Should Cats and Dogs go Vegan? - Professor Andrew Knight, University of Winchester
Should Cats and Dogs go Vegan? - Professor Andrew Knight, University of Winchester
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All omnivores can be vegans. That means dogs can. Cats are not omnivores. They are carnivores
Cats can, actually. You just have to add enzymes to the food to help it break down so they can absorb it.
And other additives, of course, which are already added to most store bought cat foods already.
Thanks for the info @library_napper, I didn't know that. Are those enzymes present in plant-based cat food or is it given separately. I knew people who tried feeding plant-based dry cat food to their cats and they still ended up with nutritional deficiencies. I wonder if those enzymes would have made a difference
The enzymes need to be added just before feeding it to them. If it's added before, it would break down the nutrients in storage
Ah, thanks. That explains the problems cats that only eat the dried food experience
I believe it is taurine that cats need supplemented if fed a diet without meat.
That's one additive. Its also added to store bought food with dead animals though, since it's been processed so much that its void of taurine too.
You also need to add enzymes just before feeding.
I wish this was true. I have some pet lizards I got before I went vegan, two of them are omnivores (blue tongue skink and Argentine black and white tegu). They can't be vegan. I mean, honestly, if there was a large scale effort to research it, I bet we could come up with a suitable vegan diet for them, but I don't think anyone will put a bunch of resources into that.