Faraz Harsini
Andrew Knight
Benny Smith- 1Allied Scholars for Animal Protection, Austin, TX, United States
- 2School of Veterinary Medicine, College of Environmental and Life Sciences, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, Australia
- 3School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia
- 4Faculty of Health and Wellbeing, University of Winchester, Winchester, United Kingdom
Vegan pet diets have historically been controversial, as dogs and cats are biologically omnivores and carnivores respectively. However, due to the demands of consumers concerned about farmed animal welfare and environmental sustainability, increasing numbers of pet food companies are now producing vegan diets excluding any animal products. These aim to supply all nutritional needs using plant-sourced ingredients, and supplements of minerals, vitamins and amino acids, amongst others.
However, a recent study by Daina et al. (1) asserted nutritional inadequacies in vegan pet diets. The study based its conclusions on the analysis of only three specific diets—a sample insufficient to draw conclusions about the nutritional soundness of all vegan pet diets. Nutritional unsoundness is also not uncommon among nonvegan pet diets (2). Although diets in each group may be nutritionally sound or unsound, depending on the quality of diet formulation and manufacturing, systemic differences between vegan and meat-based pet foods appear minimal in this respect. In fact, a recent survey of 29 pet food manufacturers (many more than examined by Daina et al.), which examined steps taken to ensure nutritional soundness and diet quality, found that 10 plant-based pet foods had slightly higher standards overall, than 19 meat-based pet foods (3). The former were more—not less—likely to be nutritionally sound.
Furthermore, the gold standard test for nutritional adequacy is animal health and longevity. Ten studies in dogs (4–13) and three in cats (14–16) have found that vegan diets produce health outcomes as good or better than nonvegan diets. The palatability of vegan pet diets appears comparable to that of meat-based diets (17), and nutritionally-sound vegan diets for dogs and cats offer major benefits for environmental sustainability (18).
The sweeping claims made by Daina et al. concerning the nutritional unsoundness of vegan pet diets are inconsistent with the evidence in this field, and incorrect. Given the positive health outcomes for dogs and cats maintained on nutritionally-sound vegan diets, and the substantial environmental benefits such diets may offer, the use of such diets should be supported.
Author contributions
FH: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. AK: Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. BS: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Investigation.
Funding
The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The open access publication fee was paid by Representing Animals. However this funder played no role in study conceptualization, design, data collection and analysis, preparation of the resultant manuscript, nor decisions relating to publication.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher's note
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References
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Keywords: vegan, pet, nutrition, dog, cat, veterinary, plant-based, vegetarian
Citation: Harsini F, Knight A and Smith B (2024) Should dogs and cats be fed vegan diets? Front. Vet. Sci. 11:1430743. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2024.1430743
Received: 10 May 2024; Accepted: 18 July 2024;
Published: 01 August 2024.
Edited by:
Arda Yildirim, Gaziosmanpaşa University, TürkiyeReviewed by:
Ercan Mevliyaoğullari, Middle East Technical University, TürkiyeCopyright © 2024 Harsini, Knight and Smith. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Faraz Harsini, drfarazharsini@alliedscholars.org; Andrew Knight, andrew.knight@murdoch.edu.au; Benny Smith, benny@alliedscholars.org