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conuly
Let's get this cleared up.
Recipe communities are for human foods, not animal foods. If you want to know about cats, dogs, mice, talk in those communities instead.
More importantly...
Cats are carnivores.
Under no circumstances should you attempt to put your cat on a vegan diet. That's right, I said vegan. Not vegetarian, which is still highly iffy, but vegan.
Cats need animal products. Shit, cats need meat, because dairy ain't good for them, and there's no way your cat can survive on eggs alone.
Now, there's nothing wrong with being a vegetarian or a vegan. You're making your own choices about what you eat, and humans did not evolve to primarily eat meat. In fact, if we ate as much meat as cats do (proportionately), we'd probably die of a protein overload. If the thought of animals dying is so much that you'll let your pet cat suffer with an inadequate diet, get a rabbit instead. They are perfectly happy to be meatfree, and they're just as smart.
Incidentally, I'm not too thrilled with the cat food that's generally available in the US.... aside from being bulked up with "animal byproducts" and grains, and containing dairy products (which, if you've been paying attention, is bad for cats)... Cats in the wild do not eat beef, nor turkey, nor lamb, nor even chicken. Cats in the wild eat pigeons and sparrows and mice.
Here is a page detailing some things to look for in cat food. It's a little cutesy, but....
Recipe communities are for human foods, not animal foods. If you want to know about cats, dogs, mice, talk in those communities instead.
More importantly...
Cats are carnivores.
Under no circumstances should you attempt to put your cat on a vegan diet. That's right, I said vegan. Not vegetarian, which is still highly iffy, but vegan.
Cats need animal products. Shit, cats need meat, because dairy ain't good for them, and there's no way your cat can survive on eggs alone.
Now, there's nothing wrong with being a vegetarian or a vegan. You're making your own choices about what you eat, and humans did not evolve to primarily eat meat. In fact, if we ate as much meat as cats do (proportionately), we'd probably die of a protein overload. If the thought of animals dying is so much that you'll let your pet cat suffer with an inadequate diet, get a rabbit instead. They are perfectly happy to be meatfree, and they're just as smart.
Incidentally, I'm not too thrilled with the cat food that's generally available in the US.... aside from being bulked up with "animal byproducts" and grains, and containing dairy products (which, if you've been paying attention, is bad for cats)... Cats in the wild do not eat beef, nor turkey, nor lamb, nor even chicken. Cats in the wild eat pigeons and sparrows and mice.
Here is a page detailing some things to look for in cat food. It's a little cutesy, but....
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I suppose you'll hate me for this...
Date: 2004-01-04 09:51 am (UTC)Let me start by saying that I am personally not in favor of animal domestication, so under normal circumstances this would not have been an issue, but once someone brings an animal into your life it's hard to say no.
Yes, cats in the wild are predators and carnivores. But, just as you said, commercially available "cat" food does not contain anything closely approximating what a cat might find and eat in the wild. Rather, it's rejected human food, ground up, boiled, packaged, and shelved. So the only advantage of commercially available non-vegan cat food (ex. Purina or any of the other major brands) to commercially available vegan cat food (ex. Evolution Diet) as far as the cat is concerned, is that a portion of the source material for the food came from animals, and cats require nutrients which, ostensibly, only come from animals.
However, after extensive processing, these nutrients are all but gone from the food, so the cat food companies add them back in, usually from the same synthetic sources used to make vegan cat food. For example, a defficiency of taurine, the most (in)famous nutrient required by cats and available only from animal products, causes blindness and eventually death in cats. So cat food companies add (synthetic) taurine to their products to prevent this. Synthetic, because it's cheaper. They have to add it because the rendering process neutralizes almost all of the naturally occurring taurine in the source meat, and before the addition of the supplemental taurine in the final product, many cats were getting sick and dying of taurine defficiency, after being fed meat-based cat food. Basically, what I mean to say is that whether or not cat food comes from meat doesn't make a difference, and that from a nutritional standpoint, properly formulated vegan cat foods are no worse (or better) than commercially available non-vegan cat foods.
So, back to the problem at hand: We bring in from the street an emaciated kitten. We have, as far as I can tell, the following choices:
a) Feed him the aforementioned commercially available meat-based cat foods.
b) Feed him fresh meat
c) Return him to the dumpster where we found him, where he'll probably starve or get sick and die before he has a chance to perpetuate the overpopulation of the already overpopulated alley. (naturally, he wasn't fixed when we found him)
d) Fill the apartment with small animals for him to hunt, kill, and eat.
e) Put him somewhere where there are plenty of small animals to hunt, kill, and eat.
f) Feed him a vegan diet
(Yes, there are probably other things to do. But these are the most obvious ones.)
Now e) would be, without a shadow of a doubt, the best option as far as the cat is concerned. However, since the act of bringing him into the house more or less limits us to a), b), d), or f) we'll look at just those...
d) is probably the best "in-house" option, if not exactly the most attractive one. Between the remaining choices, a), b), and f), b) is probably the most nutritionally sound. Yes, it's a bit unnatural to be feeding him dead cow and pig, but the fact that we're feeding him means that he's already not hunting his food, which is what should be happening. So even killing mice and birds and serving it up to him takes away the hunt.
So now we'll look at the vegan option. No, it's not ideal, but neither is any situation where he's not hunting and killing his own food. It's no less natural than feeding him a brand-name meat-based product, and from a non-vegan perspective, it's just as bad as feeding him said brand-name meat-based product. Why do people continue feeding their cats bad cat food? Because it's on every store shelf and it's convenient.
...Long Comment Continued
Date: 2004-01-04 09:51 am (UTC)Veganism is much more than just a diet; it is a commitment to respect and protect life. It's one thing to let a cat hunt and kill his own food; that's what they do, after all, and it's not a man's business to tell an animal (or another man) what to eat or when. However, once the concession has been made that we are in a situation where we are controlling this animal's diet, it is silly (from a vegan point of view at least) to decide that cows, bigs, chickens, turkeys, etc. should die so that another animal (a cat or a dog) may live. So given an option which is just as sound nutritionally as what I'd assume is what the vast majority of cat caregivers have taken, and does not involve the torture and murder of other animals, I personally would choose the vegan option.
As for cats "suffering" on a vegan diet, anecdotal evidence has proven quite the contrary. Our cat came to us skinnier than skinny, as he had been subsisting almost exclusively on what was available at the dumpster outside our apartment building. Hardly an ideal diet for a cat. After just a few weeks of eating vegan cat food, both home-prepared with supplementation, and fully prepared, he gained weight, became more lively, and his coat was notably healthier. He would jump out to his food as soon as it was put out, and would attack it until it was all gone. I would imagine that he wasn't adverse to the taste, either, and cats are notoriously finicky eaters.
Anyway, after that defense of a vegan cat diet, I just wanted to say that the idea of having a cat as a pet wouldn't be my first choice personally, as they are obligate carnivores. I love cats and find them fascinating, and quite enjoyed living with one, but I would hardly go to an animal shelter and adopt a cat on a whim. Nor would I really choose to take in any animal as a pet, as I may have already said. However, in a situation where there is a cat living with me, were I given charge of his or her care and feeding, I would not hesitate to feed him a vegan diet.
Re: ...Long Comment Continued
Date: 2004-01-04 01:47 pm (UTC)But let's see...
1. Your anecdotal evidence says something quite different from mine! It's possible your diet was different than the ones of the people I knew, though. Or maybe that any food was better than no food.
2. Not *all* commercially made cat foods are that bad, the Iams is quite good. It's also quite expensive. Ask me again why I don't have cats anymore....
3. If you know what you're doing, you can prepare cat food yourself that's not vegan. Yeah, you're not in a situation to be doing that, but this sounds like it was more of a temporary situation anyway (could be mistaken, don't know). What I would have done is take the cat to the vet, most vets I know will find good homes for animals.
4. What irked me enough to post this was not that she wanted a vegan diet for her cat (which I can understand, even if I don't agree with it, lemme return to my "get a pet rabbit" comment) but that she posted this in a community for sharing recipes for human food... not a community where people necessarily know anything about cats, or are especially knowledgable about their nutritional needs. Yeah, the rant wasn't about that, but that's what prompted it. Not sure why I'm tacking this on here, sorry.
Re: ...Long Comment Continued
Date: 2004-01-04 05:13 pm (UTC)1. I've seen cases going both ways of cats taking to or not taking to a vegan diet. For the most part though, it seems that people who know what they're doing, and research it thoroughly beforehand do pretty well, and the cats under their care are healthy. I have yet to see a cat die at an early age as a result of eating a vegan diet, but none of the vegan cats I've met are too much older than 10 years. (That's just how old they happen to be) Those who failed were mostly trying the "table scraps" method, or variations thereof, which does NOT work, and they all went back to whatever it was they were feeding their cats before that.
2. Of course not all commercially available food is bad, but the stuff that the vast majority of cat caretakers feed to their feline companions is disgusting and terrible for their health.
3. Our situation wasn't intentionally temporary; there were people problems between Dave (who brought the cat into the apartment) and some of the other roommates, and Dave decided to move out. And even if it were temporary, supporting the institutional murder of animals to feed another, even temporarily, is not an option.
One thing that upsets me, which is tangentially related, is the reaction that you'll get from most Americans when you tell them that people in some parts of the world kill cats and dogs, eat their flesh, and wear their skins, while at the same time they don't think twice about doing the exact same thing here to other animals on a scale so much larger, I can't think of a metaphor to adequately express it... Again, only tangentially related.
Re: ...Long Comment Continued
Date: 2004-01-04 11:33 pm (UTC)Yeah, that always struck me as stupid. As it happens, I don't eat much meat. Not for any reason, just because I don't like it all that much (and therefore often have a good laugh at those who claim that vegetarian/vegan diets must be tasteless). But I recognize that eating cat and dog is no more disgusting than eating pig (which I do eat, somewhat guiltily as I know they're just that smart). Hypocritical much?
Re: ...Long Comment Continued
Date: 2004-01-05 09:14 am (UTC)That, and I think that eating cats and dogs might actually be worse for you than eating, say, cow, because cats and dogs eat meat, and there's supposed to be something more toxic about eating the flesh of a carnivore or omnivore than of an herbivore. That might be folklore though; I'm not sure. But as far as I know, all of the Standard American Food Animals™ are strictly herbivorous. Though again, that might be just because it takes fewer resources to raise an animal that eats plants than to raise an animal that eats other animals that eat plants... And besides, with the feeding practices on most American farms, these animals are actually part cannibal anyway. :) So probably the thing about carnivore flesh being bad for you is bunk. (Then again, I don't really know.)
Anyway, hypocrisy isn't as huge of a character flaw as people seem to make it out to be. I think that a personal goal of 100% self-consistency seems a bit unrealistic. But I could be wrong.
Re: ...Long Comment Continued
Date: 2004-01-05 11:18 am (UTC)*giggles* I think my self-honesty cancels out any hypocrisy, though. I at least am willing to admit that I'm eating dead animals. The supermarket near us was selling, for quite a while, suckling pigs. Disgusting concept, really, even if I admit it, I don't want to see that I'm eating a dead animal... But anyway, when my sister Lizziey saw it she actually stopped dead in her tracks and screamed, because apparently she had no idea where bacon comes from or something.
Re: ...Long Comment Continued
Date: 2004-01-05 08:21 pm (UTC)I've always wondered what the Filipino diet was like prior to Spanish colonization...
And if every person who ate meat were aware and accepting of the fact that "chicken" and "chicken" are more than just homophones, as evidently you are, then things would be different. But that's not the case. If I were the evangelical type, you would probably know me as one of those guys who disturbs everybody's sleep on the subway/ferry by ranting loudly all the time. But I'm not.
Re: ...Long Comment Continued
Date: 2004-01-05 09:44 pm (UTC)Re: ...Long Comment Continued
Date: 2004-01-06 07:19 am (UTC)Now I do take issue with this: I do my best to take a person's opinion seriously and to respect it, regardless of just about anything, save the person being a total idiot. Which happens. But there are too many people who will immediately write off someone's opinion as invalid, for any number of arbitrary reasons, one of which is having chosen a vegan lifestyle. Too many times I've heard people say, "Oh, that doesn't count; he's a vegan." It's really quite ridiculous, and also frustrating.
Re: ...Long Comment Continued
Date: 2004-01-06 03:12 pm (UTC)