This is a spinoff of the veggie dog thread. PeTA advocates vegan cats as well as dogs. What is your opinion on this? Personally, my cats that I've raised over the years would simply scoff at me if I replaced their beloved fish and chicken livers with tofu and beancurd.
yeah, my cat would go on strike or pack a bag full of his favorite toys and go off in search of a new family if I even seriously considered turning him into a veggie.
LOL that would be adorable I can kinda see their point, from an ethics of the meat industry perspective, but still am not convinced such a diet is really in the cats' best interests. Their personal preferences aside cats are naturally carnivores with the digestive system to suit. Certainly they can survive on vegcat or whatever, but those are very artifical and it's so easy to get wrong. People who want to adopt an animal should consider the animals' nature and interest above everything else. If you can't take them, as is, then leave them the hell alone. You'll both be better off for it. There are enough bad guardians already; and yes I do consider anyone are willing to risk killing their companions through malnutrion to prove a point to fit that category. I have a lot of respect for cats, but our lifestyles aren't compatable so shall leave them to it. Have instead adopted two rabbits. In part because vegetarianism is their natural diet, that and they are by far cuter and more awesome than any carnivore [not that I'm biased or anything ]
i was told that cats need something in meat for their health, not sure what it is or if it is even true.
There is synthetic taurine. A cat *can* be vegan as there are supplements which cover all their meaty needs, and the cat would be the same health wise as if it were getting the nutrients from meat, but it's expensive and vets are often not very informed about the supplements and will assume they're not getting taurine.
Mother Nature made dogs and cats to be carnivores. While it may be possible to place them on a vegan diet, it's not natural to them. Carnivores eat herbivores. That's a part of nature. I certainly don't feel that it's in the best interest of any carnivorous animal to remove meat from it's diet. People are omnivores...they can survive on either plant or animal life, making a vegan lifestyle possible. Cats are NOT omnivores. Feed them what mother nature meant for them to have: a diet high in meat products.
While I stand behind PETA's message about the factory farming ... and often wonder myself about the quality of the "meat" that is in my pets food ....... I think the idea of making a cat be vegetarian is absurd. Kitties have teeth designed for meat eating. Any cat in the wild is gonna kill birds and mice and whatever else it can get its little paws on .... and eat it. We shouldnt try to impose our vegetarian ways on our pets.
Ok..again. omnivorism DOES NOT mean meat OR veggies. It's means that an omnivore needs BOTH to survive healthily. Carnivores only need meat. Herbivores only need plants(veggies,fruits,grains..ect) Omnivores need both. Sheesh. What is so freakin hard to understand about that. Sorry for the rant, but WTFery?
I am not going to get into this argument, however the original poster seems to know nil about vegetarianism, because tofu IS beancurd....
Omnivorous when it comes to cats is very limited. They require a small amount of vegetable matter for their digestion, not for nutritional value. The idea of a vegetarian cat sickens me. How cruel.
"But we need to help our little buddies karmically". -some ultra vegan person I love the fact that my cats are carnivores. That is what makes them so special. I enjoy seeing the primal killer side of their being, and also the tender lovey fuzzy creature. I think making a cat into a vegan or vegetarian is very closed minded of people who claim to be so open to treating animals with the upmost respect.
