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Here’s my page in CatFoodIngredients.com which discusses dietary supplementation. (I don’t make money from these products. I present them on my website to support your your cat's wellbeing.)

One nutrient necessary to a cat’s daily diet is taurine. Cats need taurine in their diet as they are unable produce sufficient amounts naturally. Taurine is primarily found in animal muscle meat. 

"Cats are a particular challenge because they cannot produce certain proteins such as taurine themselves. They instead have to absorb it from their food, with beef, chicken and fish being particularly rich sources. Cats that don’t have enough taurine are at risk of developing a potentially fatal condition called dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM)" - the American Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)

"In cats with DCM, the heart muscle becomes very thin and weak, preventing them from pumping blood and supplying oxygen to the body normally. This is a fatal disease if not corrected early on." - ASPCA

"Taurine deficiency in cats causes a host of metabolic and clinical problems, including feline central retinal degeneration and blindness, deafness, cardiomyopathy and heart failure, inadequate immune response, poor neonatal growth, reproductive failure, and congenital defects. Found abundantly in many fish, birds, and small rodents, taurine is either absent or present only in trace amounts in plants." - Your Cat's Nutritional Needs, published by the National Research Council of the National Academies, pg2

Jasmin Bedria from CatLadyFitness.com presents a trilogy of videos regarding taurine. I have put them into a convenient playlist is for you here.

Although Jasmin Bedria is not a licensed veterinarian or a veterinary medical professional of any kind, she's a premier independent researcher in cat nutrition, care and health information. I fully endorse her work.

Doug's Note: I'll tell you what bothers me most about this story. It compares a 'vegan diet' to a 'flesh-based, traditional pet food' diet. What the hell is a 'flesh-based, traditional pet food' diet??? Is it kibble? If the underwriters of this story are promoting vegan food over kibble, I can quite well understand why the results of their study seems so positively supportive of vegan food. I'd rather feed my cats anything but kibble. This story stinks of anecdotal evidence supported by highly questionable 'facts.' My point here is that you cannot accept the 'scientific' evidence in this report on face value. You have to think. You also have to consider who is paying for this story to be spread around. - VeganNews

BBC

The Scarborough News

Psychology Today

This story is only available if you have a Wall Street Journal membership. - WSJ

news.com.au

LAD Bible

[Doug's Note: I do not endorse the position held in this story at all. Cats are obligate carnivores, and as such need meat] - Stuff