Stepmother Dukes It Out With Vegan Stepdaughter Over Whether Or Not To Feed The Family Cat A Vegan Diet
Being vegan is more than dietary choices for a great deal of vegans, it's a lifestyle, and unfortunately, some of those vegans want to push their lifestyle onto their pets like cats and dogs. In recent years, pet professionals have lashed out over vegan diets for pets, with good reason.
What happened for one family is just another example of how some vegans push boundaries in the most absurd ways. A stepmother turned to the AITA subreddit to ask if she was the asshole... it turns out her stepdaughter was so appalled to see their family cat eating meat that she wasn't eating much herself and she demanded the cat also eat a vegan diet.
"AITA for telling my stepdaughter she’s absolutely under no circumstances allowed to switch out my cats food for vegan food even though she’s losing weight because the sight of normal cat food makes her sick?"
lolbarryThe stepmother opens up with both an apology and a reason for doubting her intuition, her stepdaughter is educated.
AITAIt turns out the stepdaughter has some seriouly major opinions.
AITAThe family cat, Mango, is finsihing up the rest of his life in style. Eating whatever the **** he wants.
AITAEven Mango's dry biscuits offend the vegan.
AITAThe smell of Mango's meat is just too much.
AITAThe parents have set firm boundaries, unwilling to budge while graciously offering a place for the adult child to live.
AITAMango gets quality nutrition, and the parents are not okay with feeding him a vegan diet.
AITAAnd OF COURSE, a mother in law inserted herself into the situation, casting doubt on step mama's mind.
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Molly DeVoss, a certified feline training and behavior specialist who runs Cat Behavior Solutions agency told Bored Panda:
“I can appreciate a vegan wanting to feed their pets the same diet because they are sensitive to animal welfare—so am I, but our homo sapiens species’ nutritional needs are much different than felines’. Humans are omnivores and felines are obligate carnivores.”Molly continued:
“Cats require a diet that depends entirely on meat. There are many other obligate carnivore species, such as dolphins, seals, eagles and walruses. Moreover, your cat gets essential fatty acids from meat not found in vegetables."
cuteanimals
Molly also said:
“You could provide additives to the vegetarian diet to try to compensate for the missing nutrients, but many are not bio-available to cats. Dogs are omnivores; they get nutrition from both plant and animal sources, and your dog can probably survive on a vegan diet with added supplements to boost the proteins and essential fatty acids.”
gfycat
Not only that, but even Molly eats very little meat, but she feeds her own cat a "raw rabbit diet."
smudge_lord
“I, myself, would never eat rabbit and it is emotionally difficult knowing so many rabbits have met their fate to feed my cat; however, I also know my cat cannot thrive on a counter-species diet," says Molly.
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It's also important to really note how dangerous a vegan diet is for cats. Molly says:
“Another reason a plant-based diet is hard on cats is their cecum is very small. The cecum is an organ located at the beginning of the large intestine. Felines’ cecum is very small, which makes digestion and absorption of plant matter difficult.”
gfycat
"Contrast that to the cecum of a rabbit (a herbivore), which is large and contains bacteria that aids in the digestion of plant matter,” Molly concluded.
gifer
Thankfully, though, Molly is the only person to weigh in on the matter.
The original thread had over 3,700 comments and over 25,000 upvotes.
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"Pets can, and have, died."
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Sick of the girl.
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Cats need meat!
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It's a good thing not all vegans are like the stepdaughter.
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NO. SUCH. THING.
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"Cats don't work that way."
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FACTS, honestly.
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"Obligate Carnivores."
An obligate carnivore is one that depends entirely on meat because their diet requires nutrients that are only found in animal flesh.
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