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.
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Meatsplained? Sucks you guys lost your community, but that is one of the dumbest words I’ve ever had the privilege of reading.
That’s exactly what a carnist blood-mouth would say! /s
(I am a vegan, but the insults that I have seen from the vegan communities here are all hilarious)
That would be a good band name, “Blood-Mouth and the Carnists” opening for “The Meatsplainers”!
I don’t really prefer car so i’m more of a commutenist
I cracked up when I read it.
Vegans and anti vegans seem to spend a lot of time on names
Seriously. I stopped reading after “meatsplained” and now am rooting for the admin.
To me this is a case where a mod didn’t know what an admin is and found out the hard way.
You mean community.
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Was this some dumbass saying dogs and cats can be fine with a vegan diet? Because that is 100% Grade A bullshit and the admin’s actions were justified.
Have you looked at the research. Idk about cats, but research suggests for dogs it is okay. Dogs aren’t wolves anymore.
Dogs can survive and thrive on a vegan diet, as long as it’s fairly carefully tailored; dogs are not obligate carnivores, and the essential amino acids that they can’t make themselves are available from non-animal sources.
Cats are obligate carnivores; the only natural source for at least one essential amino acid they need is meat. (I’m not sure which amino acid(s) it is, off the top of my head. Taurine? Lysine? Something else?) In theory you could heavily supplement a cat that was on a vegan diet and not kill it, but given that bioavailability of supplements isn’t the same as that of whole foods, I wouldn’t bet a life on it.
Please do not use ad hominems in your argument as we need to keep the discussion civil.
There are numerous studies suggesting that the plant-based diet is safe for dogs.
However for cats there are less studies, there are papers that suggest it is also safe for cats as long as taurine is provided in the diet.
That’s not an ad hominem, just a regular insult.
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Feed your pets their fucking meat for God’s sake.
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.
Meat is not required for pets as there is enough studies to suggest this conclusion.
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:
This review has found that there is no convincing evidence of major impacts of vegan diets on dog or cat health. There is, however, a limited number of studies investigating this question and those studies available often use small sample sizes or short feeding durations. There was also evidence of benefits for animals arising as a result of feeding them vegan diets. Much of these data were acquired from guardians via survey-type studies, but these can be subject to selection biases, as well as subjectivity around the outcomes. However, these beneficial findings were relatively consistent across several studies and should, therefore, not be disregarded.
There is an urgent need for large-scale population-based studies to further investigate this question, with a particular focus on assessing the dietary aspects cited to be of particular concern, e.g., taurine and folate. For guardians wishing to feed their pets vegan diets at the current time, based on the available evidence it is recommended that commercially produced vegan diets are used since these are less likely to lead to nutrient imbalances.
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.
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.
yes, thanks, I’ll read that later.
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?
It’s not bizarre, it’s pretty intuitive. Veganism is an ethical concept, which applies to humans not animals.
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.
Agreed, and using “obsession” and “bizzare” is gonna ruffle some feathers, proving your own point.
Bold claims require bold evidence.
For what it worth, the mods at vegan community are also deleting comment disagreeing with their point of view. It’s one thing to accuse rooki for power abuse, which i tend to agree as admin should be impartial to their ruling and not demote/remove based on emotion, but it’s ironic that the mod also did the exact same thing they accuse rooki for. Lesson here is, don’t fucking abuse power based on your emotion and then whine about it after losing that privilege. It’s a very highschool drama this one is.
Every vegan community I’ve ever visited has been such a strong echo chamber that they give atheists a run for their money.
They will not tolerate discussion that is not in full agreement.
Just ignore the vegans like you ignore a random person on the street yelling about some nonsense.
It is a vegan community you’re talking about it should appeal to vegans and to the safety of animals first and foremost. People were coming into our community promoting violence against the other animals.
Experiment on yourself all you want, but not your companion who depends on you. This is not a great subject to gather support from a larger audience with.
That being said, controversial subjects need to be discussed, not deleted. Nobody was intentionally trying to harm animals here. These actions don’t feel right
That is a strawman. As there are numerous studies on how the vegan diet is safe for all stages of human life.
It is also proven to be safe for dogs and cats.
That’s not a strawman. You should review your knowledge of informal logical fallacies and be certain of their application before leveling accusations of them at people, even if you really disagree with them.
I don’t care what community we’re talking about, we’re discussing powermod/poweradmin here so i do care about the action of the mod and if you think just because you’re vegan you get to be exempted by common sense, then you’re mistaken. People are talking about food for pets, not for human consumption, it’s still a hot topic that you yourself said it’s less studied and can’t even be sure if it’s safe to do so, discussion amongst the community are needed, not swept under the rug. You guys are getting criticised here not because of being vegan, but because of the action you guys take, stop using veganism as your shield and looking like a bunch of imbecile.
People said veganism isn’t a religion but this looks more and more like one.
The comments were deleted and the admin was banned from the community as per violating the rules of the community
It’s a bold strategy Cotton
I’m just surprised how many people think veganism and ‘owning’ a pet are reproachable. Imho they are not
On top of that if you do ‘own’ an animal, why do you let your own philosophy trump their joy and wellbeing.
Afaik cats and dogs couldn’t be happier with a meaty treat. Why disallow that?
Pets are not vegan in the first place but only 5% of vegans will admit that.
I literally banned the lemmy world instance admin for saying otherwise, but they reversed it. “Owning” another animal is not vegan and is speciesist. I’ve only seen carnists go on about “vegan pet ownership”.
Animals belong in the wild in the vegan world.
Honestly, the admin that did this is based. The vegans on Lemmy give me the same vibes as the grifters that pedal homeopathy.
I think I trust Kitten Lady over a bunch of randos on the Threadiverse. Video
gerbils, mice and bunbuns are herbivores, and need homes too. They‘d make great vegan buddies
I watched your video, and she makes a number of logical errors. She correctly identifies that cats need diets that are nutritionally complete, but then jumps to the conclusion that cats need to eat meat. They don’t. They need to consume the nutrients that have traditionally been found in meat. She overlooks that vegan cat foods are specifically designed to contain all these nutrients, thus making them nutritionally complete.
While I generally agree that vegans shouldn’t adopt cats if possible, Kitten Lady seems to be talking out of her ass.
Don’t trust randos on the internet you should read studies on the matter.
Okay, I’ll start by not trusting you.
I don’t blame you it’s natural to distrust the radical from your point of view.
What’s your opinion about cats killing birds?
What’s your opinion about cat holders that let their cats roam outside?
What’s your opinion on cat holders that keep their cat inside all day?
Not once have you linked to any of those studies you keep referring to.
Isn’t this par for the course for lemmy.world?
It’s so funny that they’re the largest instance. Only see incredible decisions coming out of there.
I actually agree in general, but this is like the one time in recent memory I have felt like whole heartedly cheering on the Lemmy.world administration team
If some other instance wants to scoop up the animal abuse demographic now that they are ejected from .world, I think we will all survive
Ah yes, its the people that are against harming animals that are the real animal abusers.
Feeding an animal a nutrionally complete diet: abuse
killing animals: not abuse
Feeding an obligatory carnivore plants = abuse. End of story.
Even if that was true, you’re still killing other animals which is obviously more harmful/abusive to them than not giving them their favorite food instead of the same nutrients in a different package.
Yes, one animal dies to feed a different one. That’s how it has always been. Starving a pet because you don’t like the facts of life makes you a bad pet owner, nothing more. No moral highground, just abuse.
It’s not abuse to feed an animal a nutritionally complete diet. There is no magical nutrient that exists in animals that cannot be artificially synthesized. Just because you don’t care about animal suffering doesn’t make it necessary or justified.
I care about animal suffering infinitely more than someone who starves their cat for their beliefs.
If some other instance wants to scoop up the animal abuse demographic now that they are ejected from .world, I think we will all survive
That is misrepresenting the situations as vegans are the ones reducing animal abuse by not buying animals products and for holding those who do accountable.
A philosophy that should not be forced on another animal against their nature.
There’s some hypocrisy here!
That is the no true scotsman fallacy. I could also say that bringing animals into our homes when they were originally from the wild is the hypocrisy here.
You could and would probably have a point.
But it doesn’t make it ok for you just because someone else did before.
Your hypocrisy is the point here.
I don’t own pets. So I’m not hypocritical in both scenarios.
You’re not even wrong.
You really have no idea what any of the fallacies you throw out there really are do you xD
Seeing vegans and the Lemmy.World admin team fighting… yes, let the hate flow through you and destroy each other.
Well for us vegans we’re fighting for love. The animals deserve to be protected.
not a vegan but you should be able to have your own space.
Nobody should have a space where they get to spread disinformation that harms pets
yeah because they’re such cruel fucking people, those heartless vegans abusing animals lol…
look man, I get it, you have bones with the veggies and the vegans and THIS IS THE ONE PLACE where you can get some kind of moral high ground on 'em, and you really want to rub it in their faces at every opportunity.
I don’t know who those vegans even are, the vast, vast majority of vegans I know are pet owners who feed their cats and their dogs kibble. None of them are trying to ‘convert’ their pets, and none of them look at pet ownership as ‘the enslavement of an animal for the purposes of ownership’.
all y’all need to fucking calm yoselfs. jfc, get a grip.
They are literally spreading disinformation. Vegan cat food isn’t good for cats. They are abusing their cats if they feed them that. Tf is your point?
you are literally hyperventilating over this.
It’s kind of a huge deal if the mods of a community are working to promote disinformation that harms cats and censoring any dissenting opinion about it. I’d rather cats not be malnourished bc of a bunch of pissy vegans who want to force their ideology onto an animal that can’t handle it
Then feed them a proper diet. If you love animals, treat them well and don’t fight for your right to spread disinformation that harms them
If you need a vegan pet get a bunny, lol.
Not feeding dogs and cats with meat-based food is cruel af.
I think @Rooki@lemmy.world owes an explanation and apology. It’s fine to be invested in animal welfare, but if one learns that one is factually incorrect, then admitting it openly is the mature and responsible thing to do.
edit: Edited my response in the original post.
My cousin is a vet. She’s a vegan. Her cat is not nor would she ever make her cat a vegan. It just isn’t good for cats.
https://theconversation.com/is-it-really-safe-to-feed-your-cat-a-vegan-diet-213356
Most of the health benefits reported for this group also did not reach statistical significance, which may be the result of simply not having enough animals in the study.
The authors reported a tendency towards positive effects of vegan diets. This means there was a general trend (which was sometimes strong), but doesn’t necessarily mean there is a very predictable relationship.
As a survey study, it’s not possible to confirm exactly what the cats were eating. Many of them went outside and may have hunted down meaty treats even while on a vegan diet. Some owners also fed their cats treats and essential nutrient supplements, so any beneficial effects (or a lack of harmful effects) may not be due to diet alone.
Another missing piece of information is how long the cats were kept on the diet. We might assume one year – but this isn’t specifically stated. This is important information since deficiency diseases can take time to develop.
Finally, any study assessing animal health will have inherent limitations if it’s designed as a survey. Pet owners usually aren’t medically trained and their “opinions” can be subjective and therefore biased.
Owners who had removed or reduced meat in their own diet were over-represented in the study. These people may already anticipate vegan diets are better for health, and this thinking could influence their responses.
It’s also worth noting the study was funded by ProVeg International – a food awareness organisation that promotes plant-based products. While this might not have impacted the validity of data, it could have influenced the stance taken when reporting on the results.
I am not convinced that depending on self-reporting of veterinary outcomes from people who are feeding their cat a vegan diet is a reliable way to structure the study
In fact, I would say that purely as a personal and anecdotal conclusion, I believe that the self reporting of an indistinguishable outcome from this study probably means that these vegan diets are harming the cats significantly, if the hidden factor of vegan-diet-feeding guardians underreporting bad outcomes were to be included.
Figure 4 shows the age distribution of tested cats. Most vegan cats have been between 1-10 years while there were many meat fed cats up to 24 years old with a general distribution towards the older ages, while vegan cats drop off sharply after 10 years.
Also there were only 127 vegan cats out of the 1378 overall cats tested. That’s not a significant data set to draw definite conclusions from, especially considering how many old meat cats they lumped into the same pot as young vegan cats. At no point in the study do they clean up for age.
I don’t trust this study at all. That’s what you base the health and wellbeing of animals on?
That is true that cats are obligate carnivore however the plant-based diet is safe for cats as long as the nutrient taurine is being provided in their food.
We live in a day where a healthy diet can be fully synthesized, even for a human. I think the claim that a cat cannot flourish under one requires strict scrutiny and proper links to scientific articles demonstrating this finding.
edit: Because we do have evidence indicating such a diet is not harmful, so evidence that disputes this would need to exist.
https://www.mdpi.com/2306-7381/10/1/52
edit2: Another thing that occured to me that may help shed light on this: Humans have to eat food in order to survive, yes?
No, actually. We can hook you up to an IV and keep you alive for as long as we need by pumping the necessary nutrients directly into your bloodstream, bypassing your digestive tract altogether. We call this intravenous feeding.
I had to be on IV feeding for a month last year and it felt like I was starving because I wasn’t getting any calories. I lost 20 kg in 2 weeks, despite the fact I was confined to a bed 24 hours.
What were you in for? Sounds to me like someone was pinching pennies on you, since there’s nothing stopping them from including the sugars and aminos your body needs.
Or maybe they thought you were overweight or something, but I’d think that’d be malpractice.
Gallstones turned into sepsis and pancreatitis
Yikes, didn’t know gallstones could do that. Glad you made it, sepsis is life threatening.
I went to the ER and the doctor said “You are dying,” which I took as a bad sign.
carnist misinformation
meatsplained
Lmao are these people serious
Well, I don’t feel strongly either way for the specific issue at hand but this is drama llama content for sure!
The cool part of the Fediverse, if this is an issue that fellow vegans can’t see eye to eye on, then we could have two communities, possibly on two instances. One which believes animal welfare means that domesticated animals shouldn’t participate in killing other animals, viewing it as unecessary and cruel, and the other community that doesn’t and only considers human nutrition choices, with the view that forcing change in domesticated animals’ diets as unnatural and cruel.
Like it or not, each server’s admins determine the shape of discussion and can make the final decisions on some items of discourse in situations like this, call it carnist, tankie, whatever pejorative of choosing. The recourse is to move elsewhere.
