Published: 2024-04-25

Agency Taken Away? Vegan Diets for Companion Animals

Hanna Mamzer Logo ORCID

Abstract

With growing popularity of plant-based diets, some vegans try to apply this way of nutrition to the animals of which they take care. It is easy to imagine that the main motivation to do so is the willingness to save lives of the animals that would be killed and processed into food for companion animals. Feeding companion animals may be distressing to vegan persons, who make a lot of effort in order to eliminate animal products from both their diet and everyday use. Feeding carnivores with plant-based food is a controversial practice and raises a lot of ethical, biological and legal questions. Do humans have the right to limit non-human animals’ diet and take their agency away by forcing them to eat what is available? What kind of physiological consequences may forcing plan-based diet cause? Is it legal to restrict carnivores from eating food that would
be their natural diet? How to support vegans in preventing discomfort from feeding animals with animal products? Is it possible to maintain welfare of companion animals if they cannot eat natural food? Those are some of the questions to be addressed in the text.

Keywords:

plant-based diets , agency , animals , dog , cat

Citation rules

Mamzer, H. (2024). Agency Taken Away? Vegan Diets for Companion Animals. Zoophilologica. Polish Journal of Animal Studies, (1 (13), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.31261/ZOOPHILOLOGICA.2024.13.06

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No. 1 (13) (2024)
Published: 2024-06-18


ISSN: 2719-2687
eISSN: 2451-3849
Ikona DOI 10.31261/ZOOPHILOLOGICA

Publisher
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego | University of Silesia Press

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