• Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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    3 months ago

    There was a post about making cats vegan. The mod then decided that people posting information on why that is a bad idea were antivegan or something. The mod started then removing any information that pointed to cats not being able to be health while on a vegan diet. The Lemmy.world admins them stepped in stating that improperly feeding your cat constitutes animal abuse and is unethical. This made many die hard vegans very mad.

    For the record, cats can not be vegan. They can survive on it but they will have shorter more painful lives and they will go blind. There bodies start breaking down without the proteins and amino acids found in meat. I understand why vegans would be unhappy with that answer but it is the way it is.

    Interesting enough, that’s not the case for dog. You can put a dog on a vegan diet as long as you are very careful and are constantly monitoring. It isn’t for the faint of heart and can have very sad outcomes. It isn’t something you can arbitrarily do.

          • Lightor@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            This study was essentially them asking cat owners information, no direct observation. This may be a surprise but people lie, especially when they really want something to work.

            No one is going to admit they hurt their cat by pushing a diet they believe is right.

            • Kroxx@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              Hey that’s a really good point lets see what scientific literature says about that:

              4.1. Evidence Considerations-To date, only sixteen studies have looked at actual health-related outcomes in dogs and cats fed vegan diets, as opposed to performing nutrient evaluations of diets. However, the majority of these studies utilized small sample sizes (ranging from 2–34 animals) for the direct investigation of outcomes. Whilst survey studies evaluating guardian-reported outcomes generally encompassed larger numbers of animals, these are subject to inherent biases due to participant selection, as well as the reliability of lay people making judgements around somewhat subjective concepts, such as health and body condition.

              It then goes on to say:

              The risk of bias assessment performed on the experimental trials suggests, at best, an unclear risk of bias across the studies. There were some particular aspects of poor performance (or reporting), especially around randomization and blinding. This has been reported previously in animal studies [42], where researchers have probably not taken on board some of these important facets of experimental design and reporting to the extent that human clinical researchers have [43,44]. This remains a major concern impeding reproducibility, and where internal validity of the study is impacted, also leads to wastage of animal and financial resources [42].

              Seems like the science backs your claim up partially. I would call it bias instead of lying though.

              Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9860667/

                • Kroxx@lemm.ee
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                  3 months ago

                  Which is exactly why pet owners shouldn’t be fucking with it, maybe down the road but as it stands right now the average pet owner shouldn’t be experimenting on their poor kitties.

                  • davepleasebehave@lemmy.world
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                    3 months ago

                    It’s what’s happening. people report their findings. the findings seem positive for the moment.

                    That’s the results of these peer reviewed studies.

                    those are the facts for the moment.

                    And as I have constantly said, if the cat enjoys the food and it provides all the nutrients, what’s the problem?

    • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      Disclaimer that I’m not even a vegan but you’re spreading disinfo here to make vegans seem completely unreasonable. I suggest anyone check out the actual discussions instead of trusting this summary.

      • MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        Yeah, it’s ridiculous to feed a dog vegetables. My dog gets a diet of pure meat. I drive around my city with a net gun and capture outdoor cats, and then butcher them for Fido. It’s a win-win-win. Win: Fido gets meat. Win: I don’t contribute to factory farming cruelty. Win: the native birds aren’t driven extinct by predation. This is the only ethical way to feed a dog, since this way every living creature that ends up in Fido’s hungry jaws lived a rich and fulfilling life.

    • jimmydoreisalefty@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Was this the article that started it? Do you have the thread or would an archived link be required to see it?

      Vegan versus meat-based cat food: Guardian-reported health outcomes in 1,369 cats, after controlling for feline demographic factors [Andrew Knight, Alexander Bauer, Hazel Brown | Published: September 13, 2023][1]

      Abstract

      Increasing concerns about environmental sustainability, farmed animal welfare and competition for traditional protein sources, are driving considerable development of alternative pet foods. These include raw meat diets, in vitro meat products, and diets based on novel protein sources including terrestrial plants, insects, yeast, fungi and potentially seaweed. To study health outcomes in cats fed vegan diets compared to those fed meat, we surveyed 1,418 cat guardians, asking about one cat living with them, for at least one year. Among 1,380 respondents involved in cat diet decision-making, health and nutrition was the factor considered most important. 1,369 respondents provided information relating to a single cat fed a meat-based (1,242–91%) or vegan (127–9%) diet for at least a year. We examined seven general indicators of illness. After controlling for age, sex, neutering status and primary location via regression models, the following risk reductions were associated with a vegan diet for average cats: increased veterinary visits– 7.3% reduction, medication use– 14.9% reduction, progression onto therapeutic diet– 54.7% reduction, reported veterinary assessment of being unwell– 3.6% reduction, reported veterinary assessment of more severe illness– 7.6% reduction, guardian opinion of more severe illness– 22.8% reduction. Additionally, the number of health disorders per unwell cat decreased by 15.5%. No reductions were statistically significant. We also examined the prevalence of 22 specific health disorders, using reported veterinary assessments. Forty two percent of cats fed meat, and 37% of those fed vegan diets suffered from at least one disorder. Of these 22 disorders, 15 were most common in cats fed meat, and seven in cats fed vegan diets. Only one difference was statistically significant. Considering these results overall, cats fed vegan diets tended to be healthier than cats fed meat-based diets. This trend was clear and consistent. These results largely concur with previous, similar studies.


      1. [1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0284132 ↩︎

    • riodoro1@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Why do people even try to keep cats on vegan diet? It was your fucking choice, not the cats.

      Im vegetarian, my cat eats meat. Im not gonna force anything on him unless he comes to me and tells me he wants to try it.