I have a bunch of cats I feed vegan diets to, but to anyone concerned that I’m doing animal abuse, don’t worry - occasionally, I wring one of their necks and chop it up to feed to the others, so clearly I’m not abusing them.

Thats canibalism if you would do that. And already reading that gives me some worries how you would treat your cats.

I don’t have any cats or other pets

Huh didnt you beginn the whole comment by telling you “have bunch of cats”?

And this comment is just a “Not my opinion = Bad” vibe. I think you are just here to rant about how bad other (non-vegan) people are and make everyone feel like they are lower than you.

Cats are obligate carnivores. It is 100% animal abuse.

https://www.benevo.com/vegan-cat-food-from-benevo/

Benevo Cat foods contain all the nutrients an adult cat needs, including a wide range of vitamins (including A, B, D, E, K), essential fatty acids and taurine, without the need for slaughterhouse meat. Although obligate carnivores in the wild, domestic cats still need nutrients they would normally source from prey. Thankfully Benevo Cat contains all those nutrients in a bioavailable kibble.

Benevo Cat is a professional cat food, created by Benevo in 2005, formulated and checked by independent animal nutritionists to meet the AAFCO(USA) and FEDIAF(Europe) guidelines for animal nutrition.

We’ve had safe and healthy variants of vegan cat food for 20 years. Trying to elevate the question to animal abuse speaks entirely to personal ignorance.

cats can live on a vegan diet. so it’s hardly animal abuse.

This is all PR, lemmy.world didnt make good with their vegan community, they just want everyone else to think they are fair and level headed. Reddit has the exact same PR, except they were trying to make money openly, while most assume lemmy.world admins are losing or breaking even (whether thats true or not).

Put simply, reddit was trying to collect more profit from their users one way, and lemmy.world is trying to collect its donations in another, but PR servers both cases.

Doesnt really matter theres plenty of space elsewhere for the vegan community, which is the beauty of the fediverse.

The only person with integrity I see here is the admin that initially removed the comments promoting animal abuse. Those that backed down and restored the comments caved to the pressure of an extreme, insular community and sided against *defenseless animals. I see no integrity in their actions no matter how they try to spin it.

https://www.benevo.com/vegan-cat-food-from-benevo/

Benevo Cat foods contain all the nutrients an adult cat needs, including a wide range of vitamins (including A, B, D, E, K), essential fatty acids and taurine, without the need for slaughterhouse meat. Although obligate carnivores in the wild, domestic cats still need nutrients they would normally source from prey. Thankfully Benevo Cat contains all those nutrients in a bioavailable kibble.

Benevo Cat is a professional cat food, created by Benevo in 2005, formulated and checked by independent animal nutritionists to meet the AAFCO(USA) and FEDIAF(Europe) guidelines for animal nutrition.

We’ve had safe and healthy variants of vegan cat food for 20 years. Trying to elevate the question to animal abuse speaks entirely to personal ignorance.

Vegans win this time.

The idea that it’s dangerous to raise children on a vegan diet is unequivocally false, and misinformation. Every major health authority has made statements affirming that a properly implemented plant-based diet is entirely nutritionally adequate for all stages of life. Literally the only supplement that’s strictly necessary in the majority of cases is b12 - which is something that everyone should be supplementing with anyway. Aside from that it’s easier to get adequate nutrition from plant-based diets than it is on the Standard American Diet.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27886704/

https://bitesizevegan.org/the-crime-of-raising-vegan-kids-when-diet-is-deadly/

Vegans have their rights to opinions just as you and me. This is not about t vegans vs us, but about how to handle disagreements We never learn if we just sensor everyone we disagree with

I think this is showing that about 70% of the people on here are incapable of reconsidering their positions on something.

To me thats upsetting, but then again lemmy.world is the low hanging fruit of the fediverse. Other servers would never have picked this fight to begin with.

Caring about animal abuse is cultish behavior?

You get that from anywhere with a chamber that echos well enough. There’s the folks who don’t have kids or want them, and then there’s the anti-natalists who call the people who have children breeders and their kids crotchspawn. There’s the Christians and the Religious Right. Jews and Zionists. List goes on.

Im no vegan, and was originally convinced that giving cats vegan food was animal abuse, and am still sure its best for cats to eat meat But really, seeing so much people just saying ‘vegans are hysteric/lunatic/cultist’ without any more reflection gave me a weird vibe, like it’s the exact same rethoric used against any progressist idea It got me thinking, like I think I disagree with vegans on the vegan cat food thing but people are being so mean to vegans and tolerant to power abuse, i’d rather be on the vegan side

Someone is being quick to make judgements.

Vegan pet diets have historically been controversial, as dogs and cats are biologically omnivores and carnivores respectively. However, due to the demands of consumers concerned about farmed animal welfare and environmental sustainability, increasing numbers of pet food companies are now producing vegan diets excluding any animal products. These aim to supply all nutritional needs using plant-sourced ingredients, and supplements of minerals, vitamins and amino acids, amongst others.

However, a recent study by Daina et al. (1) asserted nutritional inadequacies in vegan pet diets. The study based its conclusions on the analysis of only three specific diets—a sample insufficient to draw conclusions about the nutritional soundness of all vegan pet diets. Nutritional unsoundness is also not uncommon among nonvegan pet diets (2). Although diets in each group may be nutritionally sound or unsound, depending on the quality of diet formulation and manufacturing, systemic differences between vegan and meat-based pet foods appear minimal in this respect. In fact, a recent survey of 29 pet food manufacturers (many more than examined by Daina et al.), which examined steps taken to ensure nutritional soundness and diet quality, found that 10 plant-based pet foods had slightly higher standards overall, than 19 meat-based pet foods (3). The former were more—not less—likely to be nutritionally sound.

Furthermore, the gold standard test for nutritional adequacy is animal health and longevity. Ten studies in dogs (4–13) and three in cats (14–16) have found that vegan diets produce health outcomes as good or better than nonvegan diets. The palatability of vegan pet diets appears comparable to that of meat-based diets (17), and nutritionally-sound vegan diets for dogs and cats offer major benefits for environmental sustainability (18).

The sweeping claims made by Daina et al. concerning the nutritional unsoundness of vegan pet diets are inconsistent with the evidence in this field, and incorrect. Given the positive health outcomes for dogs and cats maintained on nutritionally-sound vegan diets, and the substantial environmental benefits such diets may offer, the use of such diets should be supported.

Source

Analysis of 16 studies on the impact of vegan diets on cat and dog health
Domínguez-Oliva et al. (2023)concluded, “there was no overwhelming evidence of adverse effects arising from use of these diets and there was some evidence of benefits. … 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.” They advised, “… if guardians wish to feed their companion animals vegan diets, a cautious approach should be taken using commercially produced diets which have been formulated considering the nutritional needs of the target species.” [i.e., that are nutritionally-sound].

In 2023 veterinary Professor Andrew Knight and colleagues published a large-scale study of 1,369 cats fed vegan (127 – 9%) or meat-based (1,242 – 91%) pet food, for at least one year. Cats fed vegan diets had better health outcomes for each of seven general health indicators studied. First, differences between diet groups in age, sex, neutering (desexing) status and primary location (outdoor vs. indoor) were all controlled for statistically. Next, risk reductions were calculated for cats of average age, and other characteristics. For average cats fed vegan diets, risk reductions were:

• increased veterinary visits (possibly indicating illness) – 7% reduction
• medication use – 15% reduction
• progression onto a medical diet (after being fed a vegan or meat-based diet) – 55% reduction
• reported veterinary assessment of being unwell – 4% reduction
• reported veterinary assessment of more severe illness – 8% reduction
• pet guardian opinion of more severe illness – 23% reduction.
• Additionally, the number of health disorders per unwell cat decreased by 16%.

No reductions were statistically significant, but collectively they revealed a strong trend. Additionally, the prevalence of 22 of the most common feline health disorders was studied. Forty two percent of cats fed meat, and 37% of those fed vegan diets suffered from at least one health disorder. 15 disorders were most common in cats fed meat, and seven most common in cats fed vegan diets.

In 2021 veterinarians Dr Sarah Dodd and colleagues published a large-scale study, including dietary information for 1,026 cats, of whom 187 were fed vegan diets. The latter were more frequently reported by guardians to be in very good health. They had more ideal body condition scores, and were less likely to suffer from gastrointestinal and hepatic (liver) disorders, than cats fed meat. No health disorders were more likely, for cats fed vegan diets.

And in 2006 veterinarians Dr Lorelei Wakefield and colleagues published a study in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association comparing the health status of 34 cats maintained on vegetarian diets, and 52 maintained on conventional diets, for at least one year. No significant differences existed in age, sex, body condition, housing, or perceived health status between the two groups. Most of the caregivers in both groups described their cats as healthy or generally healthy.

Source

Vegans aren’t denying cats are obligate carnivores however the belief that “plant-based diets are unhealthy for cats” is becoming less true with the recent studies in the last 3 years proving that cats can thrive on a plant-based diet so long as it contains synthetic taurine, B12 and vitamin A through the form of reputable kibble brands.

Sources:

-https://sustainablepetfood.info/

-https://bmcvetres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12917-021-02754-8

-https://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/abs/10.12968/vetn.2022.13.6.252

-https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0253292

-https://www.mdpi.com/2306-7381/10/1/52

-https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0284132

-https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240584402411609X

-https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/6/9/57

Im guessing you want to kill all cats

Im basing my guess on the same as you do - imagination

Ps Im not a vegan

Please. Don’t stoke the fires of Mordor. They’re cooling off. Please. Give it 10000 years.

I really don’t understand their position.

Cats cannot make a moral choice so what are these folks going to do when they see their “vegan” cat take down a bird or a mouse?

The fact that domesticated cats are notorious hunters really does make this whole thing pretty fucking funny tbh.

You might be surprised at how much corn, grains, and other non-meat stuff there is in cat food. Particularly in cheap dry kibble that nobody typically bats an eye at someone feeding to their cat.

This conversation just seems so weird to me. The number of people who feed their cats anything similar to what they’d be eating in the wild is minuscule.

Meat isn’t some magic substance, biological chemical reactions turns grass into cows. That you think you can’t take those nutrients and make them bioavailable to an obligate carnivore is absurd. Ever seen an impossible burger?

And if you think the cruelty stems from the idea that cats wouldn’t like it, I gotta say. I have my cat on an expensive grain free meat heavy diet. And I know for a fact that he goes crazy for the cheap shitty corn based purina kibble. He has busted into other people’s homes to steal kibble from their cats.

So is it cruel for me to feed him a more nature based diet when it’s clear he prefers corn based trash?

I don’t see any reason why a functional vegan cat food couldn’t exist.

You’re forgetting some people are idiots, especially those “better than others” who do crap like this.