Submitted by Fireweed (not verified) on Sun, 2006-03-26 19:13.
Wow. Sounds like I missed an interesting show...unfortunately I had to miss this one live, but will listen to it archived soon...anyway...I forwarded a letter to the show that I understand didn't make it on air. Lauren wrote to say I might want to post it here and I do, especially after reading through all the other posts!
Original email:
Hi there,
I'm looking forward to catching your show on vegan cats and dogs. I got turned on to vegan cat food when working for the first animal rights store in Canada, Animal Free Trade, located in Vancouver back in the early 90's.
I've been feeding my cats homemade vegan catfood made with the supplement called VegeCat from Harbingers of a New Age for the better part of a decade, and all have not only done well on this diet, they have thrived.
Unfortunately, I can't claim to have conducted a scientifically valid experiment all these years, since two of our three current cats have always been able to go outside in our rural island environment, as all were strays to begin with, including one that we know is definitely a hunter and probably survived that way for up to a year before he trusted us enough to become domesticated. But the most recent edition to our family, another rescue kitty named Mandy, was a scrawny siamese who had lived inside most of her life eating regular canned, and dried commercial cat food. We took a year to wean her off of that stuff, and onto the homemade supplemented vegan diet enjoyed by our other cats, and she is doing fantastically well.
All our cats have beautiful silky coast, rarely have fleas, even when the neighbours are complaining about the problem their own cats seem to have, and have never had shots or any serious health problems. Two are around ten years old and so have been enjoying our homemade diet for nearly this long with absolutely no sign of any nutritional deficiencies.
We buy big bags of organic chickpeas that form the basis of the recipe for our cat food, along with organic, non gmo tvp, olive oil, animal grade yeast from Harbingers and their VegeCat brand supplement. We are always explaining to people that because amino acids and taurine are so critical for cats that it is important to include the vegecat supplements carefully in the exact measurements laid out in Harbingers' veterinary approved recipes.
After all these years, I am happy to say I am completely convinced that not only do our cats enjoy and do well on their diet, that they actually appear to be far healthier than many other cats we know. Maybe the odd mouse rounds out any possible nutritional imbalance for our forest and farm field hunter Mr. E, I just don't know.
But here's one thing I'm absolutely sure of...nobody should be allowing their cats to produce offspring in this overpopulated world, so the fear of 'gene weakening' from one generation of cats to the next as a result of a plant-based diet, is a non-issue for those of us that believe in spay and neuter. As long as my cats live 'one' happy, 100% healthy life on a nutritionally balanced, veterinarian approved diet, then I am confident that we have done the right thing by opting out of the mainstream, commercial pet food world.
There is no need for anyone who cares for, and loves cats to be feeding them the body parts of animals no domestic feline would ever consume independantly in the first place, and which only helps subsidize the brutal slaughterhouse industry we are so right to abhor.
Rather than argue with people that they shouldn't be concerned about a vegan diet for cats, I applaud them for their concern with I assure them I share absolutely. Then I explain what I know from personal experience, and how liberating it is to be free from any necessity of compromising my vegan values for the sake of the quote unquote,'natural carnivores' , that are also such an important part of our family here on Denman Island. -Fireweed
(British Columbia) www.fireweed.ca
Wow. Sounds like I missed an interesting show...unfortunately I had to miss this one live, but will listen to it archived soon...anyway...I forwarded a letter to the show that I understand didn't make it on air. Lauren wrote to say I might want to post it here and I do, especially after reading through all the other posts!
Original email:
Hi there,
I'm looking forward to catching your show on vegan cats and dogs. I got turned on to vegan cat food when working for the first animal rights store in Canada, Animal Free Trade, located in Vancouver back in the early 90's.
I've been feeding my cats homemade vegan catfood made with the supplement called VegeCat from Harbingers of a New Age for the better part of a decade, and all have not only done well on this diet, they have thrived.
Unfortunately, I can't claim to have conducted a scientifically valid experiment all these years, since two of our three current cats have always been able to go outside in our rural island environment, as all were strays to begin with, including one that we know is definitely a hunter and probably survived that way for up to a year before he trusted us enough to become domesticated. But the most recent edition to our family, another rescue kitty named Mandy, was a scrawny siamese who had lived inside most of her life eating regular canned, and dried commercial cat food. We took a year to wean her off of that stuff, and onto the homemade supplemented vegan diet enjoyed by our other cats, and she is doing fantastically well.
All our cats have beautiful silky coast, rarely have fleas, even when the neighbours are complaining about the problem their own cats seem to have, and have never had shots or any serious health problems. Two are around ten years old and so have been enjoying our homemade diet for nearly this long with absolutely no sign of any nutritional deficiencies.
We buy big bags of organic chickpeas that form the basis of the recipe for our cat food, along with organic, non gmo tvp, olive oil, animal grade yeast from Harbingers and their VegeCat brand supplement. We are always explaining to people that because amino acids and taurine are so critical for cats that it is important to include the vegecat supplements carefully in the exact measurements laid out in Harbingers' veterinary approved recipes.
After all these years, I am happy to say I am completely convinced that not only do our cats enjoy and do well on their diet, that they actually appear to be far healthier than many other cats we know. Maybe the odd mouse rounds out any possible nutritional imbalance for our forest and farm field hunter Mr. E, I just don't know.
But here's one thing I'm absolutely sure of...nobody should be allowing their cats to produce offspring in this overpopulated world, so the fear of 'gene weakening' from one generation of cats to the next as a result of a plant-based diet, is a non-issue for those of us that believe in spay and neuter. As long as my cats live 'one' happy, 100% healthy life on a nutritionally balanced, veterinarian approved diet, then I am confident that we have done the right thing by opting out of the mainstream, commercial pet food world.
There is no need for anyone who cares for, and loves cats to be feeding them the body parts of animals no domestic feline would ever consume independantly in the first place, and which only helps subsidize the brutal slaughterhouse industry we are so right to abhor.
Rather than argue with people that they shouldn't be concerned about a vegan diet for cats, I applaud them for their concern with I assure them I share absolutely. Then I explain what I know from personal experience, and how liberating it is to be free from any necessity of compromising my vegan values for the sake of the quote unquote,'natural carnivores' , that are also such an important part of our family here on Denman Island. -Fireweed
(British Columbia) www.fireweed.ca