I havenāt dug into the surveys that Knight cites but Iām super skeptical. I know vegans who donāt have vegan pets, and I know how hard it is to make people go vegan. There are big barriers to getting humans to transition to alternative proteins at scale, and thatās only more true for companion animals.
Iām skeptical as well, but in some ways, the barriers for pets going vegan are lower:
Taste is less of an issue for pets.
Time cost is much lower for pets because you can just pick out one food and buy it every time.
For people concerned about social interactions involving veganism, you donāt have to tell anyone that your pet is vegan.
It may be easier to mitigate the health issues of being vegan for pets: For methane single cell protein (SCP) fed to salmon, just a little compared to fully vegan (soy) diet showed a big improvement in gut health. Iād be most confident that this would port to other obligate carnivores like cats, but I could see it being beneficial for dogs as well. Methane SCP is not yet approved for human food, but they are targeting pet food.
In the last few decades, dog food has become more plant based because plants are cheaper (and they figured out how to make it appealing to dogs and not offensive to people). If methane SCP can become cheaper than animal byproducts, you could have a healthy cheaper product with lower environmental impact that probably wouldnāt taste as good, but I think many non-vegans would go for.
In the last few decades, dog food has become more plant based because plants are cheaper (and they figured out how to make it appealing to dogs and not offensive to people).
Do you have any research on the increase of plant- vs animal proteins? Trend watchers and insideres see an increase of proteins (mainly animal based). I believe there is already value in doing this assessment for pet food market similar to The Protein Tracker.
Iām skeptical as well, but in some ways, the barriers for pets going vegan are lower:
Taste is less of an issue for pets.
Time cost is much lower for pets because you can just pick out one food and buy it every time.
For people concerned about social interactions involving veganism, you donāt have to tell anyone that your pet is vegan.
It may be easier to mitigate the health issues of being vegan for pets: For methane single cell protein (SCP) fed to salmon, just a little compared to fully vegan (soy) diet showed a big improvement in gut health. Iād be most confident that this would port to other obligate carnivores like cats, but I could see it being beneficial for dogs as well. Methane SCP is not yet approved for human food, but they are targeting pet food.
In the last few decades, dog food has become more plant based because plants are cheaper (and they figured out how to make it appealing to dogs and not offensive to people). If methane SCP can become cheaper than animal byproducts, you could have a healthy cheaper product with lower environmental impact that probably wouldnāt taste as good, but I think many non-vegans would go for.
Do you have any research on the increase of plant- vs animal proteins? Trend watchers and insideres see an increase of proteins (mainly animal based).
I believe there is already value in doing this assessment for pet food market similar to The Protein Tracker.
I just have info from AI:
Unless there are links I wouldnāt take these stats as gospel