit or veg, but gives the animal a nasty shock if they’re tempted to exhibit carnist tendencies.
 
platinumsage said:
Why stop at cats? Why don’t vegans follow foxes or badgers around and stop them eating meat? To make things easier maybe they could fit an electroshock device to meat-eating animals that doesn’t trigger if they eat fruit or veg, but gives the animal a nasty shock if they’re tempted to exhibit carnist tendencies.
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How long have you lived in Tunbridge Wells?
 
ouirdeaux said:
Dogs are either omnivores or facultative carnivores, depending on whom you ask. This means that they can theoretically get by without meat, but their normal diet would be meat plus a bit of other stuff, so they're probably not going to be happy bunnies on a vegan diet.
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Here's the industry's definition of 'Freshly Prepared Meat':

What is Freshly Prepared Meat?​

Producing Freshly Prepared Meat involves several steps [1]:

  1. Mechanical separation of the animal carcass through a deboning machine. A chicken carcass, for example, is a chicken, exclusive of feathers, head, feet and entrails and with the majority of actual meat (muscular tissue) removed for human consumption. It may be frozen.
  2. Grinding reduces particle size to produce a fine paste.
  3. Pasteurisation - the application of relatively low levels of heat (usually less than 100°C) for a short amount of time to eliminate pathogens and extend shelf life.
  4. Separation of water and fat via centrifuge. These can then be added back to the mixture depending on the nutritional specifications of the manufacturer.
  5. Concentration by low temperature vacuum evaporation.
What you are left with at the end of the five steps is a fairly viscous, beige-coloured 'meat slurry'. This is called 'Freshly Prepared Meat'.
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Freshly Prepared Meat in dog food | All About Dog Food

Freshly Prepared Meat good for your dog? Find out on the UK's most comprehensive dog food info site, AllAboutDogFood.co.uk
www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk

👌
 
platinumsage said:
Why stop at cats? Why don’t vegans follow foxes or badgers around and stop them eating meat? To make things easier maybe they could fit an electroshock device to meat-eating animals that doesn’t trigger if they eat fruit or veg, but gives the animal a nasty shock if they’re tempted to exhibit carnist tendencies.
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Why stop at foxes and badgers? To make things easier maybe they could fit an electroshock device to urban posters that gives the poster a nasty shock when they're tempted to post bollocks.
 
two sheds said:
Why stop at foxes and badgers? To make things easier maybe they could fit an electroshock device to urban posters that gives the poster a nasty shock when they're tempted to post bollocks>
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Given the amount of bollocks posted here, it might knock the power grid out of action.
 
ouirdeaux said:
I know that. But I didn't think any species but humans killed for sport -- that even when it looks like that to us, they're honing their hunting skills or responding to a threat, even if the threat isn't real. And hey, it's dolphins. Aren't they the good guys?
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Think you'll find chimps do it too.
 
teuchter said:
Would it be to fair to say that for all the vegans or vegetarians who don't think this, the concept of vegan catfood is not "mad"?
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Yes it is mad - the concept of perpetuating an industry that creates artificially high numbers of this animal buy buying a cat is even madder.
 
editor said:
Here's another study, which will no doubt be derided, dismissed, ignored by the usual suspects.
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How about you have a read of this link from Griff? It's not great to post up a study then refuse to engage with criticisms of it. Why should we read your next link when you haven't addressed the problems with your first one.

Griff said:
www.vetvoices.co.uk

Vegan Diets are Healthier and Safer for Cats and Dogs – Or Are They?

Back in April 2022, a study made the headlines, after a peer-reviewed analysis of around 2,500 pets found that vegan dogs visit the vet less often and require fewer medications. This week, we have another, with the Guardian stating ‘Cats may get health benefits from vegan diet, study suggests’...
www.vetvoices.co.uk www.vetvoices.co.uk

Not sure if this has been posted.
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As FM says, critical analysis is a crucial part of science. Science is a process, not a destination. Any study can and must be evaluated, challenged and examined. Its results and conclusions may be built upon or refined or indeed debunked.
 
editor said:
Given the amount of bollocks posted here, it might knock the power grid out of action.
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You're the one posting bollocks. You don't even understand half the stuff you link to, as shown by the bit on mechanically retrieved meat. What you're actually saying there is that pet food is made from leftovers from meat production for humans that would otherwise be thrown away. :facepalm:
 
The first study seems to be pretty poor to me.
Firstly, it is a self-selecting questionnaire.
I couldn't find the questionnaire to see what the questions were; it is just claimed to be unbiased.

The study reports 1242 meat-fed cats, but only 127 Vegan cats, so any single vegan cat will skew the results 10x more than a meat-eater regarding outliers.
But a lot of these vegan cats are not actually vegan cats, as they are classed as indoor/outdoor or mostly outdoor cat so can find their meat, either by hunting, or going to different houses; only 84 are classed as mostly indoor, and 'mostly' is not defined and cannot be as it's a self-selecting questionnaire.

But the study uses all claimed vegan cats in its analysis, which, as far as I can see, isn't a great way to do a study.

If cats can be happy and healthy on a vegan diet, great, but this is not the study to show this, and I think is detrimental to understanding if cats can be vegan.
 
For clarity PloS One is legit, but it's something to be a bit wary of using as a layperson. Kind of the point in PloS One is that it accepts a broad range of studies from... all the disciplines, so long as they 'contribute to the scientific literature'. They're not always good contributions (and they've had some significant issues at times), but if the methodology is clearly described and the analysis is coherent, they may still get published. So a study with a pretty crap data source (which I think this is) may still be interesting to someone provided those issues are clearly described in the paper (which they are).

Put another way anyone basing a decision on their pet's nutrition on a single study with a sample size of ±100 which specifically targeted vegan pet owners on facebook and uses self-reported data is a fucking idiot. But it's still quite an interesting study that may justify further research.
 
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