Feeding your pet cat a vegan diet is “risky” and could end up killing it, Pete the Vet has said. 

Vegans argue people should give up meat to reduce carbon emissions and pets should do the same.

Speaking to The Hard Shoulder, Pete said cats are natural carnivores and giving up meat would be difficult for them.

“Vegan cats are theoretically possible, if you’re very, very careful to give them supplements, some of the vitamins that they absolutely need to have from meat,” he said.

“There is debate about this; vegan enthusiasts say you could create those nutrients in laboratories, whereas sceptics would say originally they do have to come from meat.

“The basic message is that cats are carnivores.

“In other words, if they don’t eat meat or a very carefully created vegan diet, then they do indeed get sick and they can indeed die.

“So, really it’s not recommended to let cats go vegan, it’s just a bit risky.”

A cat with a dead rabbit.

It is, however, a different story for dogs.

Although they love meat, unlike cats, they can eat plant-based food as well.

“Dogs are omnivores and they’re used to eating human scraps,” Pete said.

“They evolved about 5,000 years ago to have enzymes to digest starch and so they can eat grain quite happily.

“So, as long as the diet is balanced - in other words, has the right quantities of protein, starch, carbohydrates, fats, minerals and vitamins… they can be vegetarian or even vegan.”

Dogs in a café. Picture by: Dogs Trust

A few years ago, Pete carried out an experiment to determine what kind of food dogs might prefer most of all and the answer might surprise you.

“We had a meat-based food, we had a vegan food and we had an insect-based food - and guess what?” he said.

“They actually enjoyed the insect-based food more.

“They went towards it and munched it much more quickly than they did the other two.

“So, take from that what you will.”

Main image: A cat eating. Picture by: Alamy.com