On social media, a user asked what food they could give their “vegan cat” because they refuse to feed their cat anything non-vegan because they don’t eat such products in their home. The person refused to change their ways.
And on social media that person was heavily criticised. Everybody criticised them and they threw the book at him. They made the correct point that domestic cats are strict carnivores. They are ‘obligate carnivores’ to use a well-worn phrase. And therefore, they cannot be vegan. It’s impossible. And the person who asked the question should give up their cat immediately.
They accused the person of being silly, stupid and dangerous. But all the critics are incorrect. That will perhaps shock people because I am a massive animal and cat advocate. I have spent many years fighting for the welfare of cats on many websites including this one.
But I can say with confidence that, today, it is possible for a domestic cat to be healthy and vegan! And the only way they can do it – and there is only one way today – is to eat Benevo dry cat food.
As far as I know, it is the only vegan cat food on the market. And it sounds contradictory to say “vegan cat food”. But it’s true. In order to understand this, you have to break down cat food into individual nutrients.
It’s no good thinking about a lump of meat and the cat chomping down on it. Or, a mouse being killed and eaten. We have to think about individual nutrients; the building blocks of the kind of food that domestic cats need to eat to survive.
And of course, the primary building block is protein. And meat is a primary source of protein. Everyone pretty well knows that. But there is such a thing as plant protein which is very similar to animal protein. And in fact, plant protein is as good as animal protein in a dry cat food product.
That’s been proven scientifically and to that protein you add in – in an artificial process – the other nutrients such as taurine. There’s a whole range of nutrients which need to be added in but let’s remind ourselves that the manufacturing of pet food is an artificial process.
The dry cat food people purchase in huge quantities is an entirely artificial food. It’s a food which has been pieced together in the manufacturing process. They don’t start with a mouse. They start with rotten livestock carcasses and then they cook it at very high temperatures to reduce the meat to a cardboard-like substance and then they add in the constituent nutrients and fats to make it palatable.
In the case of vegan cat food, they start off with plant proteins rather than animal proteins and build up on that. That’s my interpretation and you wouldn’t have a successful vegan dry cat food on the market if it was killing thousands of cats, would you? Benevo is a successful product. Nobody is complaining about their cat dying after feeding on this product.
In fact, the general reviews are very good. They say their cat is healthier. I think here we have a real problem because over the years the Internet has hammered into people’s brains that domestic cats are obligate carnivores and therefore, they must eat meat. People have been indoctrinated with this thought. And anybody who chirps up and says that they are vegan and want to feed their cat a vegan diet gets hammered down and before Benevo came onto the market the critics were correct.
But today, in October 2023, with Benevo on the market (and it had been on the market for quite a while now) you cannot criticise a human vegan who wants to make their domestic cat companion a vegan as well because there is a means to do it.
Comments are welcome but please digest (excuse the pun) what I have said. Please research this point carefully. Please don’t rely upon the standard answers and information that you see on the Internet.
