Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties:
I recently heard on the radio that Ellen DeGeneres is coming out with a line of vegan cat food. Is that even a healthy possibility for our cats? I thought they naturally ate meat proteins.
~ Donna
Do these look like the teeth of an herbivore to you? Image courtesy of free-extras.com
Siouxsie: After all four of us (that would be the three of us cats and Mama too) went “WHAAAAT?!?” when we heard that Ellen’s pet food company is coming out with a line of vegan cat foods, we did some research to verify this fact. It seems that this tidbit has been reported in more than one place, so we’re reasonably certain there’s some truth to it. (Update Dec. 12, 2011: it seems the rumor about Ellen’s line of vegan pet foods — including cat food — has been substantiated. Read the article here.)
Update again: In response to questions from its followers, Halo tweeted on Tuesday, Dec. 13, that they have no plans to introduce a vegan cat food — although they do have plans to introduce a vegan dog food in 2012. We apologize for any part we had in spreading this misinformation.
Thomas: Apparently there’s a fairly decent niche business in the vegan pet food market. We even found a website that sells only vegan dog and cat foods.
Dahlia: We know quite a few vegan humans, and we understand and respect the health, spiritual and political reasons for their choice to embrace an animal product-free lifestyle. But the fact of the matter is that while most humans can live well on a vegetarian or vegan diet, cats can’t — no matter what PETA or the celebrity talking-head of the week says.
Siouxsie: Cats are obligate carnivores. They have to eat meat in order to stay healthy. While many domestic cats seem to do okay on grain-based kibble, it does not provide optimum nutrition. In fact, a number of veterinarians and nutritionists attribute the alarming rise in feline obesity and diseases like diabetes and chronic urinary and digestive problems to a carbohydrate-rich diet.
The teeth of a carnivore on the left and those of an herbivore on the right. Herbivores have lots of molars for grinding their food. They also don't have fangs or incisors. Carnivores like cats, on the other hand, have few if any molars and the teeth they do have are designed for ripping, not grinding. Image courtesy of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management
Thomas: How do we know cats are carnivores? First, just take a look at their anatomy. While humans and herbivorous (plant-eating) animals like horses have relatively large stomachs, molars designed for grinding food, and a long intestinal tract that allows time to absorb nutrients from plant foods, cats have small stomachs, short intestines, and teeth designed for ripping meat off bones and swallowing it whole.
Thomas: And because cats evolved to be such specialized carnivores, their bodies lack the chemicals necessary to digest and use the energy from grains.
Dahlia: Because we’re designed to be meat eaters, our livers are always creating the enzymes needed to break down proteins. In humans and other omnivorous animals, the liver starts and stops making the enzymes as needed.
Siouxsie: That’s one reason why cats get so sick if they don’t eat for a while. If there’s no food to break down, a cat’s body starts breaking down the proteins that keep the body functioning.
Thomas: While humans and other animals are able to manufacture an enzyme called Taurine, cats aren’t. We need to get our taurine from the food we eat, and the best source of taurine is … meat.
Dahlia: Sure, pet food manufacturers supplement the cat foods they make with a variety of vitamins and nutrients, including taurine, but eating an unnatural diet — whether it’s a vegan diet or one composed strictly of colorful meat-flavored kibbles — is, in the long run, not the healthiest choice for your cat.
Siouxsie: So, exactly what’s in vegan cat food? And how do they make it palatable for carnivorous animals?
Thomas: Mama went to the vegan pet food website we mentioned earlier (we’re not going to link to it, but you can Google “vegan cat food” and it’ll appear in the top of the results) and took a look at the ingredients in some of these products.
Dahlia: Every single pre-made vegan kibble at that site was filled with grain! The first three ingredients in one vegan kibble were corn gluten, corn oil, and rice protein. Another vegan kibble’s ingredient list began with whole grain ground wheat, corn gluten meal and soybean meal.
Siouxsie: The vegan canned cat food wasn’t much better. Its first three ingredients (after “water sufficient for processing”) were peas, brown rice and avocado.
Thomas: If I ate those foods, I’d get so sick! I’d be crying in pain and having awful, awful diarrhea all the time!
Dahlia: There, there, Thomas. It’s okay. Mama knows you have a serious sensitivity to grains and she would never feed you anything that would make you suffer like that.
Siouxsie: Even if Thomas didn’t have digestive issues, we still wouldn’t eat cat food with grain in it. Like we said earlier, cats’ bodies are not designed to digest grain. We strongly advocate for grain-free diets for all cats, whether or not they can eat grain without getting obviously sick.
Thomas: The botrom line, Donna, is — you’re right. Cats do need to eat meat protein to be healthy.
Dahlia: And if you want a fluffy pet that’s also a vegan … get a bunny!
JaneA Kelley is a punk rock cat mom and award-winning blogger. She is a regular columnist for Catster Magazine, and she and the Paws and Effect Gang share a home in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
My (human) mom raised us as vegetarians, but never ever would have done that to our feline companions! Even we need to supplement our diets with proteins in order to be healthy, and we *have* the physiology to break down and use vegetation and grain.
As much as I generally looove Ellen, I can’t believe she’s advocating a grain-rich diet for cats. I hope a veterinarian and/or nutritionist speak out on this. How do these foods get past any regulating agencies? (Are there any for pet foods??)
Thank you for this post. Yes, we cats are obligate carnivores.
Please keep spreading the word…this makes me shiver with fear and apprehension as so many people don’t take the time to educate themselves before diving in to the ‘next big thing’…I’m sharing your post…Everywhere!
Layla, there really is no body that regulates the pet food industry. The American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) sets nutritional guidelines that pet food companies are supposed to abide by when they make their products — and as long as the food meets those guidelines, it’s allowed to carry the AAFCO standards label. What the AAFCO standards DON’T do is provide any measure of quality control or inspection standards for pet food producers.
Also, many vets and nutritionists question just how useful a marker AAFCO standards are.
You might want to check out the Feline Nutrition Education Society website, http://www.feline-nutrition.org, for more information about nutrition, AAFCO standards, and the benefits of feeding a grain-free or raw diet (full disclosure: Mama’s a member of FNES).
I thought cats were true carnivores and also could not digest carbs properly…so a vegan diet seems a bit unhealthy to say the least! Very disconcerting that someone who apparently loves animals and wants to do a good deed is so uneducated about their own endeavor.
i agree with you there. i was just on Facebook and every cat owner that says their cat is on a vegan diet says their cat is healthy. i don’t know why people are doing this to cats cats aren’t herbivores their conivors. even my friends say it not right to take them off their meat diet and put it onto a vegan diet it makes me sad seeing how the vegans are taking to conivorse to make them herbivore
Thanks for this and happily shared. After a proper marketing analysis, I doubt this project will get off the ground. All us cat bloggers who educate need to keep spreading this kind of coverage.
This is wrong on a number of different levels: 1) the scientific/ biologic level, where it is proven our diet needs as felines are served best by a primarily meat diet, 2) humans putting their own beliefs and desires ahead of what is best for us cats 3) ewww, who wants to eat all grain all the time with supplemental stuff to try to fix its lacks? I’d like to see humans spend their lives eating gruel that had vitamins and minerals added to it. Humans, please do not force this unnatural diet on us!
I’m sorry… Ellen DeGeneres is an idiot, and this just makes her a dangerous idiot. And what’s worse is that she is a dangerous idiot with a following, and that means that a lot of cats are going to suffer as a result of her self-indulgent ignorance.
With care, it’s quite possible to have a healthy, happy vegan cat. I’ve met more than a few.
Remember, the diseased-corpse-in-a-can found at your local grocery store is of such low quality that manufacturers have to add nutrients just to bring it up to minimal nutritional standards. Besides, as a feline nutritionist from UC Davis is quoted as saying, “cats don’t need meat. They need specific nutrients found in meat and if they can get that some other way then they can be reasonably healthy on a vegan diet.” (Reference: .)
It doesn’t matter whether your cat gets those nutrients from fortified vegan kibble or from fortified scrapings from a slaughterhouse floor. Neither is more “natural”. We may think it’s wrong to “force our morality” onto our cats by choosing their diets, but we’re already making that choice. When we choose meat-based foods, other animals have to suffer and die, whether it’s chickens who’ve had their nerve-rich beaks burned off without anaesthesia, forced to live their short, tortured lives in crowded cages; or cows hung upside down on a conveyer belt and butchered so sloppily that they remain conscious through the disembowling procedure. The list of routine horrors involved in meat production goes on and on.
We wouldn’t subject our cats to such cruelty, so why should we treat other animals any differently? When we inevitably choose a diet for them, why not choose one that reduces some of that suffering and death instead of creating even more?
Further reading:
http://www.vegforlife.org/dogscats.htm
http://www.ivu.org/faq/animals.html
http://www.vegancats.com/faq.html
I never knew that Ellen is such an idiot. Grain filled diet??? That is exactly what cats should not have. Perhaps that is OK for humans but not for cats.
Somebody should let Ellen know…Thanx for the blog!
I have 5 kitties and feed a large feral colony and most of them (not all) go crazy over occasional feedings of beef, chicken, turkey, ham, deer, etc. Their enthusiasm is awesome. While I respect and love all animals and love vegetables as well, I cannot live without some of the above mentioned. Peta would like everyone to stop eating meat and yet, when it comes to the feral cats they claim they would be better off euthanized than be neutered and put into colonies. If not one ate meat, then I wonder what would happen to all the cows, pigs, etc. They wouldn’t all be able to be pets, so would they, too, be rounded up for euthanization because there is no one to care for them?
Hi, Hoss. It’s certainly true that most commercial meat-based cat foods are made from unhealthy animals and generally processed to the point where artificial nutrients have to be added in to make it even vaguely nutritious. However, the fact that vegan cat foods don’t contain “diseased corpse in a can” doesn’t make them any healthier for cats than commercial meat-based cat foods.
The fact remains that the cat’s biology is specifically designed to eat a diet of meat. Cats do not have the physiology to get anything they need from grains, and in fact, many cats have a great sensitivity to grains. Even those that are not sensitive to grains can suffer from preventable health conditions such as obesity and diabetes when they are fed a diet too high in carbohydrates.
There are many ways to feed cats a high-quality meat-based diet that meets their nutritional needs and doesn’t make use of 4-D meats and other unsavory ingredients. There’s plenty of good information on how to feed cats a wholesome, ethically sound and species-appropriate diet. We’d recommend “Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Care for Dogs and Cats” by Richard Pitcairn, DVM, et. al., and “The New Natural Cat” by Anitra Frazier as a good starting point; these books discuss not only the problems with commercial cat foods but provide recipes to cook a medically proven raw-food diet that meets your cat’s needs.
what the hell is in your vegan cat food that makes it better for cats if there isnt any meat in it
No, cats can not go on a no vegan diet because cats NEED milk to support their immune system and for their bones to stay strong for climbing.
I can’t believe the canned cat food you mentioned actually had avocado in it. That’s one of the three human foods my vet said my cats should never have (onions and ham being the other two).
who buys cat food at the local supermarket?!
if you want to stay on the dry kibble diet then i highly recommend Orijen Cat food. my guys have been on it for years. it is made by Champion foods from Canada, their cat food is 80% fresh meat (not by product!) and 20% veggies.
in my household we just recently started a raw meat diet for 4 out of 5 cats (the fifth is refusing to transfer). we’re taking it slow but it’s going good for most of my cats.
Yes- and the vegan cat foods we carry contain adequate amounts. Although Taurine naturally occurs only in animal tissue, synthetic Taurine has been produced on a large scale since about 1930. In fact, many meat-based pet foods utilize synthetic Taurine to meet nutritional requirements as well (most naturally-occurring Taurine is washed away during the rendering process)!
While I can agree that the “canned diseased corpse”, as one comment so eloquently put it, is not good for your cat, I think that this whole topic makes for a great examination of vegans and their attitudes towards meat in general.
As has been pointed out, cats are obligate carnivores. Bay definition,Obligate or true carnivores depend solely on the nutrients found in animal flesh for their survival. While they may consume small amounts of plant material, they lack the physiology required for the efficient digestion of vegetable matter and, in fact, some carnivorous mammals eat vegetation specifically as an emetic, i.e a substance that will induce vomiting.
The key phrase that vegans seem to miss here is that cats lack the physiology to process a vegan diet i.e. their digestive system simply is not long enough and their liver simply does not have the enzymes to break down the vegan diet, period. There is not an argument there, it is a fact. Supplementing such a diet with synthetic derivatives of the same components found naturally in meats that the cat eats seems to defeat the purpose of healthy eating: why on earth would you want to take a synthetic derivative of something found in natural food?
Personally I know quite a few vegans, and they seem to be a miserable, fighting, judgmental crowd that essentially sticks tightly together, constantly on the warpath against the “culture of death” that they are in fact a part of. I dare not say it as I love a couple of these folks dearly as friends, but if their local Whole Foods or Vitamin Cottage were to go away, they would not survive at all. I see very few vegans who are gardeners or farmers, which in my opinion is the only way you can possibly sustain yourself as a vegetarian/vegan.
I guess the point I am trying to make here is that to truly live in harmony with nature and the natural cycle one must look at how the natural cycle works holistically. There are beings that eat meat, plain and simple. Cats are one of these beings. To try and change this natural cycle so that YOU can feel better about YOUR beliefs seems arrogant and ultimately selfish.
Hi, Matt. Thank you for your well thought-out and well-written comment. We’re certainly delighted that Halo has no plans for a vegan cat food, and we fully agree with you that the way to really live in harmony with nature is to understand how nature really works. Purrs to you all, and what a great conversation this post started!
I realize that this conversation is primarily about whether cats should be fed vegan diets or not, but I want to point out the ridiculousness of the argument that the writer’s of this Q&A have made. In the same breath they say: “While humans and herbivorous (plant-eating) animals like horses have relatively large stomachs, molars designed for grinding food, and a long intestinal tract that allows time to absorb nutrients from plant foods, cats have small stomachs, short intestines, and teeth designed for ripping meat off bones and swallowing it whole.” AND “Because we’re designed to be meat eaters, our livers are always creating the enzymes needed to break down proteins. In humans and other omnivorous animals, the liver starts and stops making the enzymes as needed.”
Now, I ask you, how can a human be both an herbivore, like a horse, and be an omnivore? A horse would never eat meat. Omnivores are primarily scavengers who eat what they can find so that they may survive. If they cannot find their preferred foods be they meat for bears or nuts for squirrels, then they will eat whatever they can find. Furthermore, many so-called omnivores actually eat insects as birds and chimpanzees do, not meat, and no animal cooks its meat and adds spices and sauces to make it taste delicious. A true omnivore or carnivore eats that meat raw and likes it – would you? If these animals eat whatever they can for survival purposes, it is because they are in survival mode – NEWSFLASH: we are not in survival mode in the U.S. If anything we have too much food and too much processed food and are battling historically unheard of levels of obesity and obesity-related diseases and cancers of every kind. So, rather than paint vegans as unhappy people who don’t eat what they want and try to force others to do so too, forget about them for a moment and use your heart and brain to think about what you are putting in your mouth.
Unhealthy “food” means poor health and disease, not to mention the billions of animals that are killed so that we can eat meat whenever we like. Our ancestors didn’t eat meat every day, they ate mean when they could kill a wild animal and later a pig or cow or chicken and they couldn’t raise enough of these animals to eat them every day. If you insist on eating meat, then raise it and kill it yourself as people used to do and feel justified in it because you gave the animal a good life and killed it “humanely”, otherwise please view video of what goes on slaughter houses and know what you are eating before poo-pooing what conscientious people are trying to communicate. We don’t kill these animals “humanely” and even if we did, would you want to be killed “humanely” or otherwise? Can you look at the fear, pain and suffering of these animals and truly feel nothing? If so, I feel tremendously sad for you and for all of humanity as we have become a scourge upon this earth and its seems we are unwilling to change and we suffer for it as do all the creatures that we share this earth with.
I will also note here that I am not a vegan. I am a raw vegan. I am a person who ate animals and animal products once upon a time and enjoyed mediocre health and excess weight, but no disease because I was young enough that my body could deal with what I did to it. I am now in my thirties and I have taken it upon myself to eat better because I do not want to have a quintuple by-pass surgery like my father did at 36 or die of a heart attack at 52 like his mother did or have cancer like my cousins and my sister. I eschew meat, dairy, grains, and processed food including sugar. I eat fruits, vegetables, some nuts, seeds, and the occasional sprout and I am healthier than I ever thought was possible considering my history. I never thought I could be or would want to be vegan much less knew what raw vegan was, but once I learned about it I had to try it out for myself to see if it could really work as it made a lot of innate sense to me. My plan was that if it did not work, then I would go back to what I knew. Even going raw, I’ve struggled with my addictions to unhealthy foods such as pizza, veggie burgers, ice cream and various ethnic foods, but I never felt good when eating those things, I felt bloated, lethargic, mentally unmotivated, overweight and unhappy. I am now the opposite of all those things and I enjoy immense amounts of energy and mental clarity, not to mention the little fact that I have no fear of getting any diseases, particularly the scariest of all, cancer. My desire for better health and compassion for the earth and all of its beings has led me to want to leave corporate America to become a farmer and to reach the goal of true self-sufficiency, which I hope to do in the next few years. You may think I am crazy, but look at how we all live and how many people are diseased and how many are just plain miserable – the average American takes 18 or so pills per day, including more anti-depressants than people in any other country on earth – and tell me who is crazy.
Hi there, To Living Consciously. Thanks for posting this well thought-out comment and your contribution to a very important discussion, not only about cats’ health but about humans’ health as well. We do want to clear up some confusion, though. When we wrote “Because we’re designed to be meat eaters, our livers are always creating the enzymes needed to break down proteins. In humans and other omnivorous animals, the liver starts and stops making the enzymes as needed,” it certainly may have seemed like a contradiction when compared to the previous sentence about humans’ ability to live on a vegetarian or vegan diet. However, this column is written from the point of view of cats, and when we say “we,” we’re referring to cats, not humans. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.
Oh, and we don’t think you’re crazy at all! Mama has lots of friends who enjoy vegan diets and are very healthy. There’s nothing insane about humans eating vegetarian or vegan diets! Mama sometimes wishes she could eat a vegan diet and remain healthy (trust us, she’s tried — but some humans actually do need animal protein in their diet to be healthy; even the Dalai Lama eats meat occasionally) because she fully supports the ethics of humane treatment of animals. The best she can do as a person who, despite her knowledge and understanding of proper vegetarian/vegan nutrition and her deliberate choices to do everything she needed to do to get the right nutrition and still being unable to do so, is to make the humanest possible choices about the animal products she consumes and to minimize consumption of said animal products.
I am more than a little disturbed at the idea of feeding so much grain based food to cats.
My most recently adopted cat is manifesting symptoms of food intolerance and my vet has noted that she is seeing much more of this now than formerly.
Based on selective test feeding, Winnie’s problem appears to be grain related. I am now feeding her grain-free dry food, along with fresh meat & some gourmet tinned chicken, and she has almost ceased to vomit post meals. I would like to wean her off dry food entirely but this may be a long process.
This is my first experience of food intolerance as none of my previous or (other) present cats have this problem. If, however, the incidence of food intolerance in cats is increasing as my vet noted, we need to have a very careful look at what we’re feeding them and a vegan or grain based diet does not seem to be the way forward.
Just as a footnote, a friend who runs a boarding establishment has a vegan cat boarding at intervals. This cat cries constantly. While this may have nothing to do with the vegan diet, my friend, who is an experienced animal owner having been breeding dogs and keeping cats for 60 years, believes the cat to be both malnourished and hungry on the diet.