Dear Christ. Every thread on this turns into a shit show. Locking.
Well I mean the loud/extremist vegan minority are quick to call meat eaters as abusers ("rapist enablers" even because we'll drink milk a "rapist" (farmer) got from a cow) just for eating meat, even though most of us are far removed from the entire process.
But here they are, making a direct immoral action to force their chosen diet on another being who in all likelihood would NOT choose themselves. And that's on top of the fact they should probably not have a pet at all based on their strict interpretation of vegan.
Nah, they deserve the call out.
This entire drama has had me thinking about that one talk show clip that has a vegan guest and was talking about how their dog "Is totally vegan now and won't even choose meat if it's in front of her". When the hosts tested the dog by bringing out a vegan dish and a meat dish, the dog devoured the meat dish lmao
Why do you think direct immoral actions are worse than indirect immoral actions? I don't buy that. Hell, you are even saying that you are absolved of responsibility for animal abuse completely just because you are paying someone to do it, and not doing it personally. Most people just deny animal abuse happens at all, but you admit it is immoral, yet shift the blame on others along with the responsibility for murdering them, which they do for your pleasure.
This is like saying "x has hired hitmen to killed seven people, but my parent forces me to eat broccoli every day, so since x is commiting a indirect immoral action, my parent is the worst one of them.
I am not a moral person. I, quite frankly, do not care about animals, and I would like to think I would be able to murder an animal myself(for food), since I am doing it now, albeit indirectly, and if you can't live with the consequences of your decisions, why make them? Weigh the consequences of your actions. Do not run away from them like a coward(a lot of moralizing for a self-proclaimed immoral person).
I respect vegans. If you care about animal welfare, and are opposed to cruel treatment of animals you should not eat meat, and that's what they do.
First of all, the mere death or killing of an animal isn't immoral or wrong or murder, it's simply the way of life in the animal world. The animal world knows nothing of morals and ethics, this very discussion is a wholly unnatural and human unique thing to have. Do you call a lion a murderer when it hunts down and eats a zebra?
Second, a direct immoral action is worse because it involves a clear, intentional act that directly causes harm. In contrast, buying meat is far less worse because a) it's more like paying someone to solve a problem for you who doesn't tell you how they solve it and in turn pays someone else who in turn pays someone else who in turn pays the actual person/company taking the action who in turn is spending millions upon millions to keep the majority of people thinking "Everything is fine, no abuse here" and b) the mere consumption of meat isn't immoral, like I said its just how the animal kingdom works it's natural. But rather the way that meat is made, the conditions the animals are subjected to that are immoral and wrong.
But here they are, making a direct immoral action to force their chosen diet on another being who in all likelihood would NOT choose themselves.
This is the single worst argument you could make.
Every single pet owner does that. Would any animal - including farm animals - choose to eat what humans provide them? Surely [cheapest store brand] wouldn't be popular if they had a choice.
Would any animal - including farm animals - choose to eat what humans provide them?
Good question when it comes to pets. "Would you rather have to go out and hunt every day to get enough to eat, or just eat the canned stuff I give you?" I know I'd take the canned stuff, but who knows what individual pets would choose.
Why can't ppl just be a "vegetarian that does not drink milk", instead of making a whole new ism?
It's because ism is a syllable of power! They shall cast it when the time is right and have control over the massesssss!Because it's more than just not drinking milk. Vegans avoid all products that result from the direct exploitation of animals, including eggs and honey. It also includes not using animal products like leather; you can be a vegetarian and still wear leather.
Honey always seemed a stretch to me, as apiaries benefit bees, but veganism is pretty significantly different from vegetarianism; having a different term for it makes sense.
Veganism isn't a diet.
I can do two things, ya know.
Unashamed omnivore, fisher, and hunter here. Working on our play farm so we can source all of our meat ethically in the future. Taking active steps to prevent the suffering of animals we consume. Don't have an ethical or moral problem with killing animals to eat them. Prefer to do it myself so that I know that I have done my best to minimize the suffering of the critters I kill.
I've been told I'm a raper and abuser.
fite me
Much better than sourcing animal products from the supermarker. Still worse than being vegan
They might be responsible for many less deaths than a vegan, though.
Some food for thought: https://www.carnivoreisvegan.com/carnivore-diet-is-vegan/
I’ve been told I’m a raper and abuser.
Factory farming is absolutely industrial scale rape and abuse. The more traditional hunter-gatherer mode of existence is at least approaching "natural" levels of cruelty, but it also takes immense volumes of vacant real estate.
It's cool that you've found a way to do a little traditional animal husbandry, rather than procuring meat from the holocaust mills run by some soulless corporate horror show. But its not what I'd call economical. At least, not for anyone who commutes downtown from an apartment block.
I think there's a kind of ethical middle-ground for folks who can keep a deep freeze full of meat from a cow that gets butchered every couple of months. Then you're at least mitigating the enormous waste in industrial agriculture and you can talk about animals living a relatively dignified life in a pasture rather than walled up in a cattle concentration camp. But that would mean no pink slime on demand, which violates man's constitutional right to eat burger.
Fellow unashamed omnivore. The vegans have the moral high ground. I hope one day to become one. No need to shame or be ashamed of eating meat though. Changes to society take a while, shaming and blaming rarely improve the situation. It often makes things worse.
I think your mentality is great. I've heard people say, "Sure I'll eat a burger, but what kind of psychopath wants to kill an animal themselves?"
I don't know, what kind of a psychopath pays an industry to do it for them so they don't have to feel bad about it? Look, I get it, I don't hunt. But I respect the people who respectfully end the animal's life themselves. Only they can really understand the cost. We just throw away some old chicken we forgot to cook while passing judgment on who we paid to get it for us and how they did it.
what kind of psychopath wants to kill an animal themselves?
The mental health issues among abattoir workers is way above the national average. It takes a toll.
I don’t know, what kind of a psychopath pays an industry to do it for them
Out of sight, out of mind. We have professional wet workers for a reason. If everyone had to do this shit themselves, much of it wouldn't get done. Hell, I still stay up at night thinking about my elderly dog being put to sleep in front of me at the vet's. If I'd had to push that syringe down myself, I'd have probably sawed my own hand off by now, purely out of shame.
Exactly.
I enjoy hunting but I don't glory in the killing. There is always a part of me that is sad when I kill. Even killing a rat or butchering a fish gives me a twinge. I don't feel bad when I kill a mosquito, but do feel bad when I kill a black widow.
If I raise an animal to eat it, it will be properly cared for and have a good life and as painless a passing as I can make it.
When I take a picture of something I killed, I make sure blood or injuries are not visible. That is disrespectful to that life I took.
I recently killed a groundhog because it was being a varmint and digging up the foundation of my garage and chicken coop.
I tried to clean it so we could eat it, but must have hit the glands. The smell of the carcass was almost chemical it was so strong. They're supposed to be good, but I'd never had to kill one. Harder to skin than a squirrel and they have super tough hide.
I had to toss it and it bothered me. Even though it was being a varmint: to me it is ethical to kill a varmint and not eat it. However, you should make use of that life if you can.
I killed a coon once as a kid and had to eat it after it was smoked. Not good. Never killed an animal again that I wasn't going to eat except for varmints.
Varmints are animals out of balance. Rats and roaches are almost always varmints. Spiders rarely are. Overpopulated deer are often varmints. A groundhog out in the woods is just a critter, a groundhog digging out my foundation is a varmint. Cats are varmints when they are feral and killing wild birds, especially ground nesting birds.
Critters are animals in balance or domesticated.
Varmints are also almost always a species of least concern.
The environment would be in a much better place if people were more connected to their food.
Cats are bad, generally.
They're killing machines that have a big impact on local wildlife.
A vegan that keeps cats isn't exactly approaching the situation from a purely vegan-based mentality.
As a person with 3 cats, I get what you're saying. You're getting down voted, but we all know cats can devistate local wild life populations.
Rescuing them and making them indoor cats is the responsible thing to do, but I don't think any vegans would argue with that.
I think its after those establishing facts that the discussion is taking place.
I personally am not a fan of any breeding programs when there are so many cats and dogs available to rescue, but that's just me.
A vegan that
keeps catsallows cats outside isn't exactly approaching the situation from a purely vegan-based mentality.There, FTFY.
Absolutely nothing wrong with cats that are 100% indoors, not only do they have no effect on the wildlife, but their lifespans are something like ⅓ to ½ longer due to the lack of accidents or conflicts.
their lifespans are something like ⅓ to ½ longer
Outdoor cats have a life expectancy of 2-5 years. Indoor cats routinely hit teenager status and can push past 20 with quality care and a bit of genetic good fortune. Its crazy what a steady diet, low stress, protection from the elements/predators, and even middling modern veterinary health care can accomplish.
Now, imagine what this change in condition can do for homeless people.
They’re killing machines that have a big impact on local wildlife.
Saying this to my friends as I drive in my 2 ton steel box powered by liquid dinosaurs across the cemented remains of an old growth forest on the way to my job at the bitcoin mill.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
! We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals. !<
Unless, of course, you're saying that we shouldn't stop one bad thing because we do other bad things.
We should rethink our attachments to miniature tigers.
That is, of course, only a problem with outdoor cats and feral populations. Indoor cats are fine. Personally I keep my cat indoors for a bunch of reasons, but I also think that reasonable human beings can feel otherwise. I've noticed that there are a lot of people online who have decided that not only is keeping an outdoor cat bad, it's a form of animal abuse. And therefore they not only berate people who allow their cat outside, they also encourage people who stumble upon outdoor cats to take possession of them since they're being abused. This is a pretty extremist position that probably doesn't reflect the views of most cat owners, but it tends to get magnified in cat communities that rely on upvotes, since upvotes encourage echo chambers.
There's a metaphor here.
Allowing cats outside is bird and mice abuse for sure
But cat
Why wouldn't you fight against animal cruelty?
Who knew that so many Lemmy users were experts in the science of dietary nutrition?
Carnivore, herbivore, omnivore, ITT apparently a lemmy user invention. You can feed your cat a "vegan diet", you will just have to feed them a god level amount of artificial supplements like taurine, arachidonic acid, EPA and DHA omega 3, vitamin A, etc. It will also increase their risk of urinary tract disease due to alkaline. Or much more likely, your cat will go out on their own and eat normal food. But I must be pulling these terms out of my ass, since I'm a lemmy user.
If only there were pets that were herbivores. Could you imagine that, not being hypocritical by extending the existence of carnivores and the suffering they bring to other animals within your personal ecosystem and actually having herbivore pets?
While we're philosophising, is the concept of pet ownership at all vegan? I mean, if milking a cow is rape and eating it is murder, owning a dog (et cetera) is forcible detainment (or rather false imprisonment, unless the dog was convicted in a court of law by a jury of its peers) of an animal that deserves autonomy just the same. Dog can't consent to being owned, but if it understood the concepts of ownership and autonomy I have my bet placed on what it'd say on this matter...
I'm just saying, I don't think vegans imprisoning innocent creatures for their enjoyment, be they vegan creatures or otherwise, is ideologically consistent.
Frankly, you may as well be pulling all that out of your ass since the information you just provided is as good as useless without any reliable sources backing it up (and don't bother providing any, I'm not here to educate myself on cat diet requirements. If I cared, I would ask a qualified professional not a Lemmy user).
I'm just calling out the hypocrisy in this whole controversy. People do a quick Google search, read "obligate carnivore" in the title of some document and act as if they've got a college degree on the subject.
It's fun to find people who are trying to make ethical personal life choices and start screaming "Murderer! How could you do that to your pets?! Are you stupid? Are you brainwashed by the vegan lies?! Your beloved animal friend is going to DIE IN SCREAMING AGONY!"
You mean vegans don't like it when people treat them with self-righteous judgement?
How about that.
Random user: Free Gaza!
Free? I'll take two
live by the sword die by tbe sword
Did I miss something recent?
Yeah c/Vegan had mods removed by a Lemmy.world admin because of controversial posts and opinions on a vegan diet for cats.
The removal was justified because that constituted animal cruelty, but it was reversed because scientific evidence was provided for the possibility of a vegan cat diet.
The vegan community I think said they were going to move to hexbear or some shit, lol.
Yeah c/Vegan had mods removed by a Lemmy.world admin because of controversial posts and opinions on a vegan diet for cats.
Lol, after years of reddit and other big websites I forgot that admins can also get involved in dramas on their platforms. Reminds me of the internet 15+ years ago.
Gotcha, ty (seems someone is going thru and downvoting everything lol)
Some people say you can feed your cat vegan food like you can with dogs. Others say you cant.
Dogs also suffer without taurine or while on high carb diets, and dogs also cannot digest many fruits and vegetables: grapes cause kidney failure for example.
Nothing even slightly interesting or worth your time
I don't have any skin in the game as I am allergic to both cats and vegans.
However, I think this is kind of interesting because it is going to be one of the first major pieces of Lemmy Lore that a large amount of the userbase is aware of.
In a weird way it means we are forming the bonds of a real community, and even though this is clearly an antagonistic topic it is going to be a lasting piece of history that for better or worse defines our culture.
this and the three days without shitting post
And the beans?
This one never got traction but it was a personal favorite: https://lemm.ee/comment/1808516
This was in response to someone considering getting a donkey.
I grew up on farm & we had two donkeys, Honeybun & Buttercup. Buttercup was older & eventually passed away, leaving Honeybun solo amongst the chickens, cows & horses.
Honeybun became ornery as all get out, just mean as hell. He’d started to bite anything close enough to be bitten. These weren’t little nips for attention; he’d draw blood given chance.
It got bad enough my grandfather carried a potato soaked in hot sauce to deter the donkey from biting. Grandpa would try to shove the potato into the donkey’s mouth when Honeybun went in to bite.
I know some donkeys get along well with horses. Honeybun did not. He bit those horses, went after chickens that wandered into his area, & likely would’ve done the same to cows if we’d let him.
I don’t have any specific advice for you, but I do believe donkeys get lonely & need some measure of companionship.
it is going to be one of the first major pieces of Lemmy Lore
Yeah that's what I wanted to comment as well. I love that Lemmy now starts to get it's own inside jokes and stuff. Dunking on overzealous vegans is just the cherry on top lmao
I will never forget omega fart in r/leagueoflegends, truly magical moment.
nah, i just like making fun of and annoying vegans. They call me slurs that are metal as fuck like "carnist" and "bloodmouth", i love it.
You’re confusing the reactionaries with those who live by a philosophy.
I would say it’s the reactionaries confusing everyone
Those who just live by a philosophy might browse there for recipe ideas and that’s about it.
It’s your own fault for meatsplaining to them.
This whole controversy has been a real boon to my blocklist.
It's all about consent.
I've heard some pretty weird ass views from vegans about the diet of Indigenous people who've traditionally relied on hunting and trapped.
How can vegans even justify having pets? It's not okay to milk a cow but it is to keep a cat? Indoor cats are deprived of basically all of their normal cat activities. They can't range or roam, they can't socialize with other cats, they are denied their natural predator instincts. As much as I love my kitties, like keeping a predator as a pet is basically kind of a dick move. I don't care how good you treat your slaves, they're still slaves.
If vegans can keep cats, they can eat cheese if the cow is well cared for or eggs if the farmer isn't a dick to the chickens.
I agree with a lot of your points, however, outdoor cats are really bad for local wildlife, so from a purely utilitarian standpoint there's less animal suffering by keeping them inside. And they're not slaves, we don't force them into labor under penalty of death. You could argue for prisoners i suppose.
We fostered some feral kittens and I was worrying about the same stuff, restricting freedom and such, and then there was a big storm w hail and I went down to check on the kittens and they were cozy as hell.
There's more to it than just deprivation. One of ours is the baby of a feral momma but our lil girl has never seen a hard day in her life, no outside, no shelters. And seeing how much personality she has just melts my heart.
Not a good comparison. To produce milk regularly cows must give birth. These calves are often sold to be slaughtered as veal. Likewise situation for eggs. To produce hens farmers typically wait until the chicks hatch and throw the unwanted male chicks in a grinder.
I hadn’t seen this angle, awesome. There really is some pretty great hypocrisy here.
People are so quick to call it animal cruelty. Did any of you ask a vet if it was harmful to the animal? I didnt coz I dont even have a cat but it seems some vegans did and were reassured that it is alright. I think that shows they care about their pet and want to ensure its health while possibly aligning it with their lifestyles, probably better than feeding them the cheapest crap they can find.
Im not saying its okay to just feed your pet veggies, but just because it doesnt seem 'natural' doesnt automatically mean it is bad. This is 'being gay is unnatural' all over again.
People are so quick to call it animal cruelty. Did any of you ask a vet if it was harmful to the animal?
I have a friend who's a vet in a trendy community and has seen multiple instances of cats with health issues (some permanent) directly stemming from attempting a vegan diet so his blanket advise is "don't even try it"
Cats , when left alone (as in feral), mostly eat meat naturally. There is documented behavior in animals that homosexuality occurs naturally in the wild. There is no correlation to your comparison.
You just said it, cats mostly eat meat naturally. Just like most couples contain 1 male and 1 female naturally. Just because one behaviour is natural does not mean all behaviour that deviates from that is unnatural.
Are these vegans forcing cats vegetarian diets in the room with us?
They are tho
So y'all are feeding your cats a natural diet of small game?
Which animal in cat food would they ever eat in real life? Which cat is going to go find synthetic taurine to eat? What about the herd of cats that exclusively eats the diseased and rotted meat that isnt fit for humans?
If you are looking for someone to blame for vegan cat food then look at the quality of commercial cat food.
Which animal in cat food would they ever eat in real life?
Most of the cat foods I've looked at are primarily poultry which cats famously eat a ton of. Sure your average feral cat might not be taking down turkeys, but I honestly don't find it at all hard to believe that it happens from time to time that a feral cat is eating some turkey, whether its roadkill or catching a young turklet itself
ITT: people with big hurt feewiingssss
its okay babies, you eating meat doesnt hurt anyone! Youve never done everything wrong! Its no worse than how most of us innately benefit from imperialism, we're so far removed! Phew!
lol, we're all always so quick to start crying about hoe annoying and rude veeeegans are. We could all consume less animal products. Its ultimately not an issue of personal responsibility, its systemic and engrained in our society.
getting all pissy because someones telling you the truth and it makes you uncomfortable is embarrassing, I've been there. I still eat meat more regularly than I'd like to. I dont need to justify it, I think its bad that I do, I'm doing my best over here.
Obligate carnivore! I dont give my cats water! Only meeeeeat, rahhhh I'm a big man-or-similar!
inB4, hurt feeling downvotes 😳
You ok dude? Kinda seems like you're just screaming into the wind here.
It’s an average Lemmy.ml user
we’re all always so quick to start crying about hoe annoying and rude veeeegans are
And this post is a great example of just why people do that.
you should do a standup comedy routine because that's hilarious
Someone is creating a strawman argument.
Read the scientific evidence for yourself.
Its not a strawman, that would imply no one was actually advocating for feeding cats a vegan diet, and this post was made up to pretend they did in order to disparage vegans. This post is a reference to someone on Lemmy arguing in favor of vegan diets for cats, and the thread you linked is literally people advocating for and discussing vegan diets for cats.
That being said, if you read the comments you'll see vegan folks arguing that this is a difficult thing to safely do in practice, and needs oversight and direction from a vet.
Making decisions to feed your pets, who can't advocate for themselves, things other than what they biologically evolved process as a healthy diet, even if you believe you've balanced everything just right, is morally questionable.
Making such a decision about your own diet on moral grounds is an admirable sacrifice and difficult lifestyle change one can be proud of. Choosing to make that sacrifice on behalf of a creature you're responsible for the health and happiness of is needlessly jeopardizing the wellbeing of that creature. They can't communicate their needs, and you're the one responsible for them. Don't go making questionable choices on their behalf that they'd be powerless to do anything about.
One point, we already make the decision for our pets diet. You are already supposed to consult a vet or nutritionist if you care about ensuring the animal is healthy, vegan food or not.
Its not a moral decision for the cat in this case anyways, its in service of their health first and foremost. If the cat can't be healthy on a vegan diet, or just simply doesn't like it, then a vegan will look for the next best thing that could be the healthiest fit for their pet, and see how it goes.
Conversely, plenty of non vegan owners will buy whatever random food is sold in their box store, do zero research past a facebook/reddit corporate circle jerk, and then pat themselves on the back for being such great owners.
The simple fact that vegans are involving pet nutritionists should be a clue as to their priorities. You could also simply ask your vet about it, just like I did, and find out that they won't accuse you of animal abuse.
So it’s immoral to force your will on a cat regarding their diet when they themselves would choose different is immoral but forcing your will on cows/pigs by killing them even though they would choose to live is not?
Cats, like humans, need certain nutrients (macro and micro), they don’t need that nutrients from a specific source. Of course a healthy vegan diet needs effort and monitoring to ensure sufficient intake of these nutrients, but it’s certainly possible, both for humans and cats.
TL;DR;
Posting a link to a bunch of other links you don't seem to have actually read isn't a good basis for an argument
Scientific evidence, sure, but if you'd actually read them you'd see they aren't as inline with your argument as you seem to think.
Do you mean the one behind a paywall
Perhaps the one consisting almost entirely of owner reported (and thus inherently bias) results
Maybe the meta-study that specifically calls out how little quality and volume there is in this areas of study, comments on how self-reported studies are bias and in conclusion basically says:
“It doesn’t seem to immediately kill your pets in the limited studies that have been done, we have even seen some benefits, but we don’t have enough quality data to be that confident about anything”
How about this one which is again largely based on self-reported results.
You should actually read the "Study Limitations" section for this one.
Or the last one which is about vegetarian diets, again goes out of it's way to specifically call out the lack of current research and that the majority of current research supporting these diets is "rarely conducted in accordance with the highest standards of evidence-based medicine"
I'm aware i'm cherry picking quotes and points here, but only to illustrate that these papers aren't the silver bullet you seem to think.
Not to say there is no validity to the argument that these diets can be beneficial but it's a far cry from vegan diets are scientifically proven safe for cats and dogs.
After these the papers that observed limited bioavailability of synthesized taurine in cats?
Hey, give me a little credit...
I've managed to misrepresent two sides of an argument in this one.
Just take the L okay, you are literally doing the opposite of convincing people.
"Just keep letting the animal abuse occur when it can be prevented"
Someone is creating a strawman argument.
Yeah, you and your kind.
Read the scientific evidence for yourself.
You should take your own advice, because you're not making the argument you think you're making.
It's a shame; i'm sure there are vegans feeding their cats this way, and when those animals lose muscle mass quickly, the first thing that gets really damaged by that are their kidneys - and this does normally only get noticed shortly before the cat is going to die.
And it's an ugly death.
I've had a young cat which had nearly dead kidneys when we got her, and it's pure torture for them - we tried everything we could, but there's not much to be done after they show symptoms.
Those "studies" you are throwing around with the owner-reported feedback regarding the health of their cats which can only be objectively be seen by bloodwork and a kidney ultrasound have actual negative worth.
🤓
Im a simple man. I see a vegan, I hate vegans. Simple as
For anyone wondering, I have this dude labeled as "fascist". I don't remember what they did, but it was probably definitive.
Edit: For everyone asking, there is a feature called "tag user" on my app, I access it by first viewing the user. Going back to sleep, now.
I also have that on old reddit with res.
Among all things on Earth, you decided to hate a group of people who don't want to hurt animals? That's bizarre.
Vegan here, I like my fires hot to roast my marshmallows.
Its common that when people do morally questionable things they may use underhanded tactics.
Its a troll account, they're collecting downvotes
It's a joke. Simple as
You need to be open-minded about other cultures.
