Eat Your Greens
Original article by Dr. Joe Inglis, BVSc, MRCVS*. Edited for blog publication by Kelly Gredner, RVT, VTS (Nutrition)
Can I feed my dog a vegetarian diet? Is it safe to feed my cats vegan food?
These are questions that are becoming increasingly common in vet clinics up and down the country as more and more pet parents consider the impact of their pet’s diet on their health and the planet. As our own diets tend towards less meat and more plants, and we learn more about the health and climate benefits of these lower meat diets, it's understandable that we're also starting to seriously question the need to feed our pets on diets packed full of meat.
But just how safe and healthy are meat-free diets for our pets — and are they actually much better for the planet?
If you ask many vets, the answer to the first question will be an unequivocal no - the official position of the profession, including guidance from the British Veterinary Association, is that dogs and cats need to be fed on a meaty diet. However, recent scientific studies are increasingly bringing this position into question.
A trial carried out by the University of Winchester’s centre for animal welfare surveyed more than 2500 dog owners divided into those feeding a conventional commercial diet, those feeding a high meat raw diet, and owners feeding a completely vegan diet to their dogs. Once the age of the dogs was corrected for those being fed a raw diet or younger than the other groups on average, the results showed that those dogs fed a vegan diet had the best indicators of owner-reported long term health.
Our VetChef line has its very own plant based meal, Pasta Primavera! Carefully formulated using plant based proteins and gently cooked to retain nutrients, this highly digestible recipe is low fat, high fiber, and could be helpful for dogs with allergies.
It's not just dogs that are able to thrive on a no meat diet, even cats, who are known as obligate carnivores because of their requirements for specific nutrients from meat such as taurine and arachidonic acid, seemed to do well according to their pet guardians on well-designed vegan diets fortified with these nutrients.
A study carried out by the University of Guelph in Canada last year found that cats fed a vegan diet had lower instances of gastrointestinal disorders (such as diarrhea and vomiting), better body condition measured by the owner, and a higher score on owner reported health measures.
These studies do need to be tempered with some caution particularly where cats are concerned as it is vital that any meat free diet is carefully formulated to ensure it provides all of the essential nutrients the animals need. But this is also true of traditional meat-based diets which have been shown to contain variable levels of nutrients, so it's not just an issue related to meat-free diets. Additionally, these studies only reported health benefits from pet guardians and not through veterinary records.
If we are moving towards an acceptance that vegetarian and vegan diets can work for pets, and can be just as healthy, what about the second question - are they actually that much better for the planet than meat based diets? The answer here seems to be a clear yes, it has been shown that far from just using up abattoir waste meat, around 1/3 of all meat going into pet food in the UK comes directly from the human food chain, and therefore carries with it a very significant environmental cost in terms of CO2 emissions and water usage.
So, it seems we should be moving towards feeding our pets diets with less meat and substituting with more plants. There will be many people out there for whom this will be a difficult transition to consider, but by focusing on reducing, rather than full replacement, we are already working towards a healthier planet!
*Originally published in Cotswold Life, this article by Dr. Joe Inglis, a UK-based Veterinarian and expert in animal nutrition, has been republished here, with minor edits, with the author’s express permission.