‘Study’ Claiming Vegan Cats Are Healthier Is A Mockery Of Science

A new paper claims cats are healthier when fed human diets, but the “study” is activism masquerading as science.

We have a science problem in this country.

Tens of millions of adults are scientifically illiterate and cannot articulate a simple definition of the scientific method.

That includes the usual suspects, the people who don’t understand the difference between anecdotes and hard data and say things like “Evolution’s just a theory” or “I don’t believe in science” as if it’s an ideology or religion. It also includes people who like to declare they’re “into science” as if it’s a band or a genre of cinema, and often post articles from sites like “I F—-ing Love Science,” which routinely mistakes natural phenomena like stars, interstellar space and the animal life for “science.”

To quote Sam Kriss’ wonderful essay on the subject: “‘Science’ comes to metonymically refer to the natural world, the object of science; it’s like describing a crime as ‘the police,’ or the ocean as ‘drinking.'”

Science is a formalized method for studying the natural world. That’s it. No more, no less. It isn’t natural phenomena itself, it isn’t something that requires faith. It’s meant to be challenged, with each piece of knowledge hard-won as the scientific community collectively chips away at the vast edifice of things we don’t understand.

The lack of scientific literacy is an indictment of the American education system, but the science and journalism communities are also big contributors. A flawed academic publishing system encourages researchers to make grandiose claims in abstracts and press releases to increase the chances their work will get positive coverage in the press. Few journalists are more scientifically literate than the general population, so they report dubious claims credulously and present individual studies as the final word on subjects instead of tentative first steps in contributing to the corpus of human knowledge.

We see this all the time with reporting on the environmental impact of felines, but it’s certainly not limited to that subject. How many times have you seen your local news anchors or newspapers tout studies saying coffee is healthy, only to report the next week that a new study says coffee isn’t healthy after all?

“Those scientists can’t make up their minds,” they’ll say with a forced chuckle before handing the broadcast over to the weatherman, oblivious to their own failure to provide context.

The effort to rebrand cats as vegans

A new “study,” given prominent play today by major news outlets like Newsweek and aggregators like Drudge, is a classic example of misleading claims given the veneer of scientific authority. The paper claims vegan cats are “healthier” than their meat-eating counterparts. The study — which is actually a survey — says no such thing, and its authors are surely aware that the way it’s been packaged for media consumption will cause confusion, but they’ve gone ahead with it anyway.

The research involved asking 1,369 cat owners to fill out surveys about their cats, the cats’ diets, and their veterinary health histories.

Of those surveyed, there were 123 reported “vegan cats” in their households (about nine percent of the total), and while the abstract and media pitches claim the surveys show vegan cats are healthier, the differences are statistically insignificant. The sample size is too small to draw any conclusions from, and the fact that the details are self-reported means the “data” is worthless: People who put their cats on vegan diets despite knowing felines are obligate carnivores have a vested interest in defending their decision. They’re not impartial, and their survey answers aren’t either. (The paper acknowledges that 91 percent of the respondents are female, and 65 percent are vegans, vegetarians or pescatarians themselves. Those are admirable choices for a human diet, but not for a cat.)

Relying on self-reported “data” also means the research team doesn’t actually know the true veterinary histories of the cats in question, nor does it know anything about the nutrient content of the vegan “cat food” given to the 123 cats who have been deprived of meat. It also cannot account for possibilities like the so-called vegan cats slipping out at night to hunt rodents.

a close up shot of a cat eating
Credit: Engin Akyurt/Pexels

That’s especially important because of “vegan cat food’s” dubious history. Evolution, the brand that popularized the concept, is owned and operated by a man named Eric Weisman, who has been prosecuted and repeatedly sanctioned for misrepresenting himself as a physician, veterinarian and scientist — and continues to misrepresent himself.

Weisman, a chiropractor by trade, racked up a long list of violations in his chosen field before his chiropractor license was pulled, then was charged and convicted criminally for, among other things, practicing veterinary medicine and regular medicine without a license. Weisman’s list of offenses include “treating” cancer patients, “treating” and misdiagnosing animals, and posing as a physician for years, including in advertisements and literature related to his pet food and fake veterinary practices.

Weisman is still calling himself a physician in violation of his plea agreement, and he’s still selling “vegan cat food.” Would anyone in their right mind weigh the claims of that man against the tens of thousands of veterinarians and pet nutritionists who are horrified at the idea of restricting cats to vegan diets?

(In case you’re tempted to think chiropractors are legitimate to begin with, you should know that chiropractor was founded by a lifelong quack who claimed its methods were taught to him by the ghost of a physician, which allegedly appeared to him during a seance. Chiropractor’s founder dodged accountability for years by claiming his practice was a “religion.” The fact that it’s now a $15 billion industry despite its origins, and decades of research that has found no benefit to the practice, illustrates how eager people are to believe just about anything.)

The consequences of bad science

Not only will the “study” and press coverage of it mislead people into believing its claims, it’s another black mark on the scientific community. Trust is hard-won, easily lost, and for better or worse the misdeeds of a few scientists reflects on the entire field.

Others will simply believe it, especially when major news outlets like Newsweek report the results without question, without acknowledging that it’s a lazy effort masquerading as science by a research team that already knew what result it wanted before handing out the surveys. (The “study” was funded by ProVeg, an NGO that promotes plant-based consumption and is involved in the development of plant-based foods.)

Lastly and most tragically, cats will suffer for it. Cats who are denied meat suffer slow and agonizing deaths, with health problems accumulating due to the lack of certain proteins until they go blind, become chronically malnourished and eventually suffer organ failure.

And for what?

Because some people believe human morals apply to cats?

Because, despite all common sense, they think they can change a species that has been dependent on meat for so long in their evolutionary history that their bodies literally cannot synthesize certain proteins and cannot extract nutrients from most plant material?

How would we like it if we were dependent on giants to feed us, and those giants decided we could and should live on a diet of marshmallows? We’d suffer horribly and we’d die, but at least we’d know why.

Cats don’t have that luxury. They depend on us to do right by them, and when we adopt them it’s our basic responsibility to keep them healthy and well-fed. Let’s not fail our little friends by pretending human ethics is applicable to a species that can’t understand it, or consent to participating in it.

27 thoughts on “‘Study’ Claiming Vegan Cats Are Healthier Is A Mockery Of Science”

  2. Thanks for highlighting this. I am a vegan myself BUT Bella and any other cats that I know and serve are not. History conclusively proves that “studies” and junk science are consistently wrong and dangerous. I am old enough to remember thalidomide which was approved through “studies” and science and that’s just one. Cats are carnivores which again history has proven to be an absolute fact and this particular history has been around far longer than any study or doctors. In the words of the late great Phil Lynott “Don’t believe a word”

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    1. That’s the thing…when I read about the stuff they’re doing with particle colliders or the JWST, or a random well-designed study that yields something interesting, I think it’s a shame that the people doing that sort of work are lumped in with people who slap a questionnaire on a website, collect a bunch of useless data, draw conclusions from it and call it a study.

      PLOS One is an open access journal, but you have to wonder how certain papers, like the ecological impact stiff involving cats, are accepted in journals like Nature.

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      1. Absolutely right. There is of course amazing work that is highlighted in nature journal (I also subscribe to it) and you are right that “junk science” by dangerous people can be lumped in with this work.

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  3. THIS IS ANIMAL ABUSE!!! Every single vegetarian and vegan i know would never do this!! My friend who has a cat and vegan for over 20 years calls this murder!Humans ate the dumbest animals on the planet.

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  4. One who engages in the practice is called a “chiropractor.”
    The practice itself is called “chiropractic.”
    When you call the practice “chiropractor” you sound like a dunce.

    But your conclusions on cats not being vegan are correct, which just goes to show that even a dunce can figure this one out.

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    1. Argumentum ad hominem, quod erat demonstrandum.

      I may be a dunce, but I have never claimed the ghost of a long-dead physician visited me during a seance and taught me how to align spines to meridians or chakras or a metaphysical “innate intelligence.”

      But with that history, I can understand why you’d reach for an ad hominem over an auto-correct mistake rather than try to defend chiropractor…er, I mean chiropractic.

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      1. Chiropracise or whatever it’s called is quackery. So’s vegan food for cats. That also qualifies as animal abuse because obligate carnivores cannot thrive or even live long on the junk.
        Vegan food is fine for human animals, but never cats.
        Is there no end to the anti science stupidity?

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      2. I agree, putting cats on a vegan diet is animal abuse, and I support shelters that will not allow people to adopt if they plan to feed cats nothing but plant matter.

        I can’t imagine the wrath of Buddy if I tried that with him!

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  5. I thought it was common knowledge that cats are obligate carnivores. I had a cat who loved to nosh on tomatoes. When I bought them, they’d have to go into the fridge STAT, because otherwise he would tear open the bag, and take a big bite out of each one. I think it’s a good thing if cats express an interest on occasionally chowing down on vegetable matter, but making that the whole of their diet is just a means of killing the poor thing.

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    1. How’d the tomato-loving cat do after eating the tomatoes? They’re nightshades and supposedly lethal to cats, so I’ve always been very careful about them, as well as grapes, raisins and that sort of thing, around Bud. Thankfully he’s not interested anyway.

      It seems like most people who insist cats can be vegan are misled by people like the aforementioned Weisman and others, and they think they’re doing good by cutting down on meat consumption. That’s why these “studies” and the credulous media coverage are so dangerous. People believe this stuff, especially if it’s given the air of legitimacy by publication in a research journal.

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      1. My tomato fan cat lived until age 17. It’s not as if he had tomatoes regularly. If I added up all the tomato he ate in those 17 years, it would make for three medium size tomatoes. Or 20+ teeny bites of tomato.

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  6. Cats are obligate carnivores and there’s no getting around that. It pains me to have to purchase the products of the meat industry which I know to be full of cruel practices, but it’s necessary to feed cats correctly. I don’t consume meat products myself, or wear or use leather products. I haven’t looked into it, but I’d be surprised if there’s any area of the world that could sustain agriculture without barn cats as at least part of rodent control. Total reliance on poisoning endangers wild animal predators too. So we can maintain healthy cats, or go back to being hunter/gatherers. IMHO.

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  7. Firstly, never, not ever, trust a chiropractor.
    Secondly and more importantly, when did you ever see a cat hunting, playing with, killing and eating a carrot? Or any veggie at all?

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    3. What is with the chiropractor bashing? I would trust her more than a doctor that did nothing to help me with my back issues. Today, because of this chiropractor i am PAIN FREE.And yes. She does believe in doctors as i do.

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      1. Well, the fact that the founder thought a deceased doctor taught him how to manipulate spines during a seance kind of speaks for itself, but mostly it’s that there have been years of studies trying to quantify the therapeutic effect of chiropractic treatment and just as many find it doesn’t have a positive effect as studies that say it does.

        I’m glad it helped you, which is the important thing. I don’t begrudge anyone trying to get rid of chronic pain.

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    4. In the past I and my boyfriend have employed the services of a gifted chiropractor, He never once preached that cats should be fed a vegan diet. Nor humans, for that matter.

      Be careful when using the word “never’, Be very careful for it can come back to bite you in the you-know-what.

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  8. Anyone who calls chiropractic care quackery never went to a good one. There are two doctors in my office who will never be operated on or take drugs for pain. They told me people who had operations on backs came out worse and we all know the problem with pain pill addiction. These doctors tell patients to try chiropractic care first before getting an operation.

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  9. To Quilpy. I told my chiropractor about this Weisman moron and she said THANK GOD his license was taken away. I thank God every day i found a great one. As she also says chiropractic care is not for everyone and encourages people to see a doctor if she cannot help. My new friend who i helped trap her escapee cat thanks me for telling her to try my chiropractor. She still sees a doctor. She gets x-rays from her doctor and doctor was astounded at how much chiropractic care helped my friend.

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