If you want to subject yourself to the depths of stoooopid that humans are able to produce…. look no further than this thread on the PETA forum.
I’ve been a vegan since I was 16 years old, after I decided I did’nt want to live off another animals pain. I recently rescued a cat from the pound. I don’t want to participate in the consumption of any meat, so I’ve been trying to get the cat to eat a diet of soy based substitutes but it just sniffs them a walks away.
I’ve been reading online that cats can selectively starve themselves and I’m worried it may get sick soon, but its not right for it to be able to live at another creatures expense. Does anyone know of any tried a proven methods to get a house cat onto a vegetarian diet?
Great googaly-moogaly. Trying to force a cat onto a vegan diet? What compounds the stupid is that this asshat isn’t universally taken to task for being an asshat. Instead, many of the PETA respondants actually support the idea.
Cats are carnivores. Attempts to make them vegetarians are ridiculous and arguably evil.
With rare exceptions, humans prefer the company of carnivores over herbivores. What are the two most popular pets in the west? Dogs and cats. We name our sports teams after carnivores… Wolves and Raptors and Lions and Tigers and Bears. Sometimes Rams and Stallions, but rarely Bunnies or Sheep or Cows. Of the mammals we eat, *what* mammals do we eat? We eat the herbivores. Cows. Guinea Pigs. Sheep. Goats. Pigs we eat in considerable abundance; they are, like us, omnivores, but generally not really hunters. But the afore-mentioned wolves and lions and tigers and bears? Not very often. Some cultures eat dogs and cats; but we in the west largely turn up our noses in shock at that, and often pass laws against it. Many people have pet rabbits… but we eat *those* with gusto.
Why this distinction?
Professional-goddam-courtesy, that’s why. We recognize ourselves in carnivores far more than we do in herbivores. There are good reasons for this… predators are, on the whole, smarter and more filled with personality than herbivores. What are our favorite critters of the sea? Probably dolphins and whales… every last one a predator, and many capable of having great fun torturing prey items like seals. As Larry Niven once pointed out, it doesn’t take a lot of smarts to sneak up on a leaf. And if you don’t need smarts, you generally don’t evolve smarts. Look into the eyes of a cat or a dog or a ferret, and you’ll see an individual looking back out at you. A soul, if you will. Look into the eyes of a cow. There ain’t nuthin’ there. No intelligence, no desire, no friggen’ dignity. It’s little more than a biological mechanism for turning grass into more cows.
The features that make us like cats and dogs are derived precisely from the features that make them good predators. Kitten and cat play are indistinguishable from hunting behavior. They enjoy the process of stalking another living critter, pouncing on it and smacking the crap out of it. Yes, it sucks for the mouse. But it’s fun for the cat. And it’s not a taught behavior… it’s built-in. If you take that away from them, you take from them their basic nature.
<>So abusing a cat by making it eat food that it *knows* is crap is an act deserving of a boot to the ass. Make a cow eat whatever you want. But dogs and cats… they’re different. Humans have spent the last 20,000 or so years turning wolves into dogs, and the last 5,000 or so years turning cats into, well, cats. Dogs we use to hunt for us, to protect our person and our property from other predators. Cats keep our property clear of smaller, but no less dangerous threats such as poisonous snakes, grain-devouring mice, and plague-spreading rats. They are ON OUR TEAM. Abusing them by forcing them to engage in bullcrap hippie-fascist food ideology is just… wrong.
18 Responses to “The stupid… it burns!!!!”
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obviously, years of the vegan diet has turned this guy’s brain into bovine mammary tissue, cos s/he would otherwise have done their internet research and found that cats are ‘obligate carnivores’, that is they _HAVE_ to eat meat!!!!. I believe dogs can survive on a vegetarian diet, but not cats.
cheers,
Robin.
I wonder if this hippie punk has any reptile brain remaining on him/her. Or for that matter any brains at all.
It’s outrageous that 123Truth believes that the cat is selectively starving him or herself by not eating a soy-based diet.
But one needs to look no further than the PETA web site to find the depths of stoooopid. There are nine pages of mostly idiotic responses from these out of touch and ignorant hypersensitives who believe that a cat can eat a meat free diet.
They just don’t want to accept that life eats other life to live.
That’s one person that deserves to be bitch-slapped into next week.
> It’s outrageous that 123Truth believes that the cat is selectively starving him or herself by not eating a soy-based diet.
I don’t know about that. If a human-food is not appropriate for a cat, I can understand why a cat would prefer to starve than not eat it. After all, vultures might dig Bloated Rotting Sun Dried Corpse, but I’d have to be *damned* hungry to tuck in, myself. Humans consume a lot of things that cats can’t. Easter Lillies, philodendrons, avacados, chocolate, Tylenol are all toxic to cats. Their livers are less capable of filtering out the toxins.
Sadly, cats seem to like some things that are toxic to them, like ethylene glycol. Dogs dig that stuff too, and it’ll kill ’em dead.
According to Wiki, vegan cat foods have been available for some years. But they need to add a few things: “Cats are obligate carnivores and require nutrients (including arginine, taurine, arachidonic acid, vitamin A, vitamin B12 and niacin) found in meat sources that cannot be obtained in sufficient amount in plant sources.”
How “natural” it is to have to chemically add these things to food for a cat, I’ll leave as an excercise for the student.
I am SOOO glad I stumbled onto this blog! Sci-fi, aircraft, weapons and cats. What more could you possibly want?!?!?
My vote is to turn this PETA maroon in to local law enforcement for prosecution on animal cruelty charges.
I’m 47 and have had cats in my life every single one of those years. Even while I was in the Army, even though it was frowned upon. We have a houseful right now, not entirely by choice, and 3 of them are voracious hunters. The other 5? Not so much.
As for choosing what they will eat. We have actually had to throw out whole bags of food because they refused to eat it. Not cheapy store brand either, good food. That they simply refused to eat.
It has always been my opiniion that the PETA types, as a practical demonstration of their love for animals and desire to “Save the Planet”, should have themselves euthanized and rendered into pet food.
The most side-splittingly hilarious aspect of this story is that this goddamned dirty hippie, in his/her attempt to “help” the animal, is doing exactly that which PETA is supposed to be against.
This is a perfect example of the dead weight that society must carry. Sadly, I fear there is much, much more to come in the future.
Well.Another example of errant stupidity. However, Larry Niven missed out on one point: It may not take a lot of brains to sneak up on a leaf, but it takes plenty to keep from being snuck up on while you’re munching that leaf.
Then again, it was a Kzinti who said that…
I read that 10,000 dogs and cats are poisoned each year by drinking ethylene glycol-based antifreeze. I understand that it has a sweet taste that they find it delicious.
Thais cuisine includes fried beetles and grasshoppers, but I don’t believe that most Westerners consider beetles and grasshoppers to be food. I would have to be pretty hungry to eat beetles and grasshoppers however they may be prepared.
We cannot blame the poor cat for not considering soy-based products as food.
Far be it for the cat to be “turned off” to the soy products as food, or even for us to think that it is a matter of taste for cats. The soy probably may as well be concrete or plastic. It’s probably not even considered a food item by them.
Also, this was another excellent post! What an intriguing and unique point of view on this old conundrum.
> It may not take a lot of brains to sneak up on a leaf, but it takes plenty to keep from being snuck up on while you’re munching that leaf.
Not really… just alert senses, and fast reflexes. Teh real trick is to do the sneaking.
> The soy probably may as well be concrete or plastic. It’s probably not even considered a food item by them.
Agreed. What human would eat bamboo or wood or grass? Yet one does not need to travel far to find a critter happily munching away on those.
Scott;
Slight correction to your information:
“Humans have spent the last 20,000 or so years turning wolves into dogs, and the last 5,000 or so years turning cats into, well, cats.”
Cat’s have spent the last 5,000+ years turning humans into a suitable species capable of being exploited for food and comfort. This has allowed them to drop their plans on evolving opposible thumbs.
Randy
http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/funny-pictures-cat-does-not-like-vegetarian-food.jpg
[…] sort of a followup to this, this here’s a post for vegetarian LOLcats. If I miss one, post a link in the comments […]
“2Hotel9 Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 7:55 am
I am SOOO glad I stumbled onto this blog! Sci-fi, aircraft, weapons and cats. What more could you possibly want?!?!?”
Penguins?
No, but honestly, some people are just too stupid. Without our modern societies and technology they’d have died already.
I’d really love to see one thing: a human omnivore (that’s how we were designed, we even have fangs still, small, but they’re there) vs a human vegan in the wild. Who’d starve first? Not the omnivore. The omnivore will eat anything from fruits to animals. That’s how our ancestors survived the Ice Age.
I’ve also noticed that vegans are usually city people. I’ve never met one who came was a country pumpkin. City people and animals… the stories I could tell about their stupity.
Ok, so I live in a large city myself, but I came from the countryside.
Great post! I love that you are taking the time to write about pet care. This is something near and dear to my heart. Take care.
[…] a followup to this oldie (which was itself a response to this report of incredible human stupidity), here are a bunch of LOLcats on the theme of just how “vegan” cats really are by […]