• meliaesc@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6380542/

    Indeed, the cat appears to have less capability to adapt to most changes in dietary composition because it cannot change the quantities of enzymes involved in the metabolic pathways. This evolutionary development has resulted in more stringent nutritional requirements for cats than for omnivores such as the rat, dog, and man.

    Biologically, humans are omnivores. Your suggestion would work great with other omnivores. I’m all for balanced healthy humane diets for the animals we are responsible for feeding! But not to the point of neglect.

    • Floey@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      When I said study I meant an observational or longitudinal study measuring health outcomes, not a description of the mechanisms at play. Such studies are important to concluding that alternative diets are already nutritional or elucidating the flaws so that they may be addressed.

      Don’t you think such knowledge of cat digestion would be integrated into feeding a cat in a vegan way? We are incredibly good at synthesizing nutrients these days through both chemical processes and modifying microorganisms or plants. We can produce “higher forms” of things such as vitamin A and D without invoking animal biology, these aren’t hypotheticals, such things are already common in the huge supplement and cosmetics industries.