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.”There was a post about making cats vegan. The mod then decided that people posting information on why that is a bad idea were antivegan or something. The mod started then removing any information that pointed to cats not being able to be health while on a vegan diet. The Lemmy.world admins them stepped in stating that improperly feeding your cat constitutes animal abuse and is unethical. This made many die hard vegans very mad.
For the record, cats can not be vegan. They can survive on it but they will have shorter more painful lives and they will go blind. There bodies start breaking down without the proteins and amino acids found in meat. I understand why vegans would be unhappy with that answer but it is the way it is.
Interesting enough, that’s not the case for dog. You can put a dog on a vegan diet as long as you are very careful and are constantly monitoring. It isn’t for the faint of heart and can have very sad outcomes. It isn’t something you can arbitrarily do.
It’s bizarre to me that harcore vegans want to own a pet to begin with. Keeping bees for honey is bad, but separating a kitten from its mother at an early age and castrating it for your convenience and deciding how they live (restricted to an apartment or not) is totally fine?
I understand that most pets live a good life, but man, I can’t bring myself to make choices like these. I mean there are ways to circumvent it (get an older cat from an asylum for example) but it doesn’t really remove the “pet dilemma” to me.
When “keeping bees” you are ever only hosting them. If the conditions are not to the hive’s liking, they will find somewhere else to live. This is a significant problem in North America where honeybees are not native, as they will displace native species. But if you have a productive hive, they are happy and well treated.
My understanding is that the queen bee is generally restricted from leaving the hive by a physical gate. The workers won’t leave without her.
Only when being transported into a hive. Other than the honey super, the queen is given full run of the hive in order to lay new brood. The physical gate is to keep larger things out.
Shoot, I’d say keeping bees would be pro vegan. Good barter system for honey in exchange for premium hive space and care and protection. Symbiotic relationship.
Most people I know adopt from rescue shelters and all the vegans I know do that, often even focusing on pets that are somewhat “disadvantaged” regarding getting adopted, i.e. disabled or chronically ill animals. They go to an animal shelter not primarily with the wish of having a pet but providing a better life for an animal (because let’s face it, even the best-intentioned shelters are understaffed and underfunded).
This is a good, nuanced take that I as a vegan have struggled with believing. We don’t want pets, but animals are very much still suffering in this imperfect world.
I wouldn’t say we don’t want pets per se. Some of us do but the difference is trying to find the most ethical way of obtaining and taking care of them.
To be honest, I’ve never seen anyone take a dog from a shelter. With cats - yes, and I only know a handful of people who own a specific type of cat. But everyone I know and all people I meet have specific dog breeds or known mixes that were planned - both in the making and adoption.
Well, my family’s dog when I was young was a rescue dog, no purebred (should be illegal anyway) or “targeted mix”. Tbh, no one ever knew exactly which breeds she was from, and I will probably never understand why people are so fixated on this shit.
A friend who had two breds from the same parents (different litter) said that you can predict the personality better in breds, while with unknown mixes you can get a manic dog and that they all have behavioral problems.
As you might have guessed by now, I am very much not a dog person. And I have no place to judge her statement. But I can imagine that there are a lot of dog owners who think like that.
Btw I’m in Germany, so is the friend. There is some Nazi joke in all of this that I am too lazy to make.
“Nature vs nurture” is an old debate that has not yet been concluded and data is hard to obtain. But it seems at the moment that how you training and upbringing has more impact on how an animal develops.
Also, i was more speaking ofphysical traits like a flat back for shepards or stubby noses for pugs etc. Generally, “purebred” pets are far more prone to develop detrimental traits and illnesses, i don’t see it worth the risk and more like torture than anything else.
But it seems at the moment that how you training and upbringing has more impact on how an animal develops.
Is this take based on anything? There are significant and specific behavioral differences between dog breeds.
That’s just bizarre, I don’t know anyone that has a purebred, their all mixes. Usually part pittie, because I live in an urban area and that’s mostly what’s at the shelters.
I knew a hardcore vegan girl like a decade ago when it was rather rare to see someone to that extreme, or at least to me. She said she feeds her cat only vegan food, and i was pretty sure that that’s not a thing, but i didn’t really know. Her roommate then told me that she goes through quite a lot of cats, because they either die or run away.
That’s actually really terrible
am not vegan but I’ll point out:
giving a cat a home, and fixing it so it won’t breed further rescue cats, is not a dilemma to me.
Imagine you wanted children and then someone would come along and castrate you because there’s a problem with overpopulation. You take away an individaul’s choice of reproduction for the greater good. And it makes sense, but the lack of consent or even understandment does not sit well with me.
Putting down pets is another thing. You make the decision whether a (sick/suffering) animal is going to die, while we are refusing to allow people to make this decision for themselves in most countries.
I absolutely see your point and I would not say you are wrong about it. But to me these are ethical questions that I just don’t wish to answer because there is not really a right answer.
Imagine you wanted children and then someone would come along and castrate you because there’s a problem with overpopulation. You take away an individaul’s choice of reproduction for the greater good. And it makes sense, but the lack of consent or even understandment does not sit well with me.
You’re anthropomorphizing animals too much. Cats don’t “want” children. Beyond a basic biological need they don’t give a shit about procreation. It’s not even a difficult question, ethically speaking. In almost every environment they exist in cats are considered invasive, reproduce like crazy, and tend to be incredibly destructive to local species. To be clear, I don’t think there is anything wrong with owning a cat, but it’s important to do so responsibly.
Yeah, adopt don’t shop. But I’ve met many vegans who don’t want pets at all. Including myself, I find the concept of owning a pet a little strange. But that’s something everyone should decide for themself.
But that’s something everyone should decide for themself.
Honestly I’m not so sure about that. I’m actually annoyed by the lack of regulation. Why is pet breeding still a thing? Owning a pet seems like something that should be phased out (while working on getting the numbers of new born pets down).
Don’t get me wrong, I like animals, I’ve grown up with a cat who lived to 21 years and I consider him more of a brother than a pet, and I love cats, but I wouldn’t want to repeat this again. With cats you are damned if you let them outside and damned if you don’t. Dogs should just not exist in public spaces. A lot of people are afraid of dogs and every dog “doesn’t bite” before he bites one for the first time. I also don’t care if they bite or not, I don’t want an animal touching me or my stuff, period. The trees suffer, the playgrounds are surrounded by shit, and people tense up in a subway or restaurant when there’s a dog. Unless you are a farmer with a huge piece of land you just should not have a dog. (Or need an animal for disability reasons of course.)
Sounds more about bad owners (not having their dog on a leash, not respecting others personal space, or not pickingnup the dog shit) than about dogs.
In a sense I think it is about dogs being in an urban environment. There is just no good place for them to move from a to b. Even if you pick up the poop in the park, there are parts of it left in the grass. The few trees in a city (next to sidewalks I mean) will be peed at and a lot of trees don’t take this well. If I am on a narrow sidewalk and someone with a dog passes they can hardly keep their leashed dog at such a close distance that they wouldn’t end up striving me. And the question is also, is this the life you want for this animal? Having it on a short leash for 99% of the time?
No one would argue that keeping a horse in your city apartment is a bad idea. Yet somehow for dogs it is normalized.
Depends on a dog. Many cities now have dog parks nd you can still take them out of the city.
Dogs are social animals bred for hundreds of years to be our companions. Most will be happy to be inside on a couch with their human, rather than outside alone (obvioualy not exclusively, they need the walks and free time. And every dog may have different needs).
I was just talking about the world we live in. If i could abolish pet animal breeding I would. :)
I understand why vegans would be unhappy with that answer but it is the way it is.
I don’t. Veganism is about the fact that humans can live without animal products, which is true. Not accepting that actual carnivores exist, even being unhappy with this means you’re well in extremist nutjob territory.
There are plenty of vegan friendly pets to choose from too. Rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, chinchillas, pygmy goats ect. If they are willing to accept insectivorous animals that list gets longer.
Why choose a pet like a cat if their diet is a philosophical problem for them? Choose a different animal.
Rabbits? Have you not seen Monty Python’s documentary about the beast of Aaaargh?
A lot of vegans seem to view even owning a pet, of any kind, as evil.
I’m aware of some vegans stances being against having pets, but if people are feeding their cats and dogs a vegan diet at least some portion of vegans aren’t against it.
For folks who want pets who are also vegan they should choose a species compatible with that instead of forcing it on an animal who’s biology isn’t going to thrive under those conditions.
Yes, you’re holding a sentient being as a slave for your amusement.
Yes, you’re holding a sentient being as a slave for your amusement.
Nope, I’m holding THREE of them as slaves for my amusement.
If anything my cat is holding me as a slave for her amusement. We play on her time, eat in her time, wake up on her time
I’m not sure you know what a slave is.
The reason cats can’t be vegan is that they cannot produce an amino acid called taurine, which is something dogs and humans can produce (but which we also get sometimes from dietary sources).
Most dietary sources of taurine are meat. This is why dogs and humans “can be vegan” but cats “can’t”. However, vegan taurine is made and can be bought as a supplement, both for humans (if you want to ensure you get some taurine in your diet), but also in properly made vegan cat food.
It seems to me then that cats can be vegan, just not without intentional effort to ensure proper supplementation of taurine. That is, they couldn’t be vegan in the wild (where the only source of taurine is meat) and you can’t just start to feed them a vegan diet without taurine and expect the cat to be healthy and survive.
In fact, cats fed a proper vegan diet tend to have better health:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10499249/
I think the question is really what you are feeding your “vegan” cat: if you have managed to find (or make) a properly fortified vegan cat food it is theoretically possible to feed your cat a vegan diet.
This all feels a bit like the “controversy” around feeding young children and babies a vegan diet: done poorly it can be catastrophic (pun not intended), but it’s entirely possible to have a healthy vegan diet when enough effort is put into ensuring nutritional needs are actually satisfied.
That said, I also know of two other vegan responses:
- for some vegans, having pets is not vegan to begin with, so a “vegan cat” is a contradiction in terms even if you fed them a vegan diet, you still wouldn’t be an ethical vegan by owning a cat. This is admittedly a less commonly held view which centers ethical veganism on the rights of animals to have autonomy, which if plausible in some ways seems at least impractical in the case of domesticated animals. There are questions of the harm that might be caused by choosing to treat cats not as pets but as autonomy-rights-bearing “wild” animals, but those ethical vegans might rightly point out this doesn’t undo the cat’s rights and the practical questions should be handled separately.
- most vegans I know IRL just feed cats a non-vegan diet, acknowledging it is safer and more reasonable for their cat than trying to figure out a way to feed them a vegan diet. Good vegan cat food isn’t that common or easy to find as far as I know, and I assume it would be outrageously expensive.
In fact, cats fed a proper vegan diet tend to have better health: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10499249/
It actually never definitively says that in any of the studies mentioned… This particular study relies entirely on self reported results, with less than 10% of the sample sizes being fed a vegan diet, with no actual controls in place. It’s a meaningless study. It honestly reads like a fluff piece where they collected some surveys from an already pro-vegan community. As we’ve seen from the rhetoric surrounding this situation some vegans will absolutely feed their pets inadequate food and feel good about themselves while doing it.
And the final nail in the coffin:
This research and its publication open access was funded by food awareness organisation ProVeg International (https://proveg.com).
Ahhh… there it is.
This research and its publication open access was funded by food awareness organisation ProVeg International (https://proveg.com).
FUCKING LMAO
The research you linked has a clear conflict of interest in the funding source.
Funny how you don’t even mention what that is…
This research and its publication open access was funded by food awareness organisation ProVeg International (https://proveg.com). AK received this award ID: Oct2019- 0000000286. However, this funder played no role in study conceptualisation, design, data collection and analysis, preparation of the resultant manuscript nor decisions relating to publication. We are grateful for their financial support.
They would have to be total fools to write anything other than that; they’re not going to admit their research has a conflict of interest. Their statement that their funding source didn’t affect their research outcomes is worth about as much as a pinkie promise.
I am a vegan. While my dogs were alive they ate meat as well as veggies. It seems to me that a lot of vegans don’t realise that it’s a scale and not binary. The whole philosophy of veganism is “as much as you are able” so I guess there is extremism everywhere.
I bought some veggie dog food once and when i gave her the choice she would prefer the veggie dog food like 9/10 times. But it was super expensive in comparison.
I make veggie dog food for my dogs, and add in a half pouch (or can if I cannot find the pouches) of salmon on Monday morning. They like the old kibble when I accidentally forget to thaw a bowl of the plant based food, but they absolutely go nuts for the fresh food, salmon or not. They love their morning banana.
https://mrsplantintexas.com/2021/02/25/homemade-vegan-dog-food/
I use a variation of that recipe, basically I add a lot more oats and rice, and make a quadruple batch for my 3 × 70 lb dogs. Their coats are shiny AF.
I also make it in a slow cooker, so it takes either about an hour and a half to prep, make and cleanup, or about 6 hours total. The best part is that I’m now spending about 60% of what I used to spend on kibble.
It’s a microcosm for science denial or misunderstanding of all kinds. Vegan cats and antivax may not seem related but the underlying misinformation is not dissimilar.
I tried following up on the vegan cat research being posted and it was very difficult to get a solid answer. There are multiple brands of vegan cat food marketed and sold, and it isn’t outrageous to believe that our industrial society could find an ethical way to source the necessary nutrients and enrich the cat food.
But also there’s very few studies that test the claims of the vegan cat food. What few meta-analysis exist, and anecdotes online, would suggest that all those foods lack certain critical nutrients for long-term feline health. But the anecdotes are drowned out by well-intentioned people who want to believe it works, and the studies are small, rare, hard to read, and locked behind paywalls.
Was this the article that started it? Do you have the thread or would an archived link be required to see it?
Vegan versus meat-based cat food: Guardian-reported health outcomes in 1,369 cats, after controlling for feline demographic factors [Andrew Knight, Alexander Bauer, Hazel Brown | Published: September 13, 2023][1]
Abstract
Increasing concerns about environmental sustainability, farmed animal welfare and competition for traditional protein sources, are driving considerable development of alternative pet foods. These include raw meat diets, in vitro meat products, and diets based on novel protein sources including terrestrial plants, insects, yeast, fungi and potentially seaweed. To study health outcomes in cats fed vegan diets compared to those fed meat, we surveyed 1,418 cat guardians, asking about one cat living with them, for at least one year. Among 1,380 respondents involved in cat diet decision-making, health and nutrition was the factor considered most important. 1,369 respondents provided information relating to a single cat fed a meat-based (1,242–91%) or vegan (127–9%) diet for at least a year. We examined seven general indicators of illness. After controlling for age, sex, neutering status and primary location via regression models, the following risk reductions were associated with a vegan diet for average cats: increased veterinary visits– 7.3% reduction, medication use– 14.9% reduction, progression onto therapeutic diet– 54.7% reduction, reported veterinary assessment of being unwell– 3.6% reduction, reported veterinary assessment of more severe illness– 7.6% reduction, guardian opinion of more severe illness– 22.8% reduction. Additionally, the number of health disorders per unwell cat decreased by 15.5%. No reductions were statistically significant. We also examined the prevalence of 22 specific health disorders, using reported veterinary assessments. Forty two percent of cats fed meat, and 37% of those fed vegan diets suffered from at least one disorder. Of these 22 disorders, 15 were most common in cats fed meat, and seven in cats fed vegan diets. Only one difference was statistically significant. Considering these results overall, cats fed vegan diets tended to be healthier than cats fed meat-based diets. This trend was clear and consistent. These results largely concur with previous, similar studies.
Abstract states vegan cats are healthier, but fig. 4 would suggest that they live shorter (or are at least younger)
Also, 33% of vegan cats had access to the outdoors, which means they likely caught and ate something occasionally.
Is this your first time reading a vegan propaganda study?
I’m vegan and I don’t know why these “vegans” are towing the line to to include non-human species. It’s just as gross for vegan humans to apply their values to values in a dominant manner as it is for non-vegans to. Literally vegans doing this is antithesis to the entire cause.
I’m glad they got slapped. You’ll always have idiots in a movement I guess…
I wish I would understand why people always have to take everything to the extreme. If you get mad about carnivorous pets not being able to follow your personal diet, you’re an extremist asshole who just chose veganism as your religion. You can be vegan without being an extremist asshole, so it must be something else causing this.
Making dogs vegan still doesn’t sound like a good idea to me tho
Yeah, it’s ridiculous to feed a dog vegetables. My dog gets a diet of pure meat. I drive around my city with a net gun and capture outdoor cats, and then butcher them for Fido. It’s a win-win-win. Win: Fido gets meat. Win: I don’t contribute to factory farming cruelty. Win: the native birds aren’t driven extinct by predation. This is the only ethical way to feed a dog, since this way every living creature that ends up in Fido’s hungry jaws lived a rich and fulfilling life.
Leave the internet
Oh great, another annoying vegan here to tell me that killing animals for food is wrong
People are so weird. We’re animals, and herbivores, meat is just a thing we have been eating since before we were fully humans. I’m a vegetarian but my kids aren’t, and I prefer it that way cause I know that as they’re growing, it’s easier to provide a nutritious diet that way. I don’t particularly like to prepare or even smell the cooked meat but, it’s their food so you gotta do it. I think a lot of these people are just grossed out about having meat products in their house. If you want a pet who doesn’t eat meat, get a bird. (By the way, I have pet birds and even they love protein like cooked chicken and eggs)
Humans aren’t herbivores
We are omnivores, science has proven this
Cats have dietary needs that would require them to eat meat in nature. But we can make vegan, synthetic food that meets these needs. In fact, studies have shown that cats on vegan diets tend to be healthier if anything.
I don’t understand why people upvote summaries that don’t even try to be objective. I honestly think the mods there do notably abuse their power to remove comments, but let people decide that for themselves. This commenter is telling you who to support while being confidently incorrect on the original issue.
No we can’t actually, not for cats. But you just keep pushing your irrational and hateful ideology to the empty void because you and every other fuckdamn vegan in this thread is getting blocked.
Look, block who you want, but I don’t get this adamant rejection of reality. You think a thing is impossible, someone shows you a study stating that the thing does happen, and you still insist the thing is impossible. You don’t even give a reason why. But you have the nerve to say others are being irrational?
To all the other free thinkers using the disagree button for dissent, reflect on if you are actually open to having your mind changed about things in the face of new information. Being occasionally exposed to sincere people that challenge your way of thinking is healthy. You may walk away with a more accurate view of something you previously dismissed, or even if you don’t have your mind changed, you are enriched with the confidence that your views can withstand a degree of criticism. And you don’t have to reply if you don’t want to argue or whatever, but at least be honest with yourself so you can grow.
But… your study doesn’t show that it is possible. It shows that even with the natural pressure of the owners to downplay the issues their pets were experiencing, they still had significant health problems.
Please don’t speak down to people when it is abundantly clear that you are ignoring critical sections of your own evidence that disagree with your desired outcome.
I don’t understand why people upvote summaries that don’t even try to be objective.
I don’t understand how you guys are ignoring your own sources, please see my above comment.
Removed by mod
I know this isn’t serious, but most of the cats reported to have vegan diets were indoor only, so they wouldn’t be hunting wildlife regardless.
I’m just trolling I don’t care either way
can you tell.me if you know more than this guy, and where he is wrong:
Link peer reviewed literature, not youtube media
Jointly considering seven general indicators of health and 22 specific health disorders, cats fed vegan diets tended to be healthier than those fed meat-based diets.
Small study.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0284132
Does this work?
That’s not peer reviewed
yes it is.
This study was essentially them asking cat owners information, no direct observation. This may be a surprise but people lie, especially when they really want something to work.
No one is going to admit they hurt their cat by pushing a diet they believe is right.
Hey that’s a really good point lets see what scientific literature says about that:
4.1. Evidence Considerations-To date, only sixteen studies have looked at actual health-related outcomes in dogs and cats fed vegan diets, as opposed to performing nutrient evaluations of diets. However, the majority of these studies utilized small sample sizes (ranging from 2–34 animals) for the direct investigation of outcomes. Whilst survey studies evaluating guardian-reported outcomes generally encompassed larger numbers of animals, these are subject to inherent biases due to participant selection, as well as the reliability of lay people making judgements around somewhat subjective concepts, such as health and body condition.
It then goes on to say:
The risk of bias assessment performed on the experimental trials suggests, at best, an unclear risk of bias across the studies. There were some particular aspects of poor performance (or reporting), especially around randomization and blinding. This has been reported previously in animal studies [42], where researchers have probably not taken on board some of these important facets of experimental design and reporting to the extent that human clinical researchers have [43,44]. This remains a major concern impeding reproducibility, and where internal validity of the study is impacted, also leads to wastage of animal and financial resources [42].
Seems like the science backs your claim up partially. I would call it bias instead of lying though.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9860667/
Exactly. it’s not perfect. it’s a new area of study.
Which is exactly why pet owners shouldn’t be fucking with it, maybe down the road but as it stands right now the average pet owner shouldn’t be experimenting on their poor kitties.
He talks about many studies. Have a watch. it’s hardly radical what he proposes.
Cats cannot synthesize several proteins necessary for their thriving, and we cannot manufacture them affordably or at scale enough to be used as animal feed. Don’t bother replying, I blocked you on your other comments, I just want you to know you are wrong and spreading dangerous misinformation
It’s actually about essential amino acids. taurine.
Yes I can because I actually read the peer reviewed primary source please see my above comment.
please enlighten me.
That link leads me no where I’m afraid.
this is hilarious, and 100% on brand for a vegan community.
It really isn’t funny as there are real animals being harmed. There pet will die a slow and agonizing death.
That’s half the point. These people are destroying what they love through their own malice and stupidity. I’d rather they didn’t, but since they’re not stopping any time soon I might as well laugh at them for it.
Why do people even try to keep cats on vegan diet? It was your fucking choice, not the cats.
Im vegetarian, my cat eats meat. Im not gonna force anything on him unless he comes to me and tells me he wants to try it.
I think it’s great that you don’t eat meat, that’s a step many people refuse to take. If you have recognized the horror of the animal industry, then try to avoid udder milk as well. The dairy industry is the meat industry, they go hand in hand. Dairy cows are sold as food for humans and animals after they are no longer profitable, after just a few years. Don’t force a life of misery on dairy cows.
Don’t downvote this guy, he is right.
Don’t downvote this guy who says that guy’s right, they’re right.
Don’t downvote this guy either.
if the cat enjoys the vegan food and it is nutritious then there is really not an issue.
obviously you can’t stop a cat killing things.
This guy has done studies into the very thing:
You NEVER fucking learn do you?
cats CANNOT survive on a vegan diet, they will go blind and die years earlier.
So fucking tired of wikipedia scholars liking some fucking rando on youtube to justify their ideological animal abuse.
wait, are you suggesting the learned professor in the video above is a Wikipedia scholar?
What learned professor? I watched 20 mins of the video and it was framed and delivered as propaganda. Also I blocked you, how the fuck are you showing up in my inbox?
the guy in the video is a professor. is that not learned enough for you?
You left your SI in the link
Thanks. first I have ever heard of that. changed it. not sure why.
Often people watch something like Dominion, get shocked, and decide to go vegan. It’s a purely emotional decision. Don’t expect any rational choices here.
When I made the change, I found that there are three major points that tip people to go vegan. They are: sustainability, health, and morality. And really the former two points boil down to the third if you think of it.
Eating animal products is terrible for the habitat which we call Planet Earth. Cows are one of the leading contributors of methane to the atmosphere, a gas that is 30-90 times more potent as a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. The IPCC is just now, as in the past few years, turning the corner on getting a handle on how to model CH4 as well as its contributing factors to global warming. Then you have to consider the other aspects of animal agriculture like resource demand and waste. Animal agriculture uses a disproportionate amount of water, not only for keeping the animals alive but also for growing the crops to feed the animals. Many times vegans actually raise the point that all the water we use to grow the soy and alfalfa for cows could be diverted to growing crops directly for human consumption. It’s much less water intensive to do so, and we know that some areas of the world are already experiencing climate change in the form of less snow pact accumulating on mountains, countributing to less snow melt and less river water from which we draw for animal agriculture and lots of other uses. If we want to truly grapple with our changing climate, we really ought to change our behaviors about how we use Earth’s natural resources. Ok, what about waste. I’ll talk about this in two ways. First, since more plant agriculture is dedicated to animal consumption and raising than for human consumption, there is a disproportionate amount of fertilizers and pesticides used on that portion of crops. And for farmers, one of the cheapest and most convenient ways to fertilize/innoculate their crops is to be super inefficient in using way more chemicals than what they need to to get the job done. These chemicals don’t holdfast in the soils (since our agricultural practices are also diminishing that too), so they wash off into canals, rivers, and eventually the ocean and aggregate just enough to accelerate local algal growths and deplete oxygen in the sea. This leads to dead zones where aquatic wildlife can’t breath and end up dying. Ok, that’s one aspect of waste. The other essentially follows the same casual relation, where manure if not captured by farmers drains off into waterways, carrying the same chemicals as were applied to the crops initially. Then you have other instances where farmers will manage animal waste and pump it into open pits where innate bacteria will try to reduce the toxicity of that substance over time. The other effect of these open pits is the stench they can originate and send for miles on end. Humans who live in areas nearby these farms have incredible distaste as they feel their quality of life, their clean air is polluted. Then we have to talk about animal agriculture and land use in general. Animal agriculture represents the largest biome on the entire planet. We as humans have domesticated the planet such that wild habitats are the minority today. There is less of the wild today than there has ever been in the history of the human species. These shrinking wild lands means that wild animals have less land to roam and exist in, leading to overcrowding, higher rates of disease contraction, higher rates of competition, and in general extinction. Many scientists attribute parts of the current extinction we’re experiencing, the Sixth Great Extinction, to the habitat lost to animal agriculture. A lot of essential, environmental services that ecosystems provide to help make this planet livable for humans are deteriorating, and who knows if and when we’ll reach tipping points that we can’t return from. Land use can also affect global weather patterns. The Amazon rainforest is one of the largest, single biomes on the planet, and much of it has been deforested to make way for animal agriculture. That rainforest contributes to global geography and meteorology as a sink for tropical storms from the Sahara desert. If the Amazon fundamentally becomes a different biome, then its function may destabilize weather patterns that might make weather worse for other areas in the same region. I haven’t even scratched the surface of environmental effects here.
Ok, then we turn to health. Consuming some animal products contributes to a greater chance of developing cancer, as the WHO classifies red meat for instance as a carcinogen. Another prominent disease that can develop on an animal/carnist diet is cardiovascular disease. People have heart attacks younger and younger as a result of this, which might be a contributing factor to countries like the US experiencing lifetimes decreasing as opposed to lifetimes increasing in other countries around the world. Let’s talk about the contamination issue. Animal products like milk, cheese, and meat all tend to be recalled more than plant products because of the associated risk of disease within the products themselves. And when plant products are recalled, it’s likely because there was cross contamination from animal products somewhere along the supply chain. Animal products also introduce more cholesterol to the human body than plant products. Cholesterol is one of the leading factors that contribute to cardiovascular disease, like I mentioned before, but in this sense animal products promote Low Density Lipoprotein (LDLs) production as opposed to High Density Lipoproteins (HDLs) in the blood. When you have more of the former and less of the latter, less cholesterol is swept up from the blood stream and taken to cells, meaning more free cholesterol floats in your veins. This free cholesterol is what contributes to plaques and blockages. There are more heavy metals concentrated in animal products too. It is often thought of by biologists that the more you ascend the food chain/web, the more heavy metals like mercury and lead build up. The is especially true with fish. So, if you eat animal products, there is a greater chance you introduce these poisons to your body that your body has to work harder to filter out and remove. People often say that vegans don’t get enough nutrients on their diet compared to omnivores/carnists. B12 is really the only nutrient that’s an issue there, with all other vitamins being supplied in abundance on a whole foods diet. Many omnivores/carnists are actually deficient in vitamins and minerals themselves, like in magnesium, zinc, and K2. A lack of magnesium, for instance, can lead to detrimental impacts on the brain over time (just as B12, mind you). Those are readily available from plant foods, but not so in animal foods. A lot of people suffer from allergies that develop from consuming animal products, and plant foods offer that escape to have good food without the downsides.
Lastly, we have morality. Animal agriculture existing is a form of genocide and oppression on a specific group for no other reason than to extract their resources for human pleasure/gain. This is no different than how humans treat other humans, especially so in the 3rd world. If anyone in this comments section believes in the emancipation of the Palestinian people, for instance, or of the countless others forced as slaves in the fishing industry (an added bonus against animal agriculture), sex work industry, agriculture, textiles, mining, etc., then your argument must also apply to animals. Humans are biologically capable of surviving and thriving on whole food plant based diets, and our choice to continue our damnation of animals is immoral and unethical. The leading practice for meat processors to turn live, emotion, morally worthy beings like cows, pigs, and sheep into commodity products is by first using gas chambers on them to asphyxiate and kill. The last time humans used gas chambers on other humans was during WWII when the Nazis mass slaughtered people of a common creed: the Jewish people. Nazis were and still are considered the absolute worst moral offenders in the entire history of the human species. The fact that we’ve continued their practices, this time only applying them to a group that has no voice to speak out against or warn others about is cruel, unusual, reprehensible, and condemnable. If you support animal agriculture today, you support Nazism. If you don’t, think about changing the foods you buy at the supermarket and order at the restaurant. And yes, animals have no voice. We slaughter them for consumption without their consent. We have them as pets without their consent. We take them away from their natural habitats, and use them as emotional support devices without considering what impacts doing so has on THEIR wellbeing. Humans breed animals like this so others might adopt them as pets later for profit, without considering how that impacts the animals themselves. Mothers and children are separated, often at birth, and fanned off to pet owners before those crucial, biological, sociological, psychological bonds develop between offspring and parent. This happens too when calves and piglets and chicks are separated from their mothers, causing distress for both individuals that can emotionally scar them for life. Again, if you were against what Donald Trump during his presidency did to Hispanic families trying to cross the southern border of the US, with border agents ripping children away from their mothers and fathers with no prospects of the two ever returning, then you MUST be against the same actions that happen to animals. Again, animals can’t communicate as effectively to us what they’re feeling or going through, so it’s even worse for them, and we have an even greater obligation to stop and do something about it. Animal agriculture also involves rape. Farmers often have to artificially impregnate cows such that they’ll produce calves, and the more coveted item, milk. I could go on and on and on but I’m out of text.
We slaughter them for consumption without their consent
it’s absurd do discuss consent from something that cannot be informed. do you get consent from a door before you jam your keys in its holes? do you get consent before you put your whole body through it?
Animal agriculture existing is a form of genocide
it’s not genocide: we don’t want to wipe out cows.
If you support animal agriculture today, you support Nazism.
this bombastic pigeon-holing is laughable. there are plenty of anti-fascist people who eat meat and dairy.
Well put. Cats are OBLIGATE carnivores. They do not have anatomy to support extracting necessary nutrition from vegan sources that are available. It IS hypothetically possibly for them to survive and thrive on an engineered food source but, such a thing does not currently exist and the chemical complexity makes it unlikely in the near future.
I’m pretty sure energy drinks might use synthetic taurine on a large scale, have we tried feeding cats Monster Energy? /s
Disclaimer that I’m not even a vegan but you’re spreading disinfo here to make vegans seem completely unreasonable. I suggest anyone check out the actual discussions instead of trusting this summary.
Cats are obligate carnivores, sparky. That means they can’t be vegan.
Cats are obligate carnivores in the wild. This just means they have dietary needs that would normally require meat. But we can make vegan, synthetic food that meets these needs. In fact, studies have shown that cats on vegan diets tend to be healthier if anything.
I don’t know enough about that topic to argue for or against which is not what I’m trying to argue
Show me a scientific study that proves this. If you can say it with confidence, it should be no trouble at all for you to prove it. I, on the other hand, am lazy and don’t care all that much, so I want the people confidently stating opinions to share their research to save me effort.
A quick search reveals quite a few sources and articles to read. I hope this helps. Not an exhaustive list.
Those aren’t scientific studies. The vegans have scientific studies. You expect me to believe you know better than them, but you can’t show me sources of equal quality?
they can’t be vegan as that is an ethical choice. they can be plant based and live a perfectly normal life.
tell me where you disagree with this guy:
This asshole is a propagandist
a guy who is a professor of animal welfare?
I suggest anyone check out the actual discussions.
I suggest not checking out some discussions in search for scientific data.
Yea better trust internet randos at face value. Don’t follow up on anything when you can just consume rage bait and hate vegans.
A lot of vegans will hate this, but YOU’RE NOT A FUCKING SCIENTIST! Drop all the journals and research you want, but your pet is not a lab-controlled experiment. Besides, something being in a journal doesn’t make it true. If it is regularly cited as true, and has swept into general understanding of how to feed a pet, then it’s factual…
I’m all for vegans living their best lives. Don’t force it on a pet that doesn’t know better. Vegans harming animals through their own food choices isn’t a new thing, ask most vets and they’ll have seen the effects of malnutrition from someone that thought that they knew better.
The mod then decided that people posting information on why that is a bad idea were antivegan or something. The mod started then removing any information that pointed to cats not being able to be health while on a vegan diet.
Pets eat pre-processed food, and we’ve had vegetarian protein supplements for a while. How does this work for cats? Idk, ask a vet. But these foods have been around for a while and I’m not hearing about a mass die-off of indoor cats as a result, so I’m willing to give vegan cat owners the benefit of the doubt.
For the record, cats can not be vegan. They can survive on it but they will have shorter more painful lives and they will go blind.
The expected lifespan of feral cats in the wild runs around 2-5 years. House cats routinely live into their teenage years and can hit north of 20. The ideal lifestyle for a cat is indoors, regardless of the precise composition of their diets.
I think the bug take away is to talk to and listen to a expert. Especially don’t start making huge changes to your cats diet
For the record, science disagrees with you. According to an analysis of all current research, there is no statistically significant difference of cat heath when fed a nutritionally sufficient vegan diet. Of there is a similarly high quality study that finds that a nutritionally sufficient vegan diet is worse for cats I would love to see it.
The vegan diet we are talking about isn’t a bunch of vegetables, it’s a manufactured dry food specifically designed to have all the nutrients a cat needs.
People often use the obligate carnivore excuse, but use it in an unscientific way. Obligate carnivores have nutritional needs that can only be meet through meat in the wild, but humans are perfectly capable of manufacturing these nutrients. We are so good at it that we supplement these synthetic nutrients in meat based cat food already.
This is a contentious issue for most people, and it can be hard when you are very passionate about something to look at the evidence and change your opinion. I’ve looked at a decent number of studies on the topic recently, and they all seen to point to the conclusion that a diet without meat can be healthy for cats, so long as it contains all the nutrients they need.
Intresting paper. It is not the conclusive evidence that you think it is. It’s ok, reading science is hard.
Paper concluded that the vegan diet did not seem to have adverse effects, but they had a very small sample size and the expiriment went on for a very short duration.
And then they site scientific papers that disagree with their findings. So there definitely is science out there that disagrees with the vegan diet being ok.
a bit less aggressive please and then this comment is almost perfect
Nah I matched the tone of who I was responding to.
true true, but:
An eye for an eye…
If you don’t want a toxic internet, it’s on us to start it
A vet friend in a very trendy city encounters a lot of cats with significant health problems that stem from their owner’s attempt at a vegan diet, so whether or not it’s possible, too many people harm the health of their pets through attempting a vegan diet for it to be a safe thing to recommend trying
heavy sigh
Vegans be reposting this link everywhere not realizing how silly it makes them look. First, one of its big points is that there hasn’t been much research done into feeding cats vegan diets, mostly because it’s a bad idea.
Some great lines:
Cats on a high-protein vegetarian diet exhibited hypokalemia which accompanied recurrent polymyopathy. There was also increased creatinine kinase activity, likely reflecting the muscle damage caused by the myopathy, and reduced urinary potassium concentrations.
To simplify: even with protein supplements your cats muscles will decay over time.
showed that plasma taurine concentrations decreased by approximately 87% after only 2 weeks on a vegetarian diet (from 122 μmol/L to 16μmol/L). By the end of the 6-week study, there was no detectable taurine in plasma. Taurine concentrations were not different between the potassium-supplemented and non-supplemented groups, with both groups showing this substantial drop in taurine.
To simplify: Taurine supplements didn’t work. Though findings are mixed between all like, 3 studies that tried
In cats fed vegetarian diets that were supplemented with potassium, a myopathy was seen within 2 weeks of the dietary change this was characterized by ventroflexion of the head and the neck. The cats also showed lateral head resting, a stiff gait, muscular weakness, unsteadiness, and the occasional tremor of the head and pinnae.
To simplify: your car feels like shit and acts like they feel like shit
Weight loss and poor coat condition have also been observed in cats fed vegetarian diets. However, most cats in another study had a normal coat condition and no obviously diet-related clinical abnormalities picked up by clinical examination [27]. Clinical signs of lethargy with altered mentation, dysorexia, and muscle wasting, along with gut signs of bloating and increased borborygmi have also been observed [30].
Simplify: it was bad. Sometimes it wasn’t so bad, but lots of times it was bad and the owner should feel bad
I can keep going, literally every paragraph has some good “don’t fucking do that” material.
Hey thanks for reading the analysis!
I just have a couple points:
The specific study you are referencing in the first 3 quotes is this one. In this study, cats were fed a “human vegetarian” diet. It was not cat food supplemented with more protein, it was casserole mince. The issue isn’t that taurine suppliments don’t work, it’s that those cats didn’t ge any taurine. From the remaining studies in the analysis, cats did not have any issue with taurine on a diet of commercial vegan cat food.
For your last quote, the study they referenced is unfortunately behind a paywall. I do know it was a case study of only 2 cats, while there are other studies with a much larger sample size.
In the future, if you see the same citation used over and over in an article like this, is usually a good idea to go and read it. It will make your time understanding the rest of the article much easier.
I’m going to end with a quite from the publishers of this article that sums it up pretty well for me:
This review has found that there is no convincing evidence of major impacts of vegan diets on dog or cat health.
Thank you for the summary! I found myself in OP. I am eating mostly vegan, and I have a cat, and I believe people who force a vegan (or even vegetarian) diet on their cats need mental help.
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.
What the hell? If a human decides to go vegan, then great! But forcing a CARNIVOROUS animal into it is just animal abuse.
They have multiple text wall posts rambling on about Taurine and B12 they think will prove you wrong.
They’re probably going to fuck off to one of the pariah subs like Hexbear, by the sound of it. They don’t like their views being challenged.
Vegan cats is such a weird hill to die on for vegans. Mostly, because it isn’t a hill. Hills give you tactical advantage. The position with the vegan cats is basically indefensible. I can’t say for sure that it’s impossible to feed cats a vegan diet that’s healthy for them.
I’ve googled ‘vegan cats’ and the first thing I found was an article from the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/sep/13/cats-may-get-health-benefits-from-vegan-diet-study-suggests. However, a problem I have with the article, and the study linked (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0284132) is that the methodology was for the pet owners to report the cats health status. I feel that this doesn’t produce a reliable result. The most important factor is that it’s not a controlled environment. The cats may be allowed outside, which means that they would supplement their diet through hunting. My standard for evidence is a study were the cats are fed a vegan diet in a controlled setting.
The second artice found (https://theconversation.com/is-it-really-safe-to-feed-your-cat-a-vegan-diet-213356) Also mentions the same study, which doesn’t meet my standard of evidence. (Cats are fed a vegan diet in a controlled setting where they can’t supplement their diet)
The third result (https://www.bluecross.org.uk/advice/cat/food-and-weight/can-cats-be-vegan) Says that cats can’t be vegan, but then says that some vegan cat foods do exist. No article link as to the veracity of claims.
The fourth result, from the university of Winchester, refers to the aforementioned study (https://www.winchester.ac.uk/news-and-events/press-centre/media-articles/vegan-diet-healthier-for-cats-than-meat-according-to-new-survey.php).
The fifth result, a site called Vegan Outreach (https://veganoutreach.org/vegan-diets-cats/) seems to provide a nuanced take, I skimmed the article, and their conclusion says that more research is needed. They mention another study which tested two vegan diets for cats found them lacking in key nutrients.
Sixth result is the study most of these articles refer to (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0284132).
Seventh is an article by PETA. I don’t consider these guys trustworthy.
Anyway, those are basically research notes from a short googling session.
The position with the vegan cats is basically indefensible.
What do all organisms, including animals, need to properly maintain their metabolism?
Nutrients.
What are nutrients?
A bunch of different chemicals.Depending on the specific organism, another set of nutrients is required, also varying in amount of course.
All required nutrients for humans at least can be obtained or synthesized from non-animal compounds.
From that simplified perspective, it’s absolutely rational to explore how we could feed animals like cats on a purely vegan diet.
But it’s certainly nothing which should be left to do for the layman alone, as veterinarian care is advisable if harming the animal should be avoided.Well, this line of thinking is what got me doing research on whether cats can be fed a vegan diet.
“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.
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.
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.
"Bro, did you eat a date? That killed a bee or something. Not cool.”
I’m a level 5 vegan. I won’t eat anything that casts a shadow.
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”.
As you might have experienced, it’s pretty hard to be vegan in a carnist world. People talk about animal abuse all the time, they confront you all the time, make fun of you. Most don’t want to talk about it, they want to shut you up. The hate and ignorance is strong and different people react diffrently to that situation. Some stay quiet, like yourself, some get vocal. Some debate, some get angry. Calling vegans insufferable is like calling gays insufferable, or feminists. Some might be. We have recognized a major injustice and we want to change it.
“Bro, did you eat a date? That killed a bee or something. Not cool.”
That’s rage bait and you made it up. Why would anyone say that?
Hey bud you really need to get off the cross. You just compared your eating preferences which are 100% a choice to someone being born homosexual and not wanting to be killed for it or being born/transitioning to a woman and wanting the same basic human rights as the other half of our species. Honestly you need to just shut up and think about that for a hot second.
I oppose racism, sexism, trans- and homophobia. And I oppose speciesism as well. It’s the same system: One group considers another group as less valuable and exploits, abuses or fights them.
You just draw the line at you own species.
Animals are innocent, vulnerable and easy to abuse because they don’t have a voice and don’t understand the situation we put them in. If they were human children or mentally disabled humans, we would protect them from harm because of who they are. Instead, we do the most horrible things to them, we take their freedom, their babies, their lifes. In factories, on an industrial scale. Because a pig is just a pig, right?EDIT: Please reply, don’t just silently downvote. What’s your refutation?
What are you talking about? Don’t you also draw a line when you choose to eat plants? I don’t think they would agree to that. Untill humans develop the ability to photosynthesize, we are going to have to eat other species, there’s no way around it.
Don’t you also draw a line when you choose to eat plants?
I think there’s a reasonable distinction here. You would presumably also draw a line between a conscious human and a brain dead human that won’t ever be conscious again. As far as we can reasonably tell, consciousness requires a brain. Dogs and pigs have brains, so maybe we shouldn’t torture and kill them on factory farms. We can also see them suffering and measure their physical reaction to it.
Of course there’s a possibility that plants have some kind of consciousness too, but 1. that’s speculation and 2. there’s no way around farming them, as you have said yourself:
Untill humans develop the ability to photosynthesize, we are going to have to eat other species, there’s no way around it.
Farming animals will always require far more plant deaths than growing plants for human consumption. These animals have to grow for months before being slaughtered and literally eat tons of animal feed in that time.
Therefore, plant-based food minimizes both animal suffering and deaths as well as plant deaths.
I’m not convinced that plant deaths are an ethical issue in of themselves, but farming has environmental implications so it makes sense to minimize the food that needs to be grown and make the farming as environmentally friendly as reasonably possible.
no one wants to torture animals.
PLANTS HAVE FEELINGS TOO
is #22 on the Vegan Bullshit Bingo:No, they do not. There is no serious study to suggest that they do. Plants do not have a brain or central nervous system. At most, they respond to stimuli. If you really care that much about the welfare of plants, you should go vegan, since many more plants “die” for animal feeding. Do you feel bad while mowing your lawn? And would you rather rescue a potted plant than a dog from a burning house? Is docking pig tails the same as branch trimming to you? Question upon question…
You just compared your eating preferences which are 100% a choice to someone being born homosexual and not wanting to be killed for it
All the animals on factory farms didn’t choose to be born there and don’t want to be killed either.
It’s not about the sensitivities of humans, but the insane suffering of animals in this system of oppression.
You’re not the animals. You’re not even a good spokesperson for the animals.
You don’t give a shit about the animals. You’re just a pathetic histrionic giving into your tendencies here to tank a conversation for a hit.
You’re not the animals.
I literally wrote that this isn’t about me/humans, so yes, obviously.
There are many groups that are suffering and that I’m not part of, and I still care about what’s happening to them and want the suffering to end. It seems like most lemmy users share that sentiment when it comes to oppressed humans, so I really don’t get what’s so hard to understand about that when I extend it to animals.
You might have the opinion that factory farming isn’t a social justice issue, fine. Me having a different opinion doesn’t negatively affect you in any way. Why are you so pissed at me just because I see it differently?
You jumped in on a conversation where a person compared veganism as if it’s a persecution comparable to the LBGTQ.
Veganism is A diet choice. That’s all it is. That is all you’re doing here.
This is not you living as a member of the LBGTQ.
You are not a suffragette.
There will be no pivoting off of it here today and play shitty white knight for the animals.
What in the actual fuck. You are comparing yourself to LBGTQ and what they’ve had to endure???
You think your struggle is anything like feminism???
Maybe throw in some slavery there. Ya know, get all your basis of inappropriate covered.
Might as well go whole ass with the bullshit you’re pulling here.
you are choosing a lifestyle. Not even that. You’re choosing what you consume. That’s it. You are not persecuted for something that is NOT a choice you made. You are NOT being persecute for what appearance you were born into.
It is a far cry from being watched out for and spotted and then targetted to how vegans target others.
Stop appropriating an actual minority group that had to defend their rights just to live with the same rights as others.
You talk like you’re the actual cow getting slaughtered for burgers.
you’re not that cow either.
And you’re not even a good spokesperson for that cow. At best you’re just a shitty white knight. You don’t even care about cows that are getting slaughtered cuz you wouldn’t tank a conversation so badly as you had if you actually gave a fuck and wasn’t just stroking off to your own ego for picking dumb fights with shit ideals about your grandeur. Worst ally ever.
‘Plant based’ was a rebrand of veganism because of what vegans did to veganism.
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
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)
Oh you must also be a reddit uaer… Here you go: /s
Lol pretty sure /s has been around LONG before Reddit
I’ve just discovered a new game: start posting how you love windows, meat and Elon, place bets who will attack you first
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
Linux evangelicals
We just want to save your code from eternal damnation
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as vegan, is in fact, GNU/vegan, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus vegan.
You know I really hate vegans, but I FUCKING REALLY HATE Linux evangelicals, and they are FUCKING EVERYWHERE HERE.
Anyway, fuck veganism and linux
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.
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?
Exactly my experience. I often heard stories of vegans being like that, but I never ever saw it so I thought it was just made up to belittle vegans.
Then I joined lemmy and found out that I’m apparently in favour of massacres, slavery and rape because I consume meat/milk/eggs from time to time.
I imagine the vast majority of vegans just go about their lives and resprectfully discuss the ethics of animal consumption when the topic comes up, but these loud militant members really make vegans look bad and they sure as hell make it so that even less people consider going vegan
I’m curious. You eat meat, but you’re not in favour of massacres. Alright, explain it to me.
I’m not in favor of it, but I’m not going to stop eating meat. The second lab grown meat is available to people in my economic tier I’ll switch exclusively to that.
Ah, so you’re saying you don’t like it, but you find it an acceptable sacrifice to make in exchange for yummy food?
In 5+ decades of living I have never once met a sane vegan, not once.
And I’ve met hundreds…
For the most part, the “unreasonable vegan” stereotype comes from two places.
- Confirmation bias. Veganism makes people uncomfortable with their own decisions, so people spread around the most outrageous stories about vegans as a defense mechanism. This is the same thing that happens in various circles with anyone whose mere existence makes other people insecure; e.g., teetotalers, or polyamorous people.
- Just plain disagreeing with them. There are lots of vegan arguments that are logically valid, but they sound outrageous if you don’t already agree with them. People have trouble looking past their initial emotional reactions, so they respond to logically valid arguments with mere incredulity.
There’s a 3rd source: Trying for 3 decades to have a reasonable conversation with one, with hundreds of attempts made.
I’d be interested in seeing a trace of one of those conversations.
No you wouldn’t, they never go anywhere except to heated exchanges of unpleasant labels.
There’s really no use in talking to them, nor anything to be learned or won. It’s just losses for everyone.
I am a vegan. Is this conversation unreasonable?
Are you talking to the same person, or the same few people, repeatedly? There certainly are people out there who just are unreasonable. You can’t expect individuals to change.
Otherwise, I guess (and I admit that this is biased in my favor) that you simply disagree with each other at a foundational level, and that’s causing you to talk past each other.
I think that most people don’t really know how to discourse with people who have differing ethical foundations, because it can lead to situations where a person who meets all the societal criteria of a “good person” is nonetheless committing (according to whatever ethical precepts) a horrible crime. But, in this context, accusing someone of committing a horrible crime is not unreasonable; in fact, it’s too reasonable; it involves prioritizing reason over tact and politeness.
Are you talking to the same person, or the same few people, repeatedly?
Roughly 10% are repeat conversations, though I’ve rarely had a contact be kept past 3 exchanges, and not a ‘few’ people by any metric.
you simply disagree with each other at a foundational level, and that’s causing you to talk past each other.
I appreciate how you are trying to make this a ‘both sides’ thing, but it really isn’t and I have no way of imparting 30 years of frustrating experience in a way you will find meaningful.
Since you claim to be a reasonable vegan, then maybe this is the best place for this:
-
What are your plans for all the currently living domesticated animals if, hypothetically, meat eating is made illegal?
-
Have you ever considered that being raised by humans for consumption is literally the most wildly successful species survival strategy that natural selection has ever thrown up? Literally no wild animal thrives as well as a cared for domesticated example, and domesticated animals released in the wild have an abysmal survival rate. (it is literally animal cruelty to release most domesticated animals into the wild, with the exception of pigs. They can re-adapt no problems)
-
Meat is one of the most nutrient dense foods out there and is likely the entire reason we were able to develop these incredibly energy and nutrient expensive brains, have you considered what the long term species ramifications are for us if we choose to stop a standard practice that has been with us since before our species was even human yet?
-
What is your stance on pets?
-
Do you not think the critical need for specific supplements to maintain good health is a sign that the diet was never intended for our normal operation?
-
I would like to hear your opinion on parents raising their infants to be vegan from birth.
These are the questions I would usually ask to vegans I meet in the world and online. Most responses are immediate verbal abuse and a refusal to continue communications.
I sincerely hope you are a better person than that and I can FINALLY have this discussion start to finish.
-
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?
Ethical treatment would be not to own one in the first place.
So the ethical thing is to send my dog into the wilds to die? Or have it turn into a stray dog gang with all the other dogs “ethical” people let go, and then kill them because they become a menace to society? Or is the ethical thing to let them eat us?
If you want a real answer, ethically you should not have gotten a carnivore in the first place and reduce the demand for carnivore pets. After that it’s just a math problem, how many factory farmed animals will that dog eat throughout it’s life? You won’t like this answer, but what’s more humane, euthanasia of 1 dog, or factory farming of ~4 animals (who had lives anywhere from constant suffering to just slightly suffering) throughout it’s lifespan.
Ah the utilitarian approach. You’re just one species away from saying it’s okay to kill people because most people eat meat. Afterall the math problem is exactly the same for people, except people eat even more meat so from a math point of view it’s even more logical to kill a person than a dog. I’ll walk you through this conundrum.
You can choose to say it is okay to kill people who eat meat and good luck talking about the ethics of killing people.
You can choose to say it’s not okay to kill people, but now you’re not treating life equally because now a human life is worth more than the dogs life. So what’s stopping me from saying that the the dog is worth more than the 4 animals who get killed?
And if you want me to prove the dog is worth more than the animals I’ll just ask you to prove that a human is worth more than the dog. If you can’t prove that you’re back to saying it’s okay to kill people.
You can’t solve this problem through utilitarianism and then talk about ethics because utilitarian solutions often end up being unethical.
I would rather say we should make it illegal to do things that cause an inordinate amount of suffering to animals. I would prefer not to kill the dog either, but since most people in this thread seem to believe a vegan diet with supplements is impossible for carnivore pets, what other option is there?
Personally I see some difference between a dog and a human just as I see a difference between an ant and a dog, probably based on how consciously aware they are. Obviously I would hope to have legal or social consequences for people who eat meat. However If I had someone who would pay someone else to torture 1 animal a day, and then eat it, meaning ~30,000 animals would be tortured throughout their life, and I have no way to make them stop besides killing them, what is your proposed solution? I want to hear the non utilitarian answer to this problem, in this hypothetical where killing them is the only way to stop the behavior.
The most “moral” thing to do would be for vegans to make it impossible for factory farming to exist, but veganism is still a minority and doesn’t have that kind of power. You’ve baked in that the only options are “kill people who eat meat” or “do nothing.” In a situation where all humans were strict carnivores, that’s a much harder question. Should someone be allowed to exist when their existence relies on the suffering of others? I don’t know and luckily I don’t have to know because we can stop factory farming without killing anyone, and put pets on a maybe-suboptimal-requires-monitoring “abusive” diet, rather than factory farming millions of animals for them.
e: this is basically just a more complicated version of the trolley problem, would you kill one person to save 4 others? what about kill one person to save 200 animals? I guess if you don’t value animals at all, you would never kill the person. For me, yes at some point there would be a limit, where that is it’s hard to answer.
“My extremist beliefs say I shouldn’t own a cat. Cool. My extremist beliefs say that you shouldn’t own a cat. Fuck off.”
I thought you were going to block all of my accounts? I even set about the process of logging out to each one and replying, “This one!” from each then got bored or distracted and didn’t do it. I kind of liked the idea since you seemed to need a safe space and you could create it for yourself.
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.
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.
This. My experience has been that internet vegans are more concerned with judging others than caring about animals.
Peter Singer isn’t actually vegan (he is human garbage though), so idk why vegans still idolize him so much
(am vegan)
I hold no allegiance to Singer, I was merely using him as an example since he is a well known moral philosopher. But now I’m curious, what’s the tea, why is he so bad? What makes him deserving of the title human garbage?
From a 2004 interview:
Concerning bestiality - should people have sex with animals, seen as willing participants? – he responded, “I would ask, ‘What’s holding you back from a more fulfilling relationship?’ (but) it’s not wrong inherently in a moral sense.”
Is there anything wrong with a society in which children are bred for spare parts on a massive scale? “No.”
From a 2001 review:
But sex with animals does not always involve cruelty. Who has not been at a social occasion disturbed by the household dog gripping the legs of a visitor and vigorously rubbing its penis against them? The host usually discourages such activities, but not everyone objects to being used by his or her dog in this way, and occasionally mutually satisfying activities may develop.
Article on a 2015 case of a woman sexually assaulting her student, a mute man with cerebral palsy:
If we assume that he is profoundly cognitively impaired, we should concede that he cannot understand the normal significance of sexual relations between persons or the meaning and significance of sexual violation. These are, after all, difficult to articulate even for persons of normal cognitive capacity. In that case, he is incapable of giving or withholding informed consent to sexual relations; indeed, he may lack the concept of consent altogether.
This does not exclude the possibility that he was wronged by Stubblefield [the assaulter], but it makes it less clear what the nature of the wrong might be. It seems reasonable to assume that the experience was pleasurable to him; for even if he is cognitively impaired, he was capable of struggling to resist, and […] it is implausible to suppose that Stubblefield forcibly subdued him. On the assumption that he is profoundly cognitively impaired, therefore, it seems that if Stubblefield wronged or harmed him, it must have been in a way that he is incapable of understanding and that affected his experience only pleasurably.
There’s also this statement by the National Council on Disability in response to Singer’s appearance on a radio show.
Singer’s statements supporting eugenics, which is what he’s most notorious for, are also not difficult to find.
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 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.
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.
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?
It started because a Lemmy.World ADMIN (allegedly carnist) decided to start removing comments about feeding a vegan diet to a cat.
The comments in question were perfectly fine, they literally explained how pets and specifically cats need a few very important nutrients, which are specifically added to vegan pet food. The comments explained in depth about what nutrients they need and where those nutrients come from originally. The comments also warned that you need to be very careful about what you feed them and that you have to do your research, and have to examine the behavior and health of your pet if you decide to do this.
Mister admin decided it was misinformation, even though it broke none of the Lemmy.World rules or /c/vegan rules. Nor was it even misinformation.
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.
So nuance you say?
Vegans get an amazing amount of hate. And this hate is public and ACCEPTED.
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.
Same goes the other way around. There’s people treating vegans like trash. Even threatening them.
on lemmy?
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 hate.
They are projecting their ignorance of their own molested values and morals.
People hate it when you get real, and veganism is the realest it can get. “Live and let live”
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?
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?
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.
They can have a perfectly fine vegan diet.
I think all of you need to: GET OVER IT.
It’s just that simple.
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.
I think it is a lot more ethical than forcing death because people enjoy eating their meat.
Also, “forced” is the wrong word. Only very few vegans would be stupid enough to not monitor their pet in these cases. And you can talk shit about them as much as you want because they are wrong. But somebody that’s just trying to see if it’s possible while monitoring and following up on the health of their animals? Sure.
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.
Aww buddy. You lil’ hypocrite. Who’s a little boy that pays people to have animals killed? You are, yes you are! Awww!
What was that about me caring for a cat again?
You people are unhinged.
Ok vegan
Yep I care for all living animals. That’s why I said “hypocrite”, because I don’t think meat eaters should even join the discussion considering they pay for murder. While vegans discuss having a healthy cat with less murder.
But hey, you do you. I’m hypocrite sometimes too. It took me 25 years before I realized I was selfish.
no one pays for murder
Sometimes people pay for murder.
Awww. I would love to live in blissful ignorance like you.
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?
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).
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.
It even comes packaged, with a price on it… And you choose “yes i want murder” when you put it in your little basket…
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?
…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.
I simply used the definition that was used in the post by the /c/vegan mod(s).
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.
Get your facts straight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnism
You’re making stuff up
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.
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:
Pretty sure the ampersand (&) doesn’t work in website URLs like that. (Yes, it does work in URLs, but, without going into detail, it’s typically only used towards the end of the URL.)
That’s what tipped me off about the fake URL.
Nice try, but my app shows link previews.
Veganism: Great lifestyle. Wretched, toxic community (mostly).
EDIT: I want to add I’m very much pro-vegan. They’re literally right. I probably will go vegan as soon as I work out a solution to my eating disorder (ARFID). You just won’t see me in any community. They just seem psychologically unhealthy.
I hate that Vegans are defined by the psychopath edge cases.
I know 3 vegans. Two of them have cats. They aren’t delusional. They know cats are carnivores. They wish people ate more veggies. But live your life, you know?
The other vegan I know choose veganism because of serious life-threatening issues where meat was causing hospital visits. She went cold turkey and will watch you eat a steak and wishing she could do the same.
It’s fucking weird watching people shit on them. All because a psychopath on the internet speaks for all vegans and shoves broccoli into a cats mouth.
The other vegan I know choose veganism because of serious life-threatening issues where meat was causing hospital visits. She went cold turkey and will watch you eat a steak and wishing she could do the same.
That doesn’t really sound like a vegan to me, that’s just a person who is on a plant based diet. Veganism is a moral stance
I’m on a similar train. Once I get over myself, I’m going vegan.
As a vegan, can confirm.
When I was on reddit, I could not be part of the r/vegan community, it was fucked.
The community here on Lemmy was better (though I wasn’t subbed because these communities are mostly newcomers to the vegan scene coming fresh off the high of being morally superior to the carnists).
The good vegan communities were the ones focused on recipes.
If you want to discus animal liberation, good, go do that, but I don’t want to my feed to be a combination of dinner and animal abuse. I’m trying to move past that…
What is your best breakfast recipe that isn’t oatmeal?
The texture horrifies me, but it seems to be the go-to these days.
I like peanut butter toasts, but my son is allergic to peanuts and coming to that age where he touches everything. So I need to find alternatives.
I highly recommend scrambled tofu.
By the name, I assume that it is similar to scrambled eggs, but with tofu?
I’ll look into that. Thanks
It’s like being a non-smoker on a party where everybody smokes. Almost nobody wants to hear that they’re doing something wrong. Toxicity is literally in the non-vegan community, warming up the climate and all, decreasing biodiversity, mistreating and killing animals for pleasure.
Have you stopped to think that plants also suffer stress when being picked?
It’s kinda one-faceted to just ignore that suffering while focusing on other suffering don’t you think?
True ethical consumption doesn’t exist the way you have it defined.
Have you stopped to think that plants also suffer stress when being picked?
Yes. And they don’t
you can’t prove this
And you can’t prove it either. provide some evidence for your claim (that isn’t some unrelated study misinterpreted by silly news anchors)
while you can’t prove a negative, it is possible to find evidence for a positive claim. so, very much, you don’t know that. the truest thing anyone can say is that there is not a conclusive study that supports the claim.
Even if plants might feel pain, we are certain that animals feel pain. Also if you think for whatever reason that plants feel pain, then, well, a vegan diet uses less plants because its a more efficient food source. Plants feeling pain, whether true or false, isn’t an argument against veganism in any way.
You see, when you come into a comment thread defending your stance and still decide you need to act like a cunt, that’s exactly why people don’t like vegan communities.
That didn’t seem particularly cunt-ish to me.
Yeah I don’t get all these crazy harsh responses to this particular comment.
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.
They banned an admin and reinstated a bunch of deleted comments.
I don’t know what else they expected.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I wonder if we need some kind of middle ground like Twitter where you leave the content up, with a big banner saying “this content is bullshit and here is the evidence”?
While I agree that harmful information should probably be hidden so that impressionable people don’t act on it, I also don’t like non-experts being the arbiters of censorship.
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.
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.
I’m sure I’d enjoy a vegan cat. Probably less chewy.
It’s more that they have weaker muscles so they come pretenderized.
