Some Insight on Cats and Vegan Diets

Today’ guest-blog is by my friend who also is an amazing advocate for all animals. In many discussions, Kelly brings her background in Animal Science to the table, as she does for this post. When she shared with me her thoughts and personal experience regarding cats and totally vegan diets, I just knew it was a perspective to share with the rest of you. I recommend that anyone planning to substantially change the diet of a companion animal first consult with a veterinarian. If a completely vegan diet is not appropriate for your nonhuman family members, perhaps consider letting them participate in “Meatless Mondays.” Enjoy today’s post. Thanks, Kelly!

Guest Blogger: Kelly LaToza

I wanted to share with you my knowledge and experience with vegan cats.  To be clear, I am not of the opinion that cats can never subsist on a vegan diet, but I would like everyone to be aware of a cat’s nutritional needs.

Let me start with some background information. Dogs are omnivores, and cats are carnivores. Cats have evolved to eat a low carbohydrate diet. They don’t even have the ability to taste sweetness! (Which always makes me wonder why my cat Mori likes mint ice cream.)  Cats have many biological issues with being vegetarian or vegan. Their protein requirement is very high, being 2 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day.  Cats should have a diet that is 26-30% protein.  (Dogs only require a diet of 18-22% protein.)  When a cat is fed a diet that does not contain enough protein, she will lose weight and muscle and her growth and development will be impaired.

Amino acids are the basic building blocks of protein, and some animals can produce them in their liver. Cats however cannot produce (or cannot produce enough of) the amino acid taurine and have an unusually high metabolic demand for it.  Therefore, cats require a constant intake of taurine to maintain adequate levels.  Taurine is only found in meat, eggs, and milk.  With taurine deficiencies, cats can become blind and have heart problems. Arginine is another amino acid that is essential in a cat’s diet because it cannot be produced in the liver.  Arginine is part of the urea cycle (which converts ammonia to urea) and without it, a cat’s ammonia levels will become very high, which will result in rapid kidney failure, coma, and death.  A cat can even have dangerously high ammonia levels within hours of consuming a single arginine-free meal.  Arginine is found in most protein sources, animal and plant, so as long as the cat is fed a diet containing adequate levels of protein, this would not be a problem.

Cats also require pre-formed Vitamin A and arachidonic acid. Cats cannot convert beta-carotene (in plants) to Vitamin A, so they need preformed Vitamin A which is only present in meat.  A deficiency in Vitamin A can result in eye, skin, and reproductive problems.  Cats cannot make adequate levels of arachidonic acid, therefore they require it in their diet.  Arachidonic acid is found only in meat.  A deficiency of arachidonic acid causes skin problems.

Cats can also develop crystals in their urine if it is not the correct pH. But this is only one of the many reasons they can develop crystals.  Crystal formation can also result from other nutritional issues, characteristics of the urine, and even stress! The problem with feeding a cat a vegan diet is that the probable result will be that her urine is too alkaline, and these crystals will not be dissolved. This can result in bloody and painful urination, and sometimes even a blockage, which can result in rapid death. (Side note – most of today’s cat foods contain corn and soy, which would create alkaline urine, so urinary acidifiers, usually methionine, are already in a lot of cat foods.)

After doing thorough research on the subject, I decided to try a supplement called Vegecat that has all the required nutrients and vitamins derived from non-animal sources. Providing your cat with a homemade diet is safe as long as you use a properly formulated recipe, you select the correct ingredients, and you strictly follow the recipe.  Vegecat comes with a recipe book so you can make your own cat food using vegetable proteins.  The company states that the recipes meet nutrient levels established by the Association of American Feed Control Official’s Cat Food Nutrient Profile for cats.  At the end of the recipe book, there is a table showing the protein, fat, and magnesium contents of each recipe.

I was prepared to monitor my two cats’ urine pH with pH testing strips and special pH litter. I made tons of different recipes in the book – and they would not eat a single one!  See, cat food is usually coated with “animal digest,” which is basically just a fancy word for animal fat (but can also mean rendered animal body parts, including hooves, feathers, horns, and teeth). My cats did not find my homemade meals palatable because it had no fatty coating.  I tried putting different oils on it and they still turned up their noses at it.  I would mix it in with their old kibble, because you want to transition to a new food slowly to avoid stomach upset, and they totally avoided the whole bowl. Also, cats will seriously rather starve than eat something they don’t like, so obviously I gave them other food and didn’t make them go hungry! So all in all, my dream of having vegan cats has failed. Of course there are many questions and concerns about vegan cats, but I did not feel like it was “unnatural” because most store bought pet food is already pretty unnatural.

To make myself feel better about buying cat food with meat, I decided to support pet food companies that produce vegan pet food (even if I was not purchasing that food myself).  I purchased cat food from PetGuard, which produces vegetarian dog food and treats.  Now, I buy Natural Balance cat food, which produces a vegan dog food. Another option is to buy the pet food that contains the largest animals (beef or bison over chicken or fish) so that overall, fewer animals are killed.

Our dog is not vegan yet because there is no suitable vegan food for puppies, but I will be switching her to the Natural Balance food when she turns one, so I’ll let you know how that turns out!

*Source: Linda P. Case, The Cat: It’s Behavior, Nutrition, and Health (Iowa State Press 2003). Extra reading material for those who would like to read more:

• PetEducation.com “Special Nutritional Needs of Cats”
• Essential Vegetarian “7 Reasons Why Your Cat Cannot Be Vegetarian”
• PetWave “Taurine in the Feline Diet” and “Idiosyncrasies of the Feline Diet”

Kelly LaToza has a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Pre-Veterinary Animal Science and is now studying Animal Law at Lewis and Clark Law School.  She lives in Portland, Oregon with her boyfriend, Anthony, their crazy puppy Bernie, and two cats — Mori and Oliver.

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