Hi there,

Thanks for your contributions on this server, you seem like a reasonable sort. Unfortunately there’s a couple of issues with this comment but rather than just remove I thought I’d explain and let you make some corrections so you hopefully stick around.

Cats need to eat meat as there is taurine in it without which they go blind.

Cats need taurine yes! which is only found in meat naturally. However synthetic taurine is a thing (e.g. in popular energy drinks) and is frequently added to cat food. This sort of equivocation between meat and nutrients, in the same vein as referring to meat as the only source of protein, is problematic. Cats also have a few other issues with unprocessed veg stuff, it’s not like if you sprinked taurine over a dhal they’d be able to eat it, but that is a whole other thing.

Whilst we are vegan personally we don’t think cats or any animals that live with us should be forced to forgo their natural diets for our ideals. If they could consent to it then yeah, but forgoing their natural diets because we have a problem with it is in our opinion bad.

It probably doesn’t feel like it but this is speciesism. Privileging the pleasure of certain ‘pet’ species over the many animals they consume is problematic if we have other choices (the degree to which that is true is still being determined but tentative evidence suggests cats can avoid meat, or at least vastly reduce their intake). While the ethics of pet keeping is an entirely separate conversation everyone caring for non humans, whether in the context of pets or at a sanctuary, makes many decisions on their behalf. Consider for example that ‘wild’ domestic cats don’t each much fish and yet it’s very common for cat foods to be based on fish. Arguments to nature aren’t very useful for determining what is or is not right.

This is a very emotive issue, but it’s important we assess it in a non-speciesist and vegan framework.

Cheers,