[Richard W]

This is a deceptively simple controversy.

Veganism is an ethical lifestyle, not just a diet. Obviously, everyone should be vegan, as it is the most ethical lifestyle, by far, compared to every other dietary approach. It’s just a question of personal willpower, and in a few cases, people with nutritional concerns (which are not founded in legitimate science.)

So that is not arguable. With the above context in proper place, approaching diets for cats and dogs is, as I said, deceptively simple.
THE ONLY WAY you can justify feeding meat to a cat or dog, is if you can reasonably show, with scientific evidence, that cats and dogs literally require meat for survival.

There is zero evidence that dogs require meat for survival. The only ethical, i.e. appropriate diet for a dog, therefore, is a vegan one. This is not arguable, unless you can show legitimate science showing otherwise. But you can’t, because such evidence doesn’t exist.

There is one amino acid that cats require, which cannot be found in plants, as everyone here probably knows, Carnitine. But this can be easily synthesized, and is commonly added to cat foods. It works just as well.
So until someone can provide scientific evidence showing that cats fed a vegan diet + synthesized carnitine are LESS healthy than meat-eating cats, the only ethical/appropriate diet for a cat is a vegan one.

This is extremely simple. You live as ethically as you can, unless there is reasonable evidence to suggest that one of your habits is directly hurting you or others. Cats and dogs don’t have the capacity to understand ethics. We do. We are responsible for overseeing the ethical behavior of those living under our roof who are themselves unable to do so.

The only relevant material to this discussion is scientific evidence, and ethical arguments. But almost all of the comments are nothing but banter back and forth with personal anecdotes. That’s utterly useless, except to reinforce the point that biological digestion systems don’t distinguish between “plant” and “animal” sources – they only see micronutrients, enzymes, hormones, bacteria, pollutants, etc. etc. So it should be expected that most animals could probably survive from a strictly plant-based diet, if tweaked right. Likewise, every kind of diet could be shown to be unhealthy, again if tweaked ‘right’.

This isn’t an argument at all. Just a forum for people to profess their lack of understanding either of ethics or nutrition.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by Richard W. Reason: typo
• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by Richard W. Reason: elucidated one point
• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by Richard W.

[Richard W]

Everything JamieK typed is accurate. Being around dogs all day, working in a pet store, etc. doesn’t make one an expert on nutrition. No offense intended at all. Dogs evolved to be scavengers, getting nutrition from plant and animal sources. That makes them omnivorous.

Since plant-based foods contain more vitamins and minerals per calorie compared to animal-based foods, there are legitimate reasons to consider vegan or mostly-vegan diets superior.

The question of digestive enzymes or gut flora could tip the balance back toward meat, but that is largely unexplored territory. Humans have comparatively large digestive systems, but that is more because our ancestral diets contained large amounts of raw plant matter (more energy required to digest). Assuming that vegan dog food isn’t raw, and is prepared to optimize digestion and nutrient uptake, it could certainly work.

Again these are just the facts. If you disagree then your notion of common sense is flawed.

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