By Sister Initiate Penelope Spalding, Quebec, Canada

This article discusses what I hope to be the answer to our fellow initiates' current obstacles concerning adopting and feeding some of the growing number of lost, hungry, abandoned and homeless animals in our society today.

I have been graciously guided by Master to the one "needle in the haystack" that had to be found to make it possible to adopt and nourish these little ones without feeding them meat! Cats and dogs have been carnivorous (meat-eating) only because nobody had scientifically researched exactly what nutrients they require, and found vegetarian alternatives. But there is one man in this world who has done so! In the small town of Troy, located near some of the last remaining wilderness in the continental United States, a man called James A. Peden has developed products like Vegecat and Vegedog and set up a headquarters that changes the way people feed their pets. He is dedicated to feeding dogs and cats with superior nourishment, meeting all the known nutritional requirements for different stages of an animal's life, while reducing large scale animal suffering in agribusiness, and making one step for humankind toward the closing down of slaughterhouses!

Many veterinarians are adamant that neither dogs nor cats can survive without meat, especially cats, so I checked this out personally. Master arranged to have three cute, lost and starving little kittens sit outside our back patio door. They were searching for sunflower seeds left out for the chickadees. I meditated before letting them in, and the feeling was to take care of what Master had placed in front of my nose! All three patiently waited at the front door while I was asking Master for guidance! I brought in the three frozen little homeless, sick and starving munchkins, and they shared our macaroni dinner with us as we scrambled to fix them milk and oats. They ate everything -- the fact that there was no meat did not matter at all!

Here you will find all my research on vegetarian pet food condensed and simplified, including the cheapest, simplest and most nutritious way to feed kittens and cats the vegetarian way! For dogs, simply replace the Vegecat mentioned below with Vegedog.

The Vegecat/Vegekit, Vegeyeast and Digestive Enzymes are necessary because, like meat, Vegecat and Vegekit contain taurine, which cats and kittens need to avoid blindness and heart failure. The Vegeyeast supplies protein, B Vitamins, flavor and a high acid content to prevent urinary failure, and the Enzymes are living digestive enzymes that cats need for digestion.

⊙Recipes for Vegetarian Cats and Kittens:

Supplies needed:
‧Staples (garbanzo beans, rice, lentils, oats, seitan or gluten flour
‧TVP (textured vegetable protein) or tofu
‧Soy sauce or tamari
‧Canola or olive oil (or safflower, peanut, sunflower, sesame oil)
‧Vegetables (frozen peas, corn nibbles, sweet potatoes, avocado, grated carrots)
‧Vegekit/cat, Vegeyeast, Enzymes
‧Garlic and onion powder. (Add 100g Vit. C daily per cat.)

1 large pot to cook food, 1 salt shaker for Enzymes, 1 spice shaker for yeast to sprinkle over their dinner. To save time, all the recipes can be simplified to this:

2.5 cups cold water to 1 cup dry staple. Add rice, lentils, oats, or beans to boiling water for 3 minutes, then simmer until done. This recipe is for 1 cat for 2 days - to make more just multiply amounts by the number of days/cats.

Add the wet to the dry ingredients; stir in additional water as needed, and cool. When serving, try adding tomato juice and stir in slightly or pour over top. Sprinkle Enzymes lightly, then Vegeyeast generously over dinner - this is the trick for finicky cats -- they love the taste! The recipes come with your order. Try nori seaweed, and cats also love cantaloupe (fresh Vit. C). Cheese, and Parmesan cheese sprinkled on any dinner is often a winner. They cannot resist it!

Total cost per month is about $23.73 (less than $1.00 a day!) Canned pet-food costs about the same, but contains (low ash/mg diets included) diseased meat, euthanized pet cats and dogs, road kills, poultry feathers, sweepings from milling room floors, dirt, fecal matter, diseased organs from operations, fur, beaks, drugs, litter. All is then "denatured" with carbolic acid, fuel oil, and/or kerosene, with added flavor & dye! YUM!

To make an easy transition for previous meat-eating pets, mix a small amount of vegetarian food in with usual food and increase daily until transition is complete (from 1 day - 6 mos.). When pets eat completely vegetarian meals, their appetites expand to include a large variety of all kinds of food, their fur becomes soft and sleek, their litter no longer smells strong, and veterinarian bills are almost nil. Cats become like little kittens -- healthy and playful! Just add some catnip toys, hugs, kisses and lots of love!

There are some distributors for vegetarian pet food:

Canada: Barney's Choice
Tel:1-514-279-2075
Fax:1-514-279-0658

U.S.A. Jan's Wow Bow
Tel:1-800-326-0230
Fax:1-516-254-6036

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