{"id":6047,"date":"2013-02-06T09:00:30","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T17:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=6047"},"modified":"2013-02-05T10:23:22","modified_gmt":"2013-02-05T18:23:22","slug":"sour-grapes-veggie-cats-and-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/02\/06\/sour-grapes-veggie-cats-and-dogs\/","title":{"rendered":"Sour Grapes<\/em>: Veggie cats and dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just the other day, a question popped into my brain which, like a Zen master speaking about one hand clapping, left me confused and curious. Mainly, I couldn\u2019t believe I had never given the topic much thought, but now I kept asking myself this question: what do vegetarians and vegans feed their pets?<\/p>\n

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Someone loves their doggy (photo by mike baird).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Everyone has those pious Facebook friends who post the more-than-occasional article espousing the benefits of veganism prefaced by some passive-aggressive statement about the evils of meat eating. Of course it\u2019s not coincidental that most of these people own dogs or cats. Many people choose not to eat meat because of their love and respect for animals, so pet ownership seems to be a natural choice.<\/p>\n

At first, this question of what non-meat-eaters feed their furry friends was just a flash in my brainpan and nothing more than a thing to make me go \u201chmm.\u201d But then, the more I thought about it, the more it actually made me angry.<\/p>\n

I have spent years attempting to be a healthy and ethical consumer only to be told that unless I am a vegetarian or vegan, I am announcing to the world that I despise (and would gladly see slaughtered) all animalkind. And then what do I see but those very same Facebook preachers posing with their cute little pooches. These people have just been conveniently glossing over the fact that, while they might not eat meat, they are gladly supporting an industry which is probably the furthest thing from free-range you can get.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can you preach about animal welfare when you have a dog?\u201d I thought, indignantly. \u201cWhat the hell do you feed him? VEGETABLES?\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, as it turns out, that is exactly what some people are doing. In fact, there are quite a few dog food companies, with names like V-Dog and Nature\u2019s Recipe, which specialize in vegetarian pet foods. Even Ellen DeGeneres is on the vegan dog food train as a spokesperson for \u201cholistic pet care\u201d company Halo. Not to mention the variety of recipes to be found on sites like peta.org.<\/p>\n

Of course, there is no shortage of arguments against the use of vegan pet foods. Some call it unethical to push our lifestyle choices onto animals that can\u2019t help their instincts, while others point to proof that dogs and cats can live long and happy lives on sweet potatoes and lentils.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, a quick Google search was all it took to take me from enraged to enlightened. But I still wonder how widespread this practice is among the vegetarian\/vegan community. My guess is, not too many people are dishing out their dog\u2019s dinner from the same pot as their own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just the other day, a question popped into my brain which, like a Zen master speaking about one hand clapping, left me confused and curious. Mainly, I couldn\u2019t believe I had never given the topic much thought, but now I kept asking myself this question: what do vegetarians and vegans feed their pets? Everyone has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-february-6-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6047"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6050,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6047\/revisions\/6050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}