The difference is that you as the owner are in that case not actively financing an industry that’s slaughtering other animals in order to feed your pet.

That a cat while roaming outside will inevitably kill other animals is not unethical on the cats part. It’s debatable if it’s unethical on the owners part, which is why many people nowadays discuss only keeping cats as indoor pets anyway. It is however a completely separate issue to vegan cat food.

Maybe you think vegans ask for vegan pet food because they want their cat to “be vegan”? Because if so, that’s a misunderstanding. Vegan ethics are always about our own consumption decisions and behavior. Never about those of animals. (Which is why “dO yOu JuDgE LiOnS fOr KiLliNg ZeBrAs As WeLl?” is never a good argument. We don’t.) As caretakers for our pets some of their decisions naturally fall to us. You’re always deciding for them which brand of pet food your cat will get. For example I avoid nestle owned brands, wether my cat supports that decision or not. If he was an outside pet I’m sure he would at least try to murder something occasionally. That has nothing to do with my responsibility to honor the ramifications of my own ethical considerations though. My cat is too dumb for that - literally. It doesn’t release me from the responsibility.

(He gets meat btw, he has chronic digestive problems and needs special food anyway - before anyone here accuses me of murder and torture or something.)

Then look for a recent study yourself. I certainly won’t waste my time, since I hardly believe you would chance your mind even with the most robust data available. You’ve made up your mind.

There’s no reason why supplementation shouldn’t be possible. After all we’re already doing that. Obviously we can test for it (since so many people in this comment claimed that vegan brands were tested and found to be insufficient), so nothing stops us from putting taurine into the cat food to the point where it reaches the required amounts. It’s that simple. If you need to stay offended than for all means keep going. Just know that you behave just like the vegans you’re so annoyed about, and it’s showing.

Taurine should be the easiest to supplement, since it’s already widely synthesized to supplement traditional pet food with. Three decades old studies really shouldn’t be the only thing we’re looking at before we’re going at each others necks about something.

It’s this shitting on new ideas because someone feels like a moral superior I’m tired of.

And ironically this is exactly what vegans are often blamed for btw. People turn off their brain, get all emotional, and feel justified on hating someone for muder, abuse, and torture (all claims from this very comment section) without the slightest bit of nuance. I just searched for “vegan cat food nutrition study” and very randomly picked the first search result, which brought me to a study from 2023 showing that cats fed a vegan diet were overall even healthier. So at the very least we have to agree that this isn’t as clear cut as many here claim with utmost confidence.

What should stop a company from supplementing the right amount of all the nutrients listed? The article simply claims it’s not nutritionally complete, but that would only be an argument against the brands currently available and tested, not against the idea in principle.

So they should simply start producing one that is. Problem solved. No law of nature prevents us from supplementing the right amount of taurine and b12, so there is no reason to be irrational about it.

Wtf is happening in the comments. Why are people getting so insane over this topic over and over again? If there’s cat food out there that’s nutritional complete, cats like it, and it happens to be plant based - so what? The only two reasons to object are if someone is 100% convinced such a product doesn’t and cannot exist or if they’re entirely ideological about it. And if we have to apply the naturalistic fallacy that only the natural way can be morally okay, why of all things argue about pet food? I really, really don’t get it why people get so intensely emotional about it.

Well now I’m wondering if you ever had an actual conversation with a vegan, because they actually have good reasons for this. A vegan diet is simply the most consequential idea if you want to minimize the necessity for animals to die, at the very least (even if we ignore the various ways of exploitation) because male chickens and calves obviously have to be killed in order for these industries to function.

It doesn’t seem to work on the German Wikipedia. Super weird decision to tie display settings to a language.

Doesn’t sound like a friendship to me. More like an acquaintance.

I want to know what’s up in my friends lives. I want them to tell me if they’ve got problems. I love them. I want to be there for them, and I want them to listen to me if I need it once. Otherwise, what’s the point?

And Firmament is German. Bit of a fancy word, but I guess most people would know it anyway.