Addressing the moral dilemma pet owners face

The number of people opting for a vegan lifestyle is booming, especially among the millennials. As they increasingly seek to feed their pets a plant-based diet too, what are the ethical and environmental issues?

Pet parent moral dilemma

A feeling of moral conflict is increasingly emerging amongst the pet owners who avoid animal products in their own diet and then feel guilty about feeding animal products to their pets.

The trend toward vegan and vegetarian foods in humans has opened the door for pet food companies to create meatless meal options for dogs. Plant-based diets provide a potential solution to this ethical conundrum troubling vegetarians and vegans who share their homes with omnivorous and carnivorous pets.

Is a vegetarian diet adequate?

Since dogs are facultative carnivores, they can technically survive on a plant-based diet. While the meat-free pet food industry is evolving, more robust, peer-reviewed research is very much needed to ensure that these products meet the dietary requirements of the species.

Then again, is it ethical to feed dogs a no-meat diet? That is yet another frequent contemporary concern that ‘cruelty-free’ pet owners struggle with.

High-meat trend issues

Meat production is proven to be utterly unsustainable and the negative impact it has on the environment is well-documented. The pet food industry is a large part of the problem.

Traditionally, commercial pet foods were derived mostly from animal and plant by-products created by the human food industry, which was and still is considered a highly sustainable practice. However, nowadays, when many pet owners are seeking by-product-free and meat-centric foods, such foods may come into a direct competition with animal products destined for the human food chain.

Already today, pets consume about a fifth of the world’s meat and fish-based food production globally and this figure is likely to rise given the recent trend to feed them with human-grade meat. Consequently, the pet food industry is actually quite an important factor for both reducing wastage and maintaining the economic viability of meat production.

A lower pawprint

Meat alternatives for humans are already big business. Now, the pet food market is getting an environmentally-friendly and ethical makeover. Start-ups are racing to reinvent pet food for those who seek to reduce their pets’ carbon pawprint.

Karolina Hołda