Vegans argued that cats, which are obligate carnivores, can eat a vegan diet safely. Lemmy.world admin removed the posts for being misinformation, and the vegan community threw a fit over it.
Jeez that is awful! People: if you want a vegan pet, get a rabbit! They are so sweet! There are tons of them in the shelter system, especially after Easter.
I swear they’re the funniest and most affectionate four legged friends around!
I have heard that they’re little fucks, they’ll just bounce to your leg to bite it and shit.
My rabbit never bit me even once over his entire life. He gave lots of kisses though. And he loved coming over for pets and then running and jumping and spinning around in the air.
Every rabbit has a different personality. They aren’t the smartest pets around but they can be trained not to do the things you don’t want them to do, such as biting. They remember best when you get their attention with something that provokes a fear based response, such as a sharp “no!” That’s all it took for my bunny.
As a vegan who spends no time associating with other vegans, because it’s not a large part of my identity (other than watching cooking videos), these people are idiots who are getting high on being righteous.
So much so they overdosed and became animal abusers.
Quite ironic. Funny, if it weren’t causing harm.
I really hate how many people are spreading disinfo for no reason here. We should be better than that.
The vegans stated very clearly that current science shows that the cat would need a fuckton of supplements and attention to be on a vegan diet but it’s functional.
The admins then overstepped and removed such comments.
I’m not going to argue the validity of any of those claims as I’m not a vegan and I don’t care to research, but the vegan mods were a lot more reasonable than they’re being painted here.
The pet sector must die, pet ownership isn’t vegan, pet breeders are the enemies;
We’re not doing “optimal nutrition”, sorry. That biohacking shit to create immortal adopted pets isn’t going to work out. It’s hardly even clear for humans what the optimal diet is, and they pretend that they know what it is for cats??? These fools don’t even comprehend that evolution doesn’t give a shit about longevity. It’s a standard imposed by the marketing agencies of pet foods who want to milk pet owner feelings to have their pets die after they do. It’s a false standard that is great for advertising, but otherwise functions as a Nirvana fallacy machine.
This is just a rephrase, but pet ownership is bourgeois. Well, aristocratic, then bourgeois. Detach. This isn’t about you, you don’t get to annex a sentient being just to keep them as an emotional service slave or as a status symbol. This one is especially for Americans where pets live better than poor people.
Uh. Hardly reasonable.
Yeah, that’s well and truly off the deep end. This is someone who I’d cross the road to avoid.
Are you just posting a random comment to me or what? What relevance does this have to the admin retaliations?
That’s one of the Vegan mods on .world expressing their views on vegan diets for cats. That’s not “The vegans stated very clearly that current science shows that the cat would need a fuckton of supplements and attention to be on a vegan diet but it’s functional.”, that’s outright “Science doesn’t know shit” lunacy.
That’s not the comment which caused this whole issue. It seems to me you’re cherry picking out of context
Alright, since “Things the mods have said” isn’t acceptable evidence for whether or not the mods are pushing ridiculous views on vegan diets for cats, and not just “The vegans stated very clearly that current science shows that the cat would need a fuckton of supplements and attention to be on a vegan diet but it’s functional”, I suppose them saying the ASPCA doesn’t know what they’re talking about, while THEIR simple ‘common sense’ allows them to understand a cat’s TRUE dietary needs is also kosher?
This whole thing comes down to aggressively anti-scientific mods pushing misinformation and removing information to the contrary and getting removed by an admin for their troubles. Or was removing the link to the ASPCA for being ‘misinformation’ also a sign of how reasonable the c/Vegan mods were?
I don’t give a single solitary fuck what happens to Rooki. Whether they were too quick to remove or too uncivil or what. But defending misinformation, or defending mods pushing misinformation as just being reasonable? That gets my dander up.
The commentary you’re pointing is way more reasonable than you make it sound. I implore people to read the context themselves and not to trust summaries with rage bait agendas here.
Stop doing the reddit thing. Making people angry at people more radical than them isn’t helping.
- Someone claims mods were being reasonable
- Post quote showing they are not being reasonable
- “Stop cherry picking”
Wut…
If that’s what the community moderators are saying, I imagine the comment section was far worse than you’re making out.
The context of the convo was vegan admins, that was a comment by one. Are you really having that much trouble following the convo?
Until I joined Lemmy I had no idea how militant vegans could be. I sorta just assumed they were a different brand of vegetarian.
I’m not opposed to their ideaology in any way, but after reading the comments on a few posts that found their way into my feed… I had to block their communities. It didn’t seem likely that I’d be reading any productive discourse there.
I was vegan for 8 years and during that time I didn’t talk to anyone about it other than to say, “I don’t eat that.”
I say that to say this - vegans are insufferable and a large reason why I quit the community and went back to omnivore. Even after 8 years, other vegans were still ‘more vegan’ and would nitpick the dumbest stuff.
“Bro, did you eat a date? That killed a bee or something. Not cool.”
Shut up with that. Let me eat my damn fruit.
I was healthier though. But, to be fair, I was younger.
You know what, it’s so much easier to say you’re an omnivore and end up eating meat once a year than to say you are a vegan who makes an exception about once a year. The first label would earn you a “wait so you’re basically vegan?!” vs “you’re not vegan then and you’re a dirty cheater”.
exactly. you choose your labels to best express your positions.
Between them and Linux evangelicals, this place can be pretty annoying at times.
Spoken like a meat eating windows user
Do you think that’s an insult?
meat eating windows user (derogatory)
No. If he wanted to insult you, he’d call you a MacOS User /s
Oh you must also be a reddit uaer… Here you go: /s
Lol pretty sure /s has been around LONG before Reddit
reddit is like 20 years old and rose to prominence in the web 2.0 boom. I’m pretty sure you’re wrong
I tried to find historical articles about it, but couldn’t find any. But I swear I used it and saw it all the way back in the AIMs chatroom dialup days
I wish we could take these two comments and have them always show up on the front page.
I’ve just discovered a new game: start posting how you love windows, meat and Elon, place bets who will attack you first
My money would be on Elon. Windows users and carnivores are quite common here, but hatred of The Musk is near universal.
It was honestly more fun to irk the “grammer” police on reddit using misspellings and improper vocabulary.
to irk the “grammer” police on reddit
Hmm…
*Squints*
You done messed up.
to irk the “grammer” police on Reddit
FTFY
I see, I still giggle when I do it, on Lemmy to!
Don’t forget to support capitalism as well!
I use arch btw
You know I really hate vegans, but I FUCKING REALLY HATE Linux evangelicals, and they are FUCKING EVERYWHERE HERE.
Anyway, fuck veganism and linux
I stick with Margaret Cho’s advice on vegans from her Assassin tour back in 2005:
And especially, especially, don’t fuck with vegans. Do not look vegans in the eye. If you get into an argument with a vegan, say “I’m wrong” and run away as fast as you can. Do not fuck with vegans because they will fuck you up…BECAUSE THEY’RE HUNGRY.
Every vegan I have met is one form of little bitch or another, without exception
Inflammatory prejudices are only bad when others have them. They’re definitely the hateful ones, so lets spread some hate about them.
I haven’t given out a quarter of the verbal abuse that has been heaped on me by people who feel morally superior over their diet.
I’m sorry to hear that. The thing is, you mainly hear from those who are the most vocal, and those tend to be the most angry and therefore unreasonable. And those probably had their fair share of verbal (and/or physical) abuse from meat eaters, as vegans are hated on by a much, much larger part of society than the other way around. (That doesn’t justify their hate, of course)
It’s all a self reinforcing dynamic of groups riling each other up, unfortunately.
Look, I really dgaf about all of you ‘no really guise veeegans are nice!’ when my entire life has been episode after episode of the opposite.
the vast majority of vegans are not represented by a tiny segment that has found lemmy.
If Lemmy had its version of r/atheist users, they’re either vegan, Linux obsessed, or politics obsessed.
Hey. Do you have time to talk about our lord and saviour, Linus Torvalds?
Savior? Do you mean Terry Davis, AKA King Terry the Terrible?
oh there’s a shitton of r/atheists here too, and some are supermods.
It would have to be the Linux crowd, just by force of numbers.
Vegans being annoying was a thing awhile ago, but they really chilled out. This is a smaller band of die-hards.
“Chilling out” is of course a terrible metric when animal abuse is on the line but being good to animals would make you vegetarian, not vegan, and yet that was never where the righteousness was coming from.
Quite a bit of their content is antagonizing and alienating. What a shame.
‘Plant based’ was a rebrand of veganism because of what vegans did to veganism.
In 5+ decades of living I have never once met a sane vegan, not once.
And I’ve met hundreds…
Crazy, I know tons of vegans and never met an insane one.
I have met 1 and married her. But yo be fair she is just vegetarian whi developed a dairy allergy knocking out the non veg part of her diet
Makes a dumb good steak too
I have to admit, diet restriction vegans (and not the ones that just think meat is icky and can get a doctor to sign off on it) do not fall into the general stereotype but then only one of them ever had a chance to speak to me and she would sneak chicken occasionally so I don’t really consider her vegan as such. Also she was a work associate and I normally never bring up the subject in the office.
There may be reasonable vegans out there, and I have actively sought them on forums and IRL through school clubs and protests. I have never IRL raised my voice, never used a derogatory label harsher than ‘leafeater’ and that only once. Yet I am so ridiculously burned out by the arguments and harsh words I’ve endured that I’m done holding any hope out any longer.
I call those ideolgical vegans and yes they drive me nuts too
In respect for your wife and those like her, from now on I will try and use ‘ideological vegan’ to describe the specific subgrouping.
Thanks for being the one sane person in this thread.
You know I’m kinda okay with vegan cats being the most controversial topic on Lemmy. Could be doing a lot worse.
Personally I believe the only ethical way to enjoy a cat steak is if the cat is vegan and that’s the TRUTH here’s a study:
Nice try, but my app shows link previews.
I prefer Elwood’s organic dog meat. It’s pretty much the only dog meat vendor in the US, sadly.
I understand the controversy, because if there’s one thing the internet loves more than free speech, it’s cats.
If free speech has a limit, it’s at the point where it starts to hurt cats.
I have lots of friends that are vegan/have been vegan, or are sympathetic to the cause. IRL I have had some wonderful conversations about veganism and the ethics of our diet. But on the Internet it’s the vegans ironically that need to get out and touch grass. It’s like there’s no nuance to any conversation, like sorry I can be Peter Singer, it’s actually kinda difficult to be that moral.
Is this meant to prove or disprove it?
There are some commercial vegan diets available which have synthetically made nutrients to replace those found only in animal based ingredients.
There may also be some that do not meet the safety and nutritional standards of other types of food. Manufacturers should provide information to show it is nutritionally complete and balanced. This information can be difficult to find and understand, so it’s important to speak with your vet for advice too.
But on the Internet it’s the vegans ironically that need to get out and touch grass.
I keep hearing about these crazy vegans from other folks complaining on the internet. I never actually get to meet them in the wild.
But if I flip over to YouTube Recommended Feed I can find Liver King tier content all the fuck over the front page. Definitely try to steer clear of anything “Recommended” these days, but if I had my ear-holes getting saturated with JBP / Joe Rogan Carnivore Diet insanity 24/7, that might wear down my ability to have a polite conversation.
Maybe that’s what other people are seeing out on the YT comments sections?
Here on Lemmy I’ve been accused of torturing and raping animals as I’m unashamedly an omnivore. I’m a hunter as well.
I worry about animal suffering enough that we’ve bought a small farm and hope to raise all our own meat. I’ve actually worked on factory farms and know firsthand the suffering of animals under that system.
However, there are fanatical vegans on Lemmy that do a fantastic job of driving away those of us sympathetic to vegan ethics and morality.
Here on Lemmy I’ve been accused of torturing and raping animals
I’ve actually worked on factory farms
Depending on what all you did to the animals at those factory farms, you might have been torturing and raping animals. I did horseback riding for like 7 years of my life. I don’t deny I was an animal abuser. The only thing I can do about it now is never get on a horses back again. Denying I was ever doing abuse won’t help me.
RAPE! RAPE! MURDER!!!1!
This bullshit doesn’t help your cause at all. I’m the rare omnivore that is actually sympathetic to moral issues of factory farmig and animal suffering.
You need to like unfuck your head and try to turn down whatever preaching you’re listening to. That’s some bad religion that’s got ahold of you.
You’re no different than those ‘pro-life’ whack jobs.
Here on Lemmy I’ve been accused of torturing and raping animals as I’m unashamedly an omnivore
I’m sorry to hear that. Online discourse does get extremely personal, particularly when people don’t know each other.
I’ve actually worked on factory farms and know firsthand the suffering of animals under that system
Well then… not to be rude but that means you’ve literally been complicit in torturing and raping animals.
There it is.
So, as an ignorant teenager, cleaning chicken houses of rotten corpses and chicken shit for $5/hr: I was actually fucking those chickens? I was kid chicken raper? The steers I raised in elementary school, I suppose I fucked them as well.
See, that’s the thing. I saw how bad it was and have worked and saved for many years so I will no longer have to participate in a system that involves industrial suffering.
But nope, I’m totally such a raper. Fuck you and your sanctimonious bullshit. You don’t know me or my circumstances. I know plenty of Southern Baptists and Church of Christ that spew this same shit. Y’all would get along real well, if you only listened to your tones and didn’t pay attention to the words.
Fucking fanatics can suck my fucking balls, all y’all the same.
So, as an ignorant teenager, cleaning chicken houses of rotten corpses and chicken shit for $5/hr: I was actually fucking those chickens? I was kid chicken raper?
I would like to think “I saw the horrors and really learned something” would be the appropriate response, not “I saw the horrors, so now I’m immune to criticism for eating meat.”
But I do begin to see why vegans upset you so much.
If you’re trying to make a point for there not being as many “crazy vegans” on the internet, well, you’re fucking it up.
I don’t eat factory farmed meat so I am not interested in your stupid shit
The zigging and zagging in your story reads like a Just So Ben Shapiro piece.
Next, I’m expecting to hear how you’ve got a condition that makes it ableist to mention veganism in front of you.
Hey don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of people that need to touch grass, there’s some areas that I have ignorant opinions about. But the best way to fix that is to have constructive mature conversations with real people.
Ps. Carnivore diet is silly and leaves you with less energy than 4 well rounded meals a day, even if it is consistent. Smaller complete meals throughout the day can give you more consistently high energy than ketosis ever will.
You don’t see them in the wild because they’re terminally online babies who can only exist in an internet bubble, and likely don’t represent anything but a tiny fraction of vocal, obtuse jerkoffs compared to the population of vegans.
You don’t see them in the wild because they’re terminally online babies
I still don’t know who you’re actually referring to. Where are the JBP vegan equivalents?
This guy for example: https://lemmy.world/comment/12082933
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Allegedly carnist
So, someone sane.
If you think a cat can be vegan, please never own a cat.
Agreed.
Humans can be vegan because we’re omnivores. Meat isn’t the only source we need to get our nutrition. Our bodies are fantastic at pulling nutrients from different food sources.
Cats and dogs are not. They are carnivores. Their bodies cannot adequately process the nutrition from non-meat sources.
Humans can also take supplements for whatever nutrients we’re missing. It’s much harder to get an animal to take them, especially when you’re looking at how many would be required on a vegan diet.
Finally, ask any vet what foods to avoid and they will tell you that you don’t want to ever give your animal those small-batch/boutique foods. They are almost never nutritionally complete since they’re designed to appear appealing to the humans, not the animals. They also often aren’t produced in a clean food-safe environment.
Humans are good at pulling nutrients from all sorts of sources but those sources have to actually contain the nutrients in the first place, we don’t have some magic ability to just eat one thing with no supplementation and get all our nutrients.
Dogs are omnivores.
Supplements are already in the livestock (that we feed the cats) feed and animal based cat food. Yes it’s harder to get most cats to take a pill than a human adult, but that really isn’t necessary it can just be put in the food itself, and it is.
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I mean you’re the one coming into a thread in a different community getting snarky with multiple different people who are all being pretty level headed so
Let’s just say you’re right, it’s perfectly possible and healthy for the cat.
Does that make it ethical to force a carnivorous hunter animal on a vegan diet? Are you going to force it to stay inside to limit the possibility for it to catch mice & birds just to be sure?
Just beyond the physical possibility, how ethical is it to force our choices onto our pets?
Most people I’ve talked to, which is mostly nonvegans, think it is unethical to let cats outside because they will kill wild animals. This is a more hypocritical stance than the reverse (a vegan who lets their cat outside) if you understand veganism.
You’re also throwing around the word forced. People force choices on their pets, children, and even fellow adults all the time, but there are different levels of force. Putting down food for a cat that gladly eats it is a far cry away from shoving something down their throat or leaving it out until they have no choice but to eat it. I’d argue that it’s often very appropriate to make food choices for a cat you live with, if a cat begs for some lasagna or a donut you probably shouldn’t give it to them.
Edit: Also when people talk about forcing cats onto a vegan diet you have to realize the alternative is forcing livestock to suffer serious trauma for their entire life and then die. It’s not hard to see that one of these is a more serious abuse of our power over other animals.
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What do you mean by forcing being the wrong word? Do you give the cat a bowl of meat and a bowl of vegan alternative for a month, and then see what the cat chooses? That would not be forcing imo. But i doubt that’s happening anywhere.
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You people are unhinged.
Ok vegan
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Ok vegan
no one pays for murder
Sometimes people pay for murder.
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Who’s a little boy that pays people to have animals killed?
no one does that
Ok, i get it, it’s fun to hate on the vegan, but he’s right and you’re not.
If you buy meat somewhere part of the price is you paying for the person that killed it. That’s obvious right?
Of course in relation to the cat, even if there’s a healthy vegan diet possible, he’s wrong imo. Why force our choices onto pets?
If you buy meat somewhere part of the price is you paying for the person that killed it.
no. that person is already paid and paid by somebody who is not me
The premise is what matters, which is that you like to eat meat. Because of this, let’s say a chicken company has decided they will kill a chicken so that you can buy it. Your actions cause an incentive to kill animals, and so someone does and sells it to you.
You could kill it yourself, but like you said, you are no murderer, so you pay a company to do it for you and then you get to feel like you aren’t a murderer. What a deal!
People dont eat meat because companies produce it, companies produce it because people eat it. Therefore the blame lies with those that eat it, which also means the best way to reduce animal deaths is to stop eating meat so that companies will produce less of it.
Eventually, they might stop producing it at any meaningful scale altogether, once enough people reduce or stop their consumption of meat.
Yeah, try that one in court. No your honor, i didn’t pay for the murder, i paid for someone who paid for someone to commit the murder. I’m obviously innocent!
It’s a plain stupid argument to try and make, and it makes no sense. And i’m not even vegan, i just recognize that yes, a part of the money i pay for meat goes to who kills it, so i pay for someone to kill animals for me so i can eat them. That’s how the world works, and denying that is just ridiculous.
We already force our cats to eat the canned food and dry kibble we provide them. The standard cat diet is just not healthy to start with, which is what opens the conversation to “what food would make my cat healthy” and then if you are already there, its not much of a stretch to consider ALL types of foods so that we are sure to find the best result.
If vegan food for cats is possible without reducing the cats quality of life, then its worth trying. Most cats just plain dont like the vegan food though, and no vegan would force their CST to be unhappy just to make them vegan.
The whole point is to improve the cats life, not to force our morals on them. If it was possible for your cat to live 25% longer on a vegan diet, would it be abusive not to even consider it? (Not saying that’s a settled fact, its a thought exercise).
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your version of the story leaves out some important facts like it doesn’t matter whether you put it in your cart because it’s already dead, and the person who killed it was already paid by somebody who wasn’t you.
That is pretty irrelevant. You purchasing the product signals a certain demand for it, that demand will help determine how much product is requested in the future, there is a cascading effect all the way up the supply chain. Sure an additional chicken might not be bred just because you purchased a chicken, it’s way more abstract than that. Maybe if a hundred more chickens are bought then a hundred more chickens will be bred as replacements plus extra to account for growth and failed product (dead or sick chickens). And if you were one of the hundred people who purchased a chicken you can be seen as one hundredth responsible for at least a hundred chickens which is the same as being responsible for the 1+ chicken. Do you think if nobody purchased chickens that they would just keep stocking the shelves?
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The BEHAVIOR of a very small subset of vegans unfortunately causes a small but ridiculously vocal subset of non-vegans to tar all vegans with the same brush.
Since volume equals truth for a not insignificant number of people in the Internet, far too many people don’t stop to separate behavior choices from professed beliefs and that’s how we get where we are now, I unfortunately.
The world would be a better place if people stopped automatically associating and assuming causation and instead treated bad behavior as just that.
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on lemmy?
The /c/vegan mods in turn banned the Admin from the community because it was obvious there was no objective basis to these removals. The admin in turn got themselves unbanned and banned the mods.
What else did they expect?
…carnist…
Like the words, “woke” and, “terf” the word, “carnist” identifies the non-ironic user as an ideological extremist. It isn’t vegans who get a lot of hate, it is vegan extremists. I love my vegan friends and bend over backwards to accommodate them. People who use the word, “carnist” can choke on a horse dick.
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Definitions made up by vegan extremists. Carnist, corpse munched, and blood mouth, sneered through clenched teeth are a dead giveaway that you’re dealing with a lunatic extremist.
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Show me “corpse muncher” and “blood mouth”.
“Carnist” was co-opted by vegan extremists and is sneered through clenched teeth as an slur at anyone who doesn’t agree with them by those extremists just as “woke” and “progressive” are sneered by right wing extremists at anyone who doesn’t fully embrace the Project 2025 vision of a Handmaid’s Tale version of the United States, “terf” is sneered by trans extremists at anyone who doesn’t agree that you can magically change your sex by changing your gender, and the n-word has been sneered by racist extremists for centuries at anyone they see as racially impure.
Extremists are all the same.
So, show me “corpse muncher” and “blood mouth” or we’re done here
Do you have a problem with the word chud? Because you sure sound like one.
I only care if I respect the person saying it and their opinion. In your case, not in the slightest. Carry on.
I really don’t think it’s hate, in the classic sense. I think most of it is sort of a hamarotic response that’s made possible by the fact that these forums show up in everybody’s feed, and given that vegans typically have negative views on the eating practices of the rest of the world, can be seen referring to those people as they do in private. As you seem to be insinuating, it feels-bad-man to have your lifestyle casually attacked, and nearly always elicits retaliation because humans.
I feel like a lot of it is a matter of terminology. For instance, using the word “omnivore” instead of “carnist”, or “Bovine Matchmaker”, instead of “Animal Rapist”.
it’s not rape, it is a veterinary procedure
“Bovine Matchmaker”, instead of “Animal Rapist”.
We shouldn’t tone down our language because others might be offended by it. “Bovine matchmaker” just isn’t the reality of what artificial insemination is.
I agree with you, but/and you are making my point for me.
I’m not sure how I am?
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I’m going to skip a LOT of the trope level arguments here. How about this:
Do you believe that lions in captivity (whatever your feelings about lions in captivity are), should be fed a vegan diet?
I bet the cats being fed a vegan diet aren’t living that long.
They can live just fine, as long as attention is paid to them getting all the essential nutrients a growing cat needs, but like… Why would you?
People started arguing about whether cats can eat vegan, mods on c!vegan got involved, then an admin got involved. People’s personal feelings about veganism overtook any actual discussion about when it is or isn’t inappropriate for Admins/mods to step in, hence the pinned post on the front page.
Wow. I didn’t miss much… Is this the first drama of this kind?
I think so but only because I think most people didnt think discussing possible healthy vegan diets for pets was a taboo subject.
To be fair though lemmy.world wasnt ever supposed to be some respected scientific resource, its a discussion board.
Ultimately its up to the admin to set their rules, but in my opinion they reacted immaturely, and I think it shows somewhat of an ego problem.
Some vegans decide all cats, like all other animals, should join their club, whether they want to or not. Deemed dubious practice by some but not impossible by others.
Admin loses mind, power trips.
You’re caught up.
You forget the community mods banning an admin and reinstating a bunch of deleted comments.
The admins at c/vegan ban anyone who speaks inconvenient truth into their echo bunker. I am proudly banned for arguing for the ethical treatment of obligate carnivores (long before this latest explosion of misinformation and the promotion of animal abuse.)
I just had a quick look over there, every post bar one in the last week is about vegan cat food.
They’re not taking this well.
Before this the mods at c/vegan had iron fisted control over what ideas were acceptable in their echo bunker. They actively promoted pseudo-scientific propaganda that supported their self-assured ideological moral purity and banned anyone who question the misinformation or posted peer reviewed science that contradicted the misinformation. Their echo bunker has been blown open, their lies and ideological censorship are on full display, and like insects exposed when their rock is lifted they are scurrying around trying to find somewhere ideologically dark and safe to hide.
Isn’t that kind of the point of having open communities, so that you can decide what does and doesn’t belong in your community without some centralized censor coming in and deciding what is acceptable in your community unless it’s illegal or actively harmful?
If you have definitive sources that vegan cat food with the appropriate taurine supplements aren’t ok for normal healthy cats then you can make an argument that that’s animal abuse, but otherwise you’re just applying your own preconceptions to their community.
This is why the hammer got lowered on the community. It isn’t up to anyone to prove that vegan cat food is acceptable. Provide peer reviewed scientific studies published in reputable journals to demonstrate that it is.
Why is the default that it isn’t? I’m saying we shouldn’t have an admin enforced default not force one or the other People give terrible advice regarding pet care, child rearing and everything else. Why is this any different? Should we ban all content with exotic pets like parrots or sugar gliders because they overwhelmingly do poorly in captivity?
How can mods ban an admin?
I was surprised as well. Of course, they can unban themselves, which they did.
We already feed cats what we want them to eat, you realize this, right?
Go look what’s in canned cat food and tell me which of it a cat would be eating if it was a wild cat. You’d have to generalize pretty hard and still all you’d be able to say is “they both would be eating meat”.
This whole issue is about whether its dangerous to have that discussion on a discussion board specifically for that topic.
Its very telling that I can have this discussion in my veterinarians office with the staff there and have a markedly different experience than the average person here accusing vegans of harming cats.
K.
“we taught a lion to eat tofu!”
*coughs weakly
I’ll never not up-lemm Futurama.
That being said, I think some (most?) were talking about nutritionally complete feed with synthetically created nutrients to fill gaps in a plant-based diet for cats.
I’d never do it to my kitties because I’m a FiLtHy CaRnIsT, but with proper supervision from a vet it sounds doable. At least not worse than Great Value cat food that’s grain forward.
TL;DR idk why Admins are censoring discussion. This is how things are learned and I thought Lemmy might be a place for that.
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For context, the story I read a similar comment under was about a decades long vegan forest firefighter who was unable to receive vegan meals through his employer (given that they’re very much “in the field” they can’t really bring their own). After complaining, he was suspended without pay by the employer and he tried to fight that, arguing that his vegan lifestyle was a creed.
That context changes things for me at least, maybe not for you.
Not for me, he should have arranged his own meals or not taken the job if his employer won’t cater to his particular snowflakeism.
I’m low carb but I don’t get to complain if all they have in the canteen is chips and candy.
It’s not really possible to arrange his own meals, and they told him they would give him vegan food.
If a person were sent on a work trip where it was impossible to get outside food, and their boss told them they could get them appropriate food, then didn’t, I think they should complain. Especially if it means that they essentially went hungry for weeks while doing a really active job. That’s crappy of their job to do, and they shouldn’t stand for it.
Snacks in the canteen is a totally different deal and I agree that a complaint is not really appropriate, but it’s reasonable to ask if they can supply a broader range of foods.
Ok then breach of contract, he sues and all is good. In the meantime just eat the salad bar and get a big can of mixed nuts shipped to him.
Of course they shouldn’t stand for it but workers protections are only as good as SCOTUS wants them to be and in that environment when it comes to food maybe it’s time to compromise till you can get your documentary on it out. Everything is public opinion now, justice varies based on clout. It is reality and I hate it but it is reality.
Salad bar and shipping at a forest fire? If they have reliable access to those, I’d be very surprised. He also probably won’t be able to digest meat after 25 years of a vegan diet, so he’d be putting everyone in danger if he made himself sick at the scene of a forest fire. It’s not like there’s much to forage in that situation, so he just has to choose between hunger and illness.
The court ruled that his moral veganism doesn’t count as a protected belief system (this is in Canada), so when he did sue, they ruled in favor of his employer. I’m not sure why breach of contract didn’t apply, but his right to vegan food would have been protected by the court had he been vegan due to religious beliefs (the example given is Jainism). That’s why the comparison is to a protected belief.
In order to understand that, you have to realise that veganism is not a diet, but an ethical belief. A huge part that often comes up is diet, of course, since we all eat, and often in a social setting. But it also concerns, for example:
Not using wool and leather
Not visiting for-profit zoos
Not using cosmetic tested on animals
Not riding horses or attending horse-related entertainment
It is an all-round ethical standpoint, and not just a diet fad. You may or may not agree with it, that’s how beliefs work, but ridiculing the thought of it being a protected belief seems narrow minded.
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if cats were vegan, they’ll be eating grass like the gazelles in the Serengeti.
you don’t feed lions a vegan diet just like you don’t feed giraffes a meat diet.
not that hard.
HAHAHAHA
Best most relevant meme so far, thank you.
Cats do actually eat grass on occasion, although its typically as a digestive aid rather than for the nutrition.
you don’t feed lions a vegan diet
You don’t typically keep lions as pets. Elephants subsist on a vegan diet, but I wouldn’t try to feed them either. Their rate of consumption would bankrupt me inside a week. Even when I would feed a cat, its not like I’m just releasing live mice into the house. I feed them per-processed kibble just like I’d feed a dog.
There do exist brands of “Vegan Cat Food” that have protein supplements that the manufacturers claim will meet the basic needs of the animal. Maybe a vet can give you better insight on the long term health impact, but it seems like we’re feeding our pets heavily manufactured food either way.
There do exist brands of “Vegan Cat Food” that have protein supplements that the manufacturers claim will meet the basic needs of the animal.
that the manufacturers claim will meet the basic needs
https://www.bluecross.org.uk/advice/cat/food-and-weight/can-cats-be-vegan
Cats have specific nutritional needs, including protein requirements and amino acids (such as taurine and arachidonic acid). These needs cannot be met by a vegan diet without synthetic supplements. Additionally, taurine, (an amino acid, which is needed for many of your cat’s vital tissues and organs including their heart, eyesight, and immune system) is an essential part of a cat’s diet. Cats cannot make their own taurine so they must have it in their diet. Natural taurine can only be found in animal-based proteins.
where is the science, the studies, etc. that prove the safety and benefits of vegan alt food (both short and long term studies that aren’t funded by said manufacturer)? Nowhere? okay then.
https://www.benevo.com/vegan-cat-food-from-benevo/
Benevo Cat foods contain all the nutrients an adult cat needs, including a wide range of vitamins (including A, B, D, E, K), essential fatty acids and taurine, without the need for slaughterhouse meat. Although obligate carnivores in the wild, domestic cats still need nutrients they would normally source from prey. Thankfully Benevo Cat contains all those nutrients in a bioavailable kibble.
Benevo Cat is a professional cat food, created by Benevo in 2005, formulated and checked by independent animal nutritionists to meet the AAFCO(USA) and FEDIAF(Europe) guidelines for animal nutrition.
I just had a look over there, every post bar one in the last week is about vegan cats.
They’re not handling this well at all.
Absolutely, first he lumps dogs and cats together, they have extremely different dietary needs.
Second, I couldn’t find anything specific to cats dietary needs being met by a vegan diet. The video’s sources seem to be based on self reporting surveys. Not science.
I like that you brought this up.
Dogs are omnivores with sensitive stomachs. Kinda like me, and a host of other people on this planet.
Cats are obligate carnivores. They also have sensitive stomachs. This is how I prefer to eat, but I do in fact needs to eat more fruits and veggies.
Apropos of nothing - a few months ago I was looking at one of the sites that curated Fediverse block lists. (Can’t remember which one.)
Now some of the blocks were quite reasonable. If a hundred site admins look at your site and go “wait a second, these guys are Nazis” and block the site, that’s not so controversial, OK?
But some of the blocks were, uh, how do I put this…?
Individual drama between site admins and their cliques.
Beef.
So much beef.
So much beef that I immediately thought “gee, how can c/vegan even safely exist in Lemmy? There’s so much beef everywhere.”Well played
By some freak statistical improbability, a significant portion of the Lemmy community revealed that they’re all qualified to debate the science of the nutritional needs of animals.
Look I’m not a vet but I know I can’t feed my cat avacados, grapes, onions… ect. I dont need to be a helicopter pilot to know that when I see one flown into a tree to know someone fucked up.
something something vegan cat food, something something discourse about cats and food, something something head mod yeeted the entire thread and called it a day, something something lemmy.world TOS updated to reflect the decision positively.
Hence, why we’re here now. I think i kinda agree with the vegans, depends on the thread itself, i wasnt there, but someone who yelled at me in dms makes me think it wasn’t super spicy, and if it wasn’t then who cares.
something something vegan cat food
think i kinda agree with the vegans
are you kidding me?
https://www.bluecross.org.uk/advice/cat/food-and-weight/can-cats-be-vegan
Cats are obligate carnivores and cannot obtain all the nutrients they need from plants alone.
Cats have specific nutritional needs, including protein requirements and amino acids (such as taurine and arachidonic acid). These needs cannot be met by a vegan diet without synthetic supplements.
Additionally, taurine, (an amino acid, which is needed for many of your cat’s vital tissues and organs including their heart, eyesight, and immune system) is an essential part of a cat’s diet. Cats cannot make their own taurine so they must have it in their diet. Natural taurine can only be found in animal-based proteins.
Cats can become very ill if given a plant-based diet which has not been supplemented with these nutrients. If you are still considering feeding your cat a vegan diet, please speak to your vet beforehand.
The whole conversation from the vegan side has been that those proteins and other substances essential to cats are already commonly synthesized for things like animal feed or even human energy drinks. Your own source says it’s impossible without synthetic supplementation, but the deleted comments from that dumpster fire were specifically about synthetic supplementation.
I’m not an expert in this stuff but I can see when comments aren’t actually engaging with arguments from the other side, which is why I think that the vegans have the better argument in this whole saga.
From your source:
There are some commercial vegan diets available which have synthetically made nutrients to replace those found only in animal based ingredients.
The discussion is about commercial vegan cat food, which had the nutrients cats need, just sourced without killing other animals. The science on these diets is still relatively new, but early studies are looking pretty good.
are you kidding me?
no?
It could range from literally anything to “yeah so wouldnt it be funny if we fed cats vegan food, lol that would be so silly” to “we should force feed every cat in the world a vegan diet”
There is VERY large difference between the two. Like i said, i wasn’t there, i didn’t read the thread, but it didn’t sound super excessive. It seems like the current rule is they can talk about it in the explicit context of research and data, but that seems a little strict to me, as it ignores the philosophical, ethical, and moral implications of it, it’s hard to determine whether that’s something you should or shouldn’t do if talking about it is literally banned.
They banned an admin and reinstated a bunch of deleted comments.
I don’t know what else they expected.
yeah idk really, im not sure why they immediately rolled out a global moderation thing as well, that was extremely shitty lol.
This post is honestly an excuse for anti-vegan bashing. Even if some vegan mods have bad takes for cat nutrition it shouldn’t excuse the hate circle jerk on display here .
Remember to always be sceptical towards presentations that try to make you angry like this.
This post is honestly an excuse for anti-vegan bashing. Even if some vegan mods have bad takes for cat nutrition it shouldn’t excuse the hate circle jerk on display here .
As anyone reading the comment section would see, there’s far from a ‘hate circle jerk’ on display here.
Remember to always be sceptical towards presentations that try to make you angry like this.
And remember to always be skeptical towards presentations that insinuate that justified anger towards harmful conduct is an overreaction, and you really just need to chill and sit back and let it happen.
Perhaps one should also be skeptical towards presentations that attempt to dismiss criticism as ‘bashing’ and irrational regardless of the context or actual content of the criticisms.
Anger shuts down critical thinking. This is why all reactionary content tries to make us angry (or scared).
I never said to just “chill and sit back and let it happen.” nor did I say not to criticize. But what you’re doing is ragebaiting which is harmful
