What Can I Do?

Every person can directly help many animals by making the compassionate choice to buy vegan food for your cats and dogs. Especially if you are vegan, then this will cut your last tie to the slaughterhouses. And, it's the healthy and nutritionally sound choice too!
Vegan Pet Food

Everyday people ask how they can help animals. The easiest way to help the greatest number of animals each and every day is to stop eating them. By giving up all animal products such as meat, milk, eggs, cheese, honey, leather, etc. you know that you are doing what you can to alleviate animal suffering.

Now that you have made the healthy and compassionate choice for yourself, you want your companion animals to also benefit from a vegan diet. You're in luck! It is now easier than ever to provide your pets with complete nutrition while eating vegan.

When explaining why a meat-based diet is bad for your companion animals, many of the reasons are the same as why eating meat is bad for people. There are serious health concerns, environmental concerns, and it even sustains global hunger issues. To read more about these issues, visit our page about the impacts of factory farming. And, the fact that tens of billions of animals suffer intense confinement, separation of families, and brutal slaughter make it all the more wrong. For details about these serious animal welfare issues, please visit our factory farming page.

For more information about the many benefits of a vegan diet for your companion animal, click here.


Vegan Dog Food: complete nutrition

Nature's Recipe Vegetarian Dog food is nutritionally complete, found in your local Petco or PetsMart store, and is completely vegan, although the company that makes it is not (they also make meat foods and do feeding trials as reported by a representative at Vegan Mercantile.) For compete product details and to receive a free sample, click here.

For a wide variety of choices, order online. There are several nutritionally complete options to choose from. For a complete list click on these links:
  1. Dry vegan dog food (kibble)

  2. Canned vegan dog food (moist food)

  3. Home cooked vegan dog food

Vegan Cat Food: complete nutrition

Of the many nutrients that cats require, taurine is the one that is traditionally the hardest to get when eating a vegan diet because it usually comes from fish. Without taurine cats can go blind and even succumb to heart disease. As with changing one's own diet, it's important to understand nutritional requirements before jumping into any new food products.

Taurine can also be derived from yeast, which is a living organism but not sentient as far as current knowledge can tell. This would qualify it as a vegan source of taurine.

There are currently two vegan cat food brands on the market that are nutritionally complete. They are:
  1. Harbinger's of a New Age Vegecat (requires home cooking)

    • Vegecat Supplement: The main mix that is used to make either the moist food recipes or the kibble. For complete nutrition Prozyme Plus and VegeYeast are also needed to be added to the recipes. All can be purchased at the Vegecat link above.

    • Vegecat pH: For cats with a history of urinary infections and blockages. This is a pH version of the main mix. It can also be used to make either the moist food recipes or the kibble. For complete nutrition Prozyme Plus and VegeYeast are also needed to be added to the recipes. All can be purchased at the Vegecat link above.

    • Vegecat KibbleMix: This mix has many ingredients already in it (including VegeYeast), so this is the best choice for those who want convenience. But the downside is that it is only for the dry food recipe and cannot be used to make the moist food recipes. This kibble is lower in magnesium than making the kibble from the Vegecat Supplement, which is great for urinary health. For complete nutrition Prozyme Plus also needs to be added to the recipes, which can be purchased at the Vegecat link above.

    • Vegekit Supplement: This is very similar to the Vegecat Supplement (listed above) but has additional vitamins and minerals for growth. This is intended for kittens and lactating female cats. For complete nutrition Prozyme Plus and VegeYeast are also needed to be added to the recipes. All can be purchased at the Vegecat link above.

    NOTE: Animal Awareness volunteers currently use this brand for their cats. We have found that cats enjoy it most when the dry kibble is mixed with baby food just prior to serving. This makes a nice sauce. Make sure the baby food is a vegetable flavor, squash works well. Also, sprinkle on some nutritional yeast just prior to serving. Nutritional yeast has a nice cheese flavor that cats like. All of these suggestions were found in the online pdf feeding instructions on the Vegecat link above.

  2. Evolution Diet vegan cat food

Vegan Cat and Dog Food Supplement

Wyson Vegan can be found at some vets and health food stores such as Mom's and the Glenelg Animal Hospital. It is not intended to be the sole food provided for your companion animal, but as a supplemental food. This product can help you cut your link to the slaughterhouses by half or more, which is far healthier and more compassionate than a full meat-based diet. Even though this product is not nutritionally complete on its own, the fact that it will allow your animal to cut back meat is far healthier than not. Meat in his diet means that he's getting the slaughterhouse waste and antibiotics that is in all meat, and especially in lower quality pet-grade meat.

It is speculated that Wysong Vegan does contain animal-derived taurine and not synthetic as other real vegan foods are. Wysong does not participate in feeding-trials or any other testing with caged animals. Their policy is that, "Any 'feeding trials' conducted for Wysong Diets are with at-home, well-loved companion animals."




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