Vegan Supplements & Supplies for Pets

Flavour

The older your pet, the more accustomed they are to certain flavors. If they've been eating meat-based kibble or wet food their whole life, they may find vegan food mild in comparison. The pet food industry often uses strong artificial flavour enhancers, making pets "addicted" to certain tastes. To ease the transition, we recommend Nutritional Yeast, which adds a rich, cheesy flavour that many pets love.

Digestion

To avoid stomach upset or runny stool when switching to a vegan diet, it's a good idea to add digestive enzymes. Digestive enzymes help assimilate plant-based matter into the body, as opposed to plant-based food going straight through the system.

Digestive enzymes are contained in Enzyme Miracle and GreenMush.

Urinary Health

Plant-based diets, much like vegan diets for humans, tend to be alkalizing for cats & dogs. When fed plants, the pH of urine may become more alkaline, and if the pH becomes too high, this may lead to complications with the urinary system. 

To lower the pH, acidifiers are used. VegeYeast is great for acidification and so are the cranberries. Cranberries have been medically proven to help prevent Urinary Infections, as well as to acidify the food, thus bringing the pH to a normal level.

For cats & dogs with a history of urinary problems, it is strongly recommended to add Cranberry treats, Cranimals powder, or VegeYeast to counteract the alkaline effect.

We also recommend using Checkup kits to measure the pH of the urine prior to switching to a plant-based diet and every month after that. pH strips show if urine becomes too alkaline, in which case acidifiers would need to be introduced into the diet to rebalance the pH. When pH is out of balance (too alkaline), it may lead to the formation of crystals and painful urinary blockages (especially in male cats).

Overall Body Health 

Although the foods offered by Vecado meet or exceed the daily nutritional requirements for cats and dogs, you are very much encouraged to go beyond, to further strengthen the health of your furry friends.

GreenMush is a superfood providing numerous health benefits; please see a separate page outlining all the benefits of GreenMush. 

Cranimals Gold also contains seaweed and contributes to eye health, skin health, brain health, heart function, immune system, and joint health.

Preparing meals at home has many advantages, such as control over the variety of ingredients, freshness, and economy.

But to cook a nutritionally complete plant-based (also economical) meal for cats and dogs requires supplementation, as certain nutrients are hard to find in plants:

• arachidonic acid
• taurine
• vegan vitamin D3
• vitamin A
• methionine and lysine (building blocks of L-carnitine) 

Vegepet™ supplements provide these “hard-to-find” plant-based nutrients.

Dry food and wet food offered by Vecado are already nutritionally complete and balanced. As such,they do not require further supplementation. For example, adding VegeDog™ supplement to Ami dry kibble, which is already nutritionally balanced and complete, would result in over-supplementation and is undesirable. VegeDog™ supplement is to be used in the preparation of dog food from scratch using fresh groceries, and not with commercial (pre-made) kibble.