Vegetarian & Vegan Diet for Cats

Commercial & Homemade Vegetarian/Vegan Diets for Cats

Health Risks of a Vegetarian/Vegan Diet in Cats 

Cats are obligate carnivores and it's very difficult to get the diet requirements right when feeding them as vegetarian/vegan diet as it can't be done without resorting to feeding synthetics, which are oftentimes worse than feeding drugs. Also a vegetarian and vegan diet long term, can't meet the high protein levels needed by your cat for it's survival. 

A plant based diet contains on average 6 times as much beta carotene, which isn't useful for your cat's body. The processing of beta carotene from a vegetarian/vegan diet put's an enormous amount of stress on your cat's liver to produce bile salts to try to convert the beta carotene into the Preformed Vitamin A your carnivore cat needs for it's health. 

Vitamin A is needed for normal vision, the immune system, and reproduction. Vitamin A also helps the heart, lungs, kidneys, and other organs work properly. Preformed Vitamin A is directly found in meat, poultry, fish, and dairy products. The second type, Provitamin A, is found in fruits, vegetables, and other plant-based products. 

The high intake of this wrong form of Vitamin A - Provitamin A from a vegetarian/vegan diet can be harmful long term to your cat's health as the liver and the other organs don't have the ability to maintain the level of processing required to try to extract and convert provitamin A into preformed vitamin A, for their body to use.

The same goes for vitamins such as B12 and vitamin D3. Yes they can be given as a supplement but they are not bio-available for your cat's body to use. In it's truest form your cat's body would naturally extract these from the animals it's eating that have the ability to process it from the food they are eating. Feeding vitamins in a supplement form to your cat has a long term health cost and all of this processing of the wrong foods and supplements is hard on a carnivores body.

Currently there lacks a good blood test to test levels of Preformed Vitamin A. So if you want to feed your cat a vegan or vegetarian diet, you'll need to spend money on more frequent veterinary visits and blood testing for the nutrients they can test for, like VItamin B12 or Cobalamin etc. to ensure your cat is maintaining good health.

The reason a pet owner chooses to feed a cat or dog a vegan or vegetarian diet is based on the fact they themselves are a vegetarian or vegan not actual health reasons. 

Vegan and Vegetarian diets have no health benefits for your pet and really it's an unethical choice for them. As the owner you would be imposing your philosophies on your pet as opposed to actually understanding your pet's true nutritional needs. 

Animals tissues need to be a part of your cat's diet with purified forms of Taurine, Arachidonic acid and preformed Vitamin A and a high quality protein.

Given most vegetarians and vegans convert due to their dislike for the cruelty to animals it seems hypocritical then that a pet owner would choose this type of diet for an obligatory carnivore such as their cat, knowing it goes against all the nutritional requirements and is not safe for the long term health of their cat or dog.

You can't realistically feed cats a vegetarian/vegan diet. It's so difficult to deliver your cat's nutritional needs without meat. Although it may be well intended, the risk to your cat's health is too high a price to pay.

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