The Cat That Ate Tofu

[JasonSt]

Article here:

The Cat That Ate Tofu

By Michael Rosen-Molina, AlterNet
May 23, 2004

Alfredo Kuba stands in the kitchen of his Mountain View, CA home, stirring a spatula through a potful of lentils and tofu. Mussi, his sleek tabby cat, watches expectantly from his kitty bed, eagerly flicking his tail to and fro. Kuba spoons the stew into a bowl – and sets it on the floor. It's Mussi's dinner. "It took him a little while to get used to this, but now he loves it," says Kuba. "For a special treat, I give him a little tofurkey."

Mussi eats this way everyday, and he's not alone in his peculiar tastes. Some cats will dig through trash only for the empy tuna cans, but others will lust for spinach, steal cantaloupe – even slurp spaghetti. Mussi is a vegan cat, part of a growing group of cats whose owners, vegans themselves, have decided to wean their cats off their "natural" food and put them on a plant-based diet. With the proper supplements, these cat-owners claim, a cat can live a healthy, normal, even happy life eating vegetables.

From the outside, it might look like taking veganism to an absurd extreme. We can choose not to eat meat for many reasons – health, ethics, animal rights – but a cat can't understand those things. Even if he could, nature has designed everything about a cat, from his teeth to his intestines, for a carnivorous lifestyle. What would feeding him vegetables accomplish?

A lot, according to vegan cat owners.

"You're saving animals by not feeding your cat meat," says Kuba. "It makes you feel good to feed your kitty something this good. Sometimes I even try some myself when I'm cooking." Kuba sprinkles a tablespoon of Vegecat supplements, a fine powder that looks like pepper and smells like Italian spices, into the mix and adds some garlic salt for taste. I try a spoonful; it tastes just like split pea soup.

Vegan Cats?

The mainstream has yet to embrace the idea of vegan cat food. "I don't know about that stuff," says one Berkeley pet store employee when I asked about vegan cat food, "Some places have vegan dog food, but I don't know about that either. Dogs evolved from wolves and I can't imagine a wolf that would prefer a salad to a moose."

But despite conventional wisdom, some dogs do prefer the salad. As any dog owner knows, dogs love to munch down on meat, vegetables, old pizza crusts and just about anything else they might find in the trash. Most experts agree that dogs are omnivores that can thrive without meat; vegan dog foods can even be found in some mainstream grocery stores.

But cats are a different story. Unlike dogs, cats are obligate carnivores – meaning that in the wild they would eat nothing but meat. Dogs can enjoy a meatless diet because they can synthesize some necessary nutrients that cats need to get from their food. Those essential nutrients – including taurine, arachidonic acid, and vitamin A – abound in meat. Cats go blind and deaf without taurine. Without arachidonic acid, they suffer from reproductive problems. And a vitamin A deficiency will stunt their growth and bone formation.

At the heart of the vegan philosophy for many is a desire to the reduce the pain and suffering of animals. But no matter how much progress a vegan cat-owner makes toward fighting animal exploitation, he's still forced into an uncomfortable compromise to keep his pet happy and healthy. If a cat can, in fact, live on vegetables, it would solve that problem in a flash. Many vegans see it as the only way they can stop feeling like hypocrites.

"As much as I would love to, I haven't switched my cats to vegan diets because I'm concerned that it's nutritionally inadequate for them," says Julie Ahern, a Berkeley vegan who lives with two non-vegan cats, Tiger and Memphis. "I've heard arguments that supplements can make up for inadequacies, but I just don't want to take any chances – particularly Tiger, because he's older and has health problems."

I met Ahern as she handed out vegan ice cream sandwiches on UC Berkeley's Sproul plaza, as part of Berkeley Organization for Animal Advocacy's (BOAA) community outreach. Ahern said she wasn't yet vegan when she adopted Memphis six years ago, but, by the time she'd adopted Tiger the following year, she was. "I'm not happy at all about feeding them animal products but I haven't come across any other viable options," she says. "I suppose I could be labeled a hypocrite because it seems like I value their lives more than the lives of billions of farmed animals."

Ahern hasn't given up searching for a better solution. She pores over cat care books like "Natural Health for Dogs and Cats," by Dr. Richard Pitcairn, a veterinarian and founder of the Animal Natural Health Center in Eugene, Oregon.

On Pitcairn's advice, Ahern wants to reduce Tiger and Memphis's meat consumption; she feeds them Jeffrey's Fresh Meat Pet Foods from Jeffrey's Natural Pet Foods in San Francisco. A store brochure describes the food as "a blend of raw, human grade, additive-free ground meats, organic vegetables and other essential nutrients."

"And as far as the animals that are killed to make the food are concerned, it really doesn't matter in the end whether they're organic or free-range, does it?" she says. "Whether factory-farmed or free-range, animals raised for food all end up at the same horrible place, the slaughterhouse."

Vegans like Ahern are still looking for an acceptable solution. Vegans like Kuba think they've already found it.

Healthy Choices

How healthy can a cat be if it's denied meat? Even healthier than it would be on meat, say some. Kuba notes that Mussi developed diabetes on his old canned food, and required up to 14 units of insulin a day. On his new plant diet, Kuba says, he only needs a fourth of that. In Seattle, Lindsay Saibara says a vegan diet helps control her cat Kumori's bowel problems just as well as the medicated diet he used to eat, and Diane Kantor credits a vegan diet for her cats' glossier coats. But that's only anecdotal evidence. No one has ever conducted any scientific studies on what it means to keep a cat on a meat-free diet, and experts don't agree about what the long-term effects a vegan diet might be.

"Cats don't need meat," says UC Davis cat nutrition specialist Quinton Rogers. "They need specific nutrients found in meat and if they can get that some other way then they can be reasonably healthy on a vegan diet. I wouldn't recommend it because you're more likely to get into trouble, but if you know what you're doing, and you get the pure elements, you can make it work."

Pitcairn, the author cited by Julie Ahern, disagrees. He writes that many vegan cats he's treated appear less healthy than their carnivorous counterparts, that cats specifically need nutrients from animal sources. Other vets are skeptical, but reluctant to advise against a vegan diet without doing further research.

Neither ethics nor science are clear-cut on the issue. "The long-term effects of feeding cats a diet without animal sources of these nutrients are still unknown," says Teri Barnato, Director of Veterinarians for Animal Rights in Davis. "There is also the issue of whether humans should manipulate a cat's normal diet to address human ethical concerns. Vegans may want to consider not having cats as companions, given their need for animal products and the typical sources of those products."

Making the Switch

In a perfect world, say many vegans, we wouldn't have this problem. We never should have domesticated cats, they say, but now we've just got to make the best of a bad situation. A vegan diet might not be ideal feline diet, but many cat owners see it as the only way that can live with peace at heart, knowing that they're consistent in their beliefs.

"People are all hung up on meat as a natural thing," says Jed Gillen, author of Obligate Carnivore, a book that details Gillen's journey to veganism and his decision to raise his own cats on a vegan diet.

I met up with Jed Gillen at the World Vegetarian Day Celebration at the Hall of Flowers in San Francisco, where he sold "Vegans Kick Ass" T-shirts, vegan cheese-flavored snacks, and vegan condoms (Made without casein, a milk protein.)

"Nothing about a cat's life is natural," says Gillen. "It's eating stuff that comes in a little bowl, it's living in your house, you're giving it vaccinations. But people cling to meat as something natural. In the wild, when does a cat eat a cow? In the wild, cats eat rodents, birds and insects. Why do we think cows are equivalent to insects?"

Even Gillen admits that vegan food is far from a perfect solution.

"For cats, I don't believe the vegan food is as good as real meat," said Gillen, leading a group discussion on vegan cats in a small side room at the World Vegetarian Day celebration. "I'm arguing that the cat's going to live a normal life span and be healthy on a vegan diet. Maybe your cat will live one year less. That's a sacrifice, but look at the huge benefit for all those other animals."

Of course, a human can understand the issues involved, but a cat doesn't know anything about factory farming or animal cruelty. Would it be right to make that choice for the cat?

Writes Gillen: "To overrule a dietary preference that is based on [a cat's] extremely limited understanding of the issues and instead select a food for them that is more in alignment with what you know to be ethical is not "forcing" anything on them anymore than parents of human children routinely "force" them to brush their teeth or to not play in traffic. To make a choice as complex as which food to buy, an issue which carries ethical concerns that they couldn't possibly begin to understand, is one of our jobs. Not only is this kind of thing not contradictory to good parenting, it is an inherent part of it!"

At the discussion, some weren't convinced that was enough. "It kills me everyday that I have to feed my cat meat," said Berkeley vegan Isobel Schneider. "I'd love to be convinced otherwise, but for the long term health of the cat it seems he should be eating meat. I love my cat so much that I've been willing to be a hypocrite."

Back in Mountain View, Mussi's eating his dinner. Kuba became a vegan almost overnight two years ago, after hearing a lecture at the Earth Day convention in Berkeley on the suffering of factory farm-raised animals. Mussi took a little longer to convert. For six months, Kuba mixed increasing doses of vegan cat food with Mussi's regular dinner until he was completely meat-free. It was a slow process, as Kuba struggled to find the right combination of vegetable tastes that would win Mussi over. He cooked different recipes from James Peden's Vegetarian Cats and Dogs, plying Mussi with exotic combinations of rice, oats and garbanzo beans. Ultimately, he discovered Mussi's favorite dish, lentils and tofu. "It was a trial and error thing," said Kuba. "Every cat is different, and they can be finicky. It's like cooking for a member of the family. It's simple to switch a cat if you do it with patience and love."

Mussi doesn't like to be disturbed while he's eating; even at the ripe old age of 16, he's every bit as protective of his food as his ancestors might have been over vanquished prey. In the backyard, four bushy-tailed squirrels scamper up to the screen door, chattering loudly. Kuba slides the screen door open and tosses a handful of peanuts into the yard, where the squirrels swarm over them. Mussi ignores their insistent chattering.

"He doesn't chase them anymore," says Kuba. "Part of it is just that he's older, but I think his new diet might also have something to do with it. And I think he just sees how I interact with the squirrels, how I treat them with respect."

But what if Mussi refused to eat tofu? What if, despite everything, Mussi simply demanded meat? "I'd probably have put him back on regular food," says Kuba, shrugging. "I don't want him to starve."

[grog]

Interesting. One thing I noticed was that he "put garlic salt" into the cat stew. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere on a vet site that garlic and onions and the like are incredibly damaging to a cat's kidneys, so I wouldn't recomend that.

[spasticastic]

I saw that long article and I was like, "I'm not going to read that thing!" But then I did anyway. It does a pretty good job of bringing out all the complexities.

I agree with the statement that nothing about a domestic cat's life is natural. Feeding a cat lentils is not weirder than feeding it cornmeal/fishmeal nuggets, like storebought catfood.

I hadn't heard "obligate carnivore" before. I was always under the impression that cats were, to some degree, omnivores due to the period of domestication. But I guess in the good old days of domestication they lived off of rats, mice and roaches that snacked on the food stores.

I also like the animal rights vs. domesticated animals issue, because it strains the brain. We obviously get a lot of love from the critters, but it brings up all kinds of issues about whether we should have domesticated them in the first place, whether we are just using them, and what is best for them. The answer is not immediately apparent. Good article!

[Lucy]

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere on a vet site that garlic and onions and the like are incredibly damaging to a cat's kidneys, so I wouldn't recomend that.

Not exactly, from what I've read. I mean, I've heard that a substance in both of them, used in appreciable quantities, can cause kidney damage, but I don't know the extent of it. So people who have kitties whose kidneys are in bad shape avoid feeding them garlic and onions, which I'm sure is a wise idea. But I don't think serious kidney damage is an automatic consequence of having them eat some garlic or onion. I guess it would bear more personal research before getting too freaked out about it.

[herbi]

raw onion is especially bad, but small amounts of garlic powder are usually fine

[grog]

Well, since my kitty is suffering from renal failure , I certainly won't go near it, nor would I even mess around with it with a healthy cat, since cat's kidneys are so small and more or less irreplaceable, treatment-wise. I belive I saw it stated pretty plainly on a vet site when I was researching his kidney failure, apprently some people feed their sick kitties baby food and I guess some have lots of garlic or onion (though I'd think babies wouldn't be too happy with it either)

Anyway, I would just suggest people avoid it, cat's bodies aren't big enough to experiment on, IMHO.

[Lucy]

Well, since my kitty is suffering from renal failure

Sorry to hear that, grog. Mine too. I only feed her renal support food (Waltham's and Science Diet). What do you give yours? Do you know if there are any foods out there for CRF kitties that come from companies that aren't so bad for other animals? Have you looked into vegan foods for a CRF cat?

Hope your cat is maintaining. Lucy was practically at death's door when she was diagnosed, but it's been a full year and she has regained her weight and looks good (it takes lots of treatment, though). She has no energy, but then she never did--she's just a cuddlebum.

[grog]

Sorry to hear that, grog. Mine too. I only feed her renal support food (Waltham's and Science Diet). What do you give yours?

Sorry for you too. Sucks. He's doing ok. Its been about a year for him too. He wasn't very "sick" appearing when I took him in, but he had started vomitting every night. Eventually (like 6 months later) we figured out he also has pancreatis, hence the vomitting. But his BUN and other numbers have been stable and are even slightly lower than when he was first diagnosed.

I feed him (and my others since I don't want to manage multiple foods) IVD Select Care Neutral formula, its far from vegan but it does have potatoes in it I haven't investigated anything vegan, its too big of a concern for me. He was on the Kidney specific formula, but the high fat content aggravated his pancreatis, so this food is slighltly higher in protein, but much lower in fat, and the potato is a "novel" protein source so it doesn't aggravate the pancreas. On one hand, a vegan diet might do him really well....but he's an old cranky man (16+) and a finicky eater so I'm just happy he eats this.

He "hangs out" less often, but he's always been a "back room / closet / cupboard" kind of kitty anyway so its hard to tell.

Is your kitty on any meds? They have eban, my kitty, on Enalipril, which lowers blood pressure and theoretically thus helps the kidneys function, and tagament, for acid problems. Though I don't really think he has acid problems since we figured out the pancreas thing, so I don't give it to him as much as I used to.

I'll have to post a better picture of him in the picture post, since he is of course, the most beautiful cat in the world

[Lucy]

Hi, Grog! Lucy is just turning 16 this summer. She is on 7.5 mg of Pepcid daily (split in 2 doses) for her acid tummy, plus Tapazole for her hyperthyroidism (which she developed recently), and sometimes a little Cyproheptadine as an appetite stimulant. She also takes 75 ml of subcutaneous fluids twice a day; for a long time it was hard to get her to calm down and sit still for the fluids, but lately (for the past few months) she is really good and only starts struggling towards the end, when the bulge of fluids gets tight under her skin. I hope it's because she's learned to tolerate the procedure calmly and not because she's feeling too bad to fight. I do suspect it's the former, though. Sometimes she even relaxes and purrs during it.

Her numbers were really high when she was first diagnosed; as I recall (don't have them in front of me) her BUN was somewhere around 160 and her creatinine, like 7. Now they're down to 49 and 2.8, respectively. We are going to the vet on Saturday for a checkup. She doesn't have a blood pressure problem, thank heaven, but I have to keep an eye on it because, for one thing, she has a mild heart murmur and we don't want the fluid/heart/BP feedback thing to worsen her heart condition.

It's hard to get Lucy to eat any supplements in her food. The doc prescribed Metamucil (I use psyllium husk) and has suggested various other supplements in the past, but she'll find any pretext not to eat even just her regular food; so I have a hard time getting anything into her that's not deliciously tasty food or a medicine in straight pill form. Mixing stuff into her food just makes her avoid it and me.

I think that most vets and researchers now consider protein in the diet to be not so much the problem as far as acting to the detriment of the kidneys, but rather it's the phosphorous you've got to watch out for. I am on the CRF Support board at Yahoo, which is a very active and helpful forum full of experts. Here's the URL if you want to check it out:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Feline-CRF-Support/

OK, I will grant eban the "most beautiful kitty in the world" title, since it is doubtless true in your eyes, but Lucy is the most lovable and adorable, so there.
Pets and skritches to eban from Lucy (human and feline versions)

[grog]

Hey there. Phosphourus eh? I hadn't heard that I hope you and your kitty do as best as can. Since eban eats well enough, I don't yet really think he needs supplements.

I think my boy's numbers are around 35 BUN and a similar creatinine to what Lucy has. We had him on fluids originally, because the vomiting made it seem like he could already be really sick. I found it impossible to do myself, but thankfully the vet was literally 2 blocks away and would do it for me early in the morning. But eventually we figured it wasn't yet necessary.

Re: High blood pressue. They never checked eban's, they say its basically really hard to do on cats do to their small size, and they get so stressed when you try to measure it, that it goes up anyway. They said the theory was most cats with kidney problems have high blood pressure so it would help that if he had it, and should help the kidney's by lowering the pressure and hence causing less new damage.

I'll check out that forum eventually. Since he was first diagnosed it sounds so terrible and I was basically crying myself to sleep every night for 6 months. Now that I've figured out he's relatively stable, I try to pretend its not there so I can enjoy my time with him. But maybe there is more I could do so I will check it out.

Lucy probably wins with Lovable and adorable. Eban is definetly a look but don't touch type of guy (except for ear and chin scratches)

[Lucy]

Since he was first diagnosed it sounds so terrible and I was basically crying myself to sleep every night for 6 months. Now that I've figured out he's relatively stable, I try to pretend its not there so I can enjoy my time with him. But maybe there is more I could do so I will check it out.

You're right, it's definitely a "first, you cry" kind of situation. I was inconsolable for weeks. It was hard for me to be away from home during my free time, and I remember standing on the el platform one day trying to get home, and it just wouldn't come, and I got so terribly frustrated and crying tears of anger knowing that Lucy was "probably" lying dead or dying at home and I couldn't get to her . . . Geez, I'm glad I learned to cope. Anyway, you do learn to live with the fact, and the pretending is perfectly healthy and proper, I think. No point in mourning him before he's gone, and as I've often heard, your attitude affects theirs.

If you are considering going to the CRF forum, I'd encourage you to stop in and introduce yourself and give the results of Eban's most recent test results (especially BUN, creat, phosphorus, and HCT or PCV, either of which is a measure of blood count, depending on which test your lab performs). Ask what they think. The people there are so expert that they can give you well-informed (amateur) feedback and maybe suggest a couple of things to ask your vet next time. Also check out the "Files" section, which has documents and stuff on CRF. But as they always say, "treat the cat, not the numbers," so if Eban seems to be doing well and eats, frolics, and eliminates as usual, then you're probably doing something right.

[atouria]

I know that this thread is pretty old, but I want to thank Jason for posting it. Hopefully, one day my hubby and I will have a kitty and I've really enjoyed this food for thought.

Lucy and Grog, i hope your kitties are doing well! Sending happy thoughts your way!

[Shibo]

Fortunately, my landlord made me get rid of my cats before I went vegan, so i didn't ever have to deal with this issue. I don't think it really makes sense to deny a cat meat. I'm not even sure how I feel about doing that for a dog, though, as I live in an apartment in the city, I would be fully responsible for my cats' diets, thus responsible for killing any animals they would be eating by buying their meat. I feel that the ideal situation would be to allow the cats to hunt their food for themselves. If we are to have cats as companions, I don't think they should have to be dependent upon us; they should not be made to live in small apartments without access to the outdoors. They certainly shouldn't be bred or bought or sold any more than humans should be bought or sold, but should come to us of their own will as, I imagine, they had initially. It seems that we tend to treat our companion animals as toys, much as parents do even with their children. I think pets are great, but, if they are actually be companions, I don't think that they should be owned; we should never have to be responsible for its diet. A cat is its own person, not an object. I do, however, feel that we should pick our battles wisely. I suppose if a cat can actually be healthy on a vegan diet, by all means go for it, but I don't know that I can think, "My cat's life may have been shortened by a year, but think of the lives I've saved!" In this situation, the third option - not owning the cat and being responsible for its diet at all - would be best.