In reading news related to the environment, I have determined if you see the word “sustainability” you are about to be treated to some crackpot science.
The latest example relates to a topic near and dear to my heart: Pets. Specifically, I have owned cats for over 30 years. My current one is a black cat named Venus . . . because she is a sweetheart.
In this case, an Australian analyst crunched the numbers and showed that if dogs and cats were forced by their owners to vegan, there are “potential benefits for environmental sustainability.”
Recent research suggests that nutritionally sound vegan cat and dog diets—lacking meat, eggs, and dairy—are safe and may have comparable healthfulness to meat-based diets, raising questions about their environmental benefits.To better understand these potential benefits, [Andrew Knight of Griffith University, Australia] calculated a series of estimates of the potential impacts of a hypothetical scenario in which all cats and dogs in the US or around the world were switched to nutritious vegan diets. He used pet population data from 2020 for the US and 2018 data for the worldwide estimates. Other inputs came from a variety of prior studies and governmental databases.The estimates suggest that the amount of livestock consumed by dogs and cats in the US may be about one fifth of that consumed by humans, and about one tenth globally. If all US dogs and cats switched to vegan diets, the model estimates, nearly 2 billion land-based livestock animals might be spared from slaughter yearly, and nearly 7 billion if all cats and dogs around the world switched. Billions of aquatic animals would also be spared.
The trouble is with the pseudoscience assertion that a”nutritionally sound vegan cat” diet exists. That is not sound science.
Dare I say it . . . the science is settled that cats are obligate carnivores. The following facts come from the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Science.
Diet can have a big impact on health. Just like humans, cats have special dietary needs to help them stay healthy.However, feline diets are a lot different than human diets. Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they require meat in their diet and need little carbohydrates.In the wild, cats usually prey on small animals, such as mice and birds. But as a pet, a cat might only be preying on a can of cat food. Because pet cats often don’t get the opportunity to hunt for their own food, it’s important for cat owners to mimic the high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet their cat would naturally eat in the wild.Dr. Deb Zoran, a professor at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, said the best way to mimic a cat’s natural diet is to feed them canned food that has a protein content of 40 percent or higher and a carbohydrate content of 10 percent or lower.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals spells out the science about the reasons cats rely on meat as an essential part of their diets.
Taurine: Taurine is an amino acid (the building blocks of protein) essential for cats. Taurine can only be found in animal sources such as meat, milk, etc. It is not found in plant sources. Taurine can be synthesized in humans and dogs, but cats are unable to do this and require a direct source from an animal product. Cats who are fed a vegan diet will often develop a deficiency of taurine because the diet doesn’t provide them with this essential amino acid.Cats with taurine deficiency can develop a heart issue known as dilated cardiomyopathy or DCM. In cats with DCM, the heart muscle becomes very thin and weak, preventing them from pumping blood and supplying oxygen to the body normally. This is a fatal disease if not corrected early on. A lack of adequate taurine can also cause severe eye problems in cats, including blindness.Protein: Cats require a diet high in protein. Plants simply don’t have high enough levels of high-quality, highly digestible protein to meet a cat’s dietary requirements.Carbohydrates: Cats are not good at digesting carbohydrates. They don’t get much energy from them, and a carbohydrate-rich diet is not appropriate for cats. They need calorie dense options that meat provides.
I am less of an expert on dogs. Their digestive system allows them more food options, but I suspect that good owners would weigh their pets’ dietary preferences and health conditions when deciding on the type of food served.
However, responsible pet owners should not select what their animals eat on planetary “sustainability.” As a veterinarian noted during an interview, the move could be lethal.
“The basic message is that cats are carnivores.“In other words, if they don’t eat meat or a very carefully created vegan diet, then they do indeed get sick and they can indeed die.
That “carefully crafted” diet would include a lot of supplements that would be much more expensive, and not nearly as healthy, as meat.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY