Vegan pet food: the key to sustainability?

It is no secret that vegan pet food is a trend that the industry should take a closer look at. As more and more people live a vegan (or vegetarian) lifestyle, many are applying the same values to their pets. After all, being vegan as a human being is often a very passionate decision with the goal of leading a ‘better’, sustainable way of life without harming sentient beings. On the matter-of-fact side: Is vegan pet food really environmentally friendly?

A sensitive topic

Recently, many start-ups have emerged that claim to be particularly sustainable and offer vegan pet food for dogs – and sometimes even for cats, although plant-based diets for this species are a concern for animal welfare.

I call myself a ‘flexitarian’: I eat a mostly vegan or vegetarian diet, but I have to admit that sometimes there are non-vegan foods in my fridge. Although I have been confronted with the accusation that I am not really vegan at all and therefore a ‘cheater’, I distance myself from such statements. I am not perfect and I know that. Does that make my efforts to live a more sustainable life worthless just because my backpack has a little leather application on it?

The same goes for sustainable pet food brands. I remember the German brand Green Petfood being criticized by vegan pet owners for being ‘only’ 99.9% vegan, as their vitamin D3 derives from wool fat.

Looking to the extremes

It’s crazy to remember the trend before veganism: the dog as a wolf that should be fed as much meat as possible. The industry topped itself with ever higher meat content in pet foods, and raw feeding was and still is a big phenomenon. Is this positioning to extremes really purposeful? If you think about it, extremes have never worked well in the long run – neither in politics nor in nutrition. Let’s take a closer look.

First, let us explore vegan pet food compositions in more detail – not in terms of their nutritional value (there are plenty of essays about that), but in terms of the origin of ingredients. After all, vegan pet food manufacturers want to be particularly sustainable!

However, a critical look at the list of ingredients is sobering, as with this recipe for vegan canned dog food that I found:

Composition: Pumpkin, quinoa, pea protein, lentils, oat flakes, chia seeds, blueberries, coconut flakes, beetroot, moringa, lupins, brewer’s yeast, minerals, sunflower oil, potato protein, marine algae.

While ingredients like pumpkin, peas, oats, blueberries and beetroot can come from regional production, more than 95% of quinoa comes from the classic quinoa-growing countries of Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. Apart from the long transport routes to pet food producers all around the world, the increasing popularity of quinoa as a ‘superfood’ for humans and pets has led to the development of monocultures and the displacement of natural crop rotation, resulting in a decline in soil fertility.

Chia seeds also have a long way to go before they are processed into pet food. Why not use flaxseeds, which are a great regional product and can fully compete with chia seeds? Coconuts are mainly grown in Indonesia, followed by the Philippines and India – another ingredient with a long transport route. The same goes for moringa, an indigenous tree that grows in India, Pakistan and Nepal. Another potential non-sustainable ingredient used in many pet foods is soy, whose increasing worldwide demand has led to vast deforestation. In summary, ‘vegan’ is not automatically synonymous with ‘sustainable’.

The role of insects

Could ‘insect-based’ be a sustainable choice for pet foods? On the positive side, insects can be grown on waste, which would theoretically lead to sustainable feeding. However, they are often fed with grains and animal by-products, which could have been used for pet food production in the first place. The energy consumption required to maintain the right humidity and temperature to raise insects must also be taken into account.

More scientific research is needed to make insects a truly sustainable protein substitute. In addition, insects are living beings and therefore not considered vegan or vegetarian.

The black-and-white mentality

Why do we always have to think in black and white? Why this ‘all or nothing’ mentality? It is common knowledge that we need to reduce meat consumption overall. However, as long as human meat consumption is still high (and it is!), there are tons of unused meat and animal by-products that are not used for human food production.

What would happen to all these by-products if not used for pet food? By-products include high-quality protein sources like muscle-based innards (heart, stomach) and mechanically deboned meat. Would it not make more sense to develop pet foods with low to medium meat content and regional vegetable sources of protein, fiber and carbohydrates? Would this not be far more sustainable than ingredients shipped from far-off countries that are grown under questionable conditions?

Should humans lead by example?

‘Human-grade muscle meat’ does not have to be in a pet food to provide complete and adequate nutrition to cats and dogs. Let’s work together to achieve the goal of a balanced approach. Let’s stop thinking in extremes and instead give space to sensible solutions. Let’s move away from ultra-high-meat recipes, away from the advertised meat content on the packaging.

Since human and animal nutrition are coupled by the industry, humans must lead the way and reduce their meat consumption. When we have reduced human meat consumption to such an extent that the leftovers are no longer sufficient for the production of pet food, the development of alternative protein sources and their acceptance by animal owners will hopefully have progressed considerably