bodhi tree swaying

So it’s possible that your cat could become a vegetarian, but here are some good reasons why you might want to think about doing that. (And although cats live a long time, you might want to consider a less carni-centric companion animal next time). This article’s from the New York Times.

Cat Got Your Fish?
By PAUL GREENBERG
Published: March 21, 2009

My cat Coco died recently. Actually we euthanized him to alleviate his suffering from cancer. And while this was a sad moment, it was made less sad because Coco’s death also alleviated ever so slightly the suffering of the sea.

Coco, like most American cats, ate fish. And a great deal of them — more in a year than the average African human, according to Jason Clay at the World Wildlife Fund. And unlike the chicken or beef Coco also gobbled up, …

If you’ve become a vegetarian you might feel uneasy about keeping a cat and feeding it on dead animals. Cats require essential amino acids, fatty acids, and vitamins that are hard, if not impossible, to obtain from a vegetarian diet. But there are now cat foods specially formulated with vegetarian ingredients, as this Scientific American article points out.

Unlike dogs and other omnivores, cats are true (so-called “obligate”) carnivores: They meet their nutritional needs by consuming other animals and have a higher protein requirement than many other mammals. Cats get certain key nutrients from meat—including taurine, arachidonic acid, vitamin A and vitamin B12—that can’t be sufficiently obtained from plant-based foods. Without a steady supply of these nutrients, cats can suffer from liver and heart problems, not to mention skin irritation and hearing loss.

As such, a cat’s ideal diet is made up mainly of

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