cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/26218551
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/26218550
(posting to both communities)
A carnist lemmy world instance admin has stepped in and meatsplained to the mods while restoring comments that violated the community's rules. They deleted comments that they did not agree with, citing 'misinformation', and threatened to demod the mods if those comments were removed again. The comments were deleted and the admin was banned from the community as per violating the rules of the community, that was until they unbanned themselves (admin abuse) and unmodded two of the moderators because of "promoting harmfull actions against pets".
As far as it stands, if the lemmy world community wasn't already not a safe vegan place for you (it really wasn't) it most certainly isn't now as carnists (lemmy world instance admin) currently mod it.
I suggest any vegan who wants a safe and welcoming space to come and interact with vegantheoryclub.org. Sorry for any inconvienance that this may have caused. I am deeply upset at the admins actions today and don't condone them whatsoever.
Meat is not required for pets as there is enough studies to suggest this conclusion. 1 billion people are employed in animal agriculture so there is a strong conflict of interest occurring here.
Cats are obligate carnivores. If they don't eat meat, they will get sick and die. This doesn't apply to dogs.
Veganism is valid, but it does conflict with some pet ownership.
If cats do not consume taurine they will die. This does not mean they need meat.
Yes, veganism sees "pets" as companion animals.
They aren't your companions, you are exploiting them for companionship. These meat eating pets can't consent to a vegan diet, they are also not ethically required by their choice to not engage in the meat system.
That's your choice, you are forcing that choice on an animal that isn't getting anything from you they wouldn't get with a non-vegan pet owner, your love isn't special.
You could ethically choose to keep any number of naturally vegan animals. You selfishly choose to keep a cat or a dog cause you like them more.
Shit is messed up in my opinion and you buried the lead with your post. I'm glad other people were around to give context to this.
There's still an abundance of cats that need adopting that will likely be killed if they can't get a permanent home. I kinda agree it's best as a vegan to specifically choose adopting an animal that can also live happily on a vegan diet.
However, if the choice is between adopting a cat and not adopting at all, wouldn't the greater good still be adopting, especially if you choose a cat that might typically have a hard time finding fosters? (Cats with injuries, or special needs, or black cats, for example.)
That's not the greater good, that's participating in the system that exists to support the pet industry at large. Vegans generally understand how these associations work since they track it so closely with the meat industry and it's ancillaries.
If you want to argue harm reduction and greater good, there are literally millions of feral cats that feed on billions of birds a year and garbage. Spend your time trapping feral cats and getting them spayed or neutered, it takes a while but the only way to reduce the incredibly huge population of feral cats we have is to maintain their colonies but reduce their ability to reproduce.
That way new, un-spayed or un-neutered cats won't move into the area where there's already food resources (which happens with trap and release or worse options). Reducing the population of feral cats humanely is a net positive for the animals and society.
Adopting a cat from a shelter, no matter the state of that cat, isn't a greater good. It's a personal choice you made, it a selfish decision wrapped in a pretty box.
A vegan would destroy another invasive animal that is wiping out the local ecology in a heartbeat if that was the only "practicable and practical" option.
Strictly adhering to veganism correctly sees companionship animals as animal exploitation. Pets are not vegan.
Bold claims require bold evidence. Natural meat eaters should naturally eat meat. To say otherwise requires a loooot of evidence.
Would an analysis of all current research be enough evidence? They conclude that there is no significant difference of cat heath when fed a nutritionally sufficient vegan diet.
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.
The obsession with "natural diet" is bizarre in the first place. Are you feeding your cat small songbirds and mice, or are you feeding them dry food made with meat they never would be ankle to hunt for in the wild?
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.
From the conclusion of the paper you linked:
While it does support the viability of specially formulated vegan dog and cat diets based on the current research it is important not to gloss over the fact that they also stress that the current research is lacking and largely based on self-report surveys. Personally I'm not terribly swayed by this paper one way or another and wouldn't take it as being definitive. Of course I recognize that more precise research has difficulties due to the ethics involved, but I'm also confident that we can do better.
I agree with what you say about the obsession with natural diet being weird by the way, but I think there is a reasonable disconnect in the leap from natural meat -> meat based pet food ------> no meat. For example, even if I don't eat the same food an early homo sapien would eat I still eat the same kind of food rather than an all mineral diet or something. That's not to say that I wouldn't if such a thing were viable of course, just that I'd want to be very sure first.
I would love to have more research done into these diets. I totally understand not being fully convinced by the currently available studies, I get a bit annoyed when other commenters say is scientifically impossible without doing any research into it. For me personally, the available studies are convincing enough that I would want to hear of a reason that cats are not able to get the nutrients they need from the specially designed kibble.
I can agree that there is a pretty big jump in the differences from meat based to plant based food for wet food, but the jump seems smaller to me for dry food. My understanding is that with dry food, most of the meat flavour and some of the nutrients are lost in the processing of the food, and they have to suppliment the lost nutrients and spray a flavouring agent on to make it appealing to cats.
I think we all just wasn't what's best for our cats. I think that a the moment meat is cheaper, more easily available, and better researched than the plant based diets and I totally understand going for that option
I wrote a nice long reply and it disappeared. Here's an abbreviated version.
yes, thanks, I'll read that later.
It's not bizarre, it's pretty intuitive. Veganism is an ethical concept, which applies to humans not animals.
Agreed, and using "obsession" and "bizzare" is gonna ruffle some feathers, proving your own point.
Bold claims require bold evidence.