The question whether cats can eat vegetarian or vegan can actually be answered in the same way as the question whether dogs can eat vegan.
The bottom line is that a cat, just like a dog and any other animal, needs nutrients. Nutrients, therefore, and not specific ingredients.

Difference Between Dogs and Cats

Cats have different nutritional needs than dogs. Dogs can cope with many types of food. Cats, on the other hand, have a much more one-sided diet. They are called obligate carnivores, which means that their diet consists mainly of meat. While dogs can still produce certain nutrients themselves, a cat often has to rely on nutrients from their menu. The ability to make their own nutrients from other nutrients has disappeared in cats as a result of evolution. This is because the cat always received certain nutrients through the menu and it was therefore no longer necessary to make these nutrients itself. A cat therefore has a much more specific need for nutrients than a dog.

General about cat food

Cats need nutrients normally found mainly in meat. Fortunately, there are also vegetable sources for all these nutrients or the substances can be made by means of synthetic processes.

The connotation of synthetics is often wrongly negative. These substances are identical to the natural substances or they perform the same functions as the comparable natural substances. In addition, for vegan cat food, the same nutrients are added to the chunks as with meat chunks.

A well-known example of this is the substance taurine. Cats cannot do without this substance and it is actually only found in meat. A dog can produce this substance itself, but a cat cannot. If taurine is not added to the diet, a cat will become blind and eventually even die. Taurine disappears from food the moment it is heated. That is why it is necessary to add taurine to meat chunks as well, because the ingredients are heated before they are pressed into a chunk. The same taurine that is added to meat chunks is also added to vegetable cat chunks.

A lot of scientific research has been done into the nutritional needs of cats. Based on this, a guideline has been written that complete animal feed must comply with. This is published by the FEDIAF, a trade association for the animal feed industry. The guideline has been drawn up at the nutrient level, and therefore not at the ingredient level. So it does not matter which ingredients are in the food, but which nutrients are in it. There is also a minimum amount of taurine that a cat food must contain according to this guideline.

Is it healthy for my cat?

De plant foods for cats that VegaVriend sells, all comply with the guidelines of the FEDIAF. This means that the diets are complete, in other words: they contain all the nutrients a cat needs to be able to lead a long and healthy life.

A disadvantage of meat chunks is that in addition to the necessary nutrients, many toxic substances are also present. Fish in particular currently contains a lot of heavy metals, due to all pollution caused by humans. These toxins that fish ingest and accumulate the higher up the food chain the animals accumulate, then build up further in the cat's body.

A vegetable food does not suffer from this and so vegetable food can also have advantages for the cat compared to meat chunks.