this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
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Wtf is happening in the comments. Why are people getting so insane over this topic over and over again? If there's cat food out there that's nutritional complete, cats like it, and it happens to be plant based - so what? The only two reasons to object are if someone is 100% convinced such a product doesn't and cannot exist or if they're entirely ideological about it. And if we have to apply the naturalistic fallacy that only the natural way can be morally okay, why of all things argue about pet food? I really, really don't get it why people get so intensely emotional about it.
Because the vegan cat food that claims to be nutritionally complete isn't. Whenever these brands have their products studied they turn out to not be nutritionally complete. Feeding them to a cat is abuse.
So they should simply start producing one that is. Problem solved. No law of nature prevents us from supplementing the right amount of taurine and b12, so there is no reason to be irrational about it.
It’s actually more complicated than that. Of the like 6 studies done since the 90s, several found that cats didn’t absorb supplements in the same way, ie with a supplemented diet for taurine they would not find taurine in the cats plasmas after 6 weeks
And that’s the problem with this whole “but it CAN be done! I’m special!” Attitude. It leads to comments like yours that boil down to “the magic capitalism machine should just make it happen cause of course it’s possible” when the tiny amount of research done found that it’s only questionably possible, and is mostly a shitty idea.
It’s this pushing shitty ideas because someone feels like a moral superior I’m tired of.
Taurine should be the easiest to supplement, since it's already widely synthesized to supplement traditional pet food with. Three decades old studies really shouldn't be the only thing we're looking at before we're going at each others necks about something.
It's this shitting on new ideas because someone feels like a moral superior I'm tired of.
And ironically this is exactly what vegans are often blamed for btw. People turn off their brain, get all emotional, and feel justified on hating someone for muder, abuse, and torture (all claims from this very comment section) without the slightest bit of nuance. I just searched for "vegan cat food nutrition study" and very randomly picked the first search result, which brought me to a study from 2023 showing that cats fed a vegan diet were overall even healthier. So at the very least we have to agree that this isn't as clear cut as many here claim with utmost confidence.
You found a study where they asked cat owners to self report all the data. As demonstrated in this thread and others, vegans are divorced from reality when it comes to what cats actually need to eat, so I’d say that’s not the most reliable source.
Additionally:
“This research and its publication open access was funded by food awareness organisation ProVeg International (https://proveg.com). AK received this award ID: Oct2019-0000000286”
Riiiiiiiight….
Then look for a recent study yourself. I certainly won't waste my time, since I hardly believe you would chance your mind even with the most robust data available. You've made up your mind.
There's no reason why supplementation shouldn't be possible. After all we're already doing that. Obviously we can test for it (since so many people in this comment claimed that vegan brands were tested and found to be insufficient), so nothing stops us from putting taurine into the cat food to the point where it reaches the required amounts. It's that simple. If you need to stay offended than for all means keep going. Just know that you behave just like the vegans you're so annoyed about, and it's showing.
Zooming in on this statement right here, we’re already doing that, and it doesn’t work.
Except for the parts where it doesn’t work
It really really isn’t.
I'm not offended by anything, I think the whole discussion is comically stupid. The research done into the subject is lacking, because it's a bad idea and everyone involved knows that. I guess there are worse things for an internet forum to be arguing about.
I feed my cats the food they need to survive, fortunately.
We absolutely do, taurine is in basically every commercially available cat food out there. Chances are you are already feeding your cat synthetic taurine.
So do I, I'm just really annoyed at the intellectually dishonesty at play here. The position you're arguing in favor of is almost impossible to verify. Can you prove that is is impossible to create a nutritionally complete vegan cat food? No, obviously you can't. Even if every single brand currently available would be proven to be insufficient (which I seriously doubt) it'd still be a wild claim that it couldn't be done. Does that stop you from harshly judging everyone with a different opinion? For some reason, no.
Feel free to correct me if you do have a reliable source that explains why it's impossible to supplement vegan cat food while being perfectly fine for conventional ones.
If only this was readily researchable....
But yeah, animal cruelty gets people het up. This is the internet, don't fuck with cats
What should stop a company from supplementing the right amount of all the nutrients listed? The article simply claims it's not nutritionally complete, but that would only be an argument against the brands currently available and tested, not against the idea in principle.
Studies have shown that cats do not absorb adequate amounts of these nutrients from synthetic supplemented versions, it's why vegan pet food that is technically nutritionally complete in the bag isn't when it's in the cat.
Vegans should instead opt for a non-carnivorous pet
That's bullshit and you know it, otherwise you would have at least attempted to back up that claim.
A very short internet research attempt shows: Synthetic taurine is considered efficacious for use in cat, dog and carnivorous fish.
Maybe no one in the history of the internet has argued about this and it's just time for people to duke it out. I thought everything was settled about cats by now, but maybe not.
I've seen this exact argument before and it was just as heated. Ironically the same people getting annoyed at vegans for being emotional and judgemental are incredibly fast to scream abuse and murder when it comes to cat food.