MediumGray

Ya, a bit, I guess. I just don't think talking down to someone is ever really a good way to communicate (unless the interaction is in fact adversarial and that's the whole point). That being said I suppose I also get that sometimes it's desirable to express exasperation, even if it's not constructive or polite.

Ok, so I don't disagree with anything you're saying, and I think your point is very valid and worth saying, but why do you feel the need to start it by being condescending? I'm honestly curious because I feel like I've been seeing this a lot on Lemmy.

Sperad

It's especially worth noting that "Traditional Chinese Medicine" is a relatively modern invention by the CCP for cultural unity purposes. It takes various pre-scientific practices from all manner of historically disparate places and times in what now constitutes modern day China and pretends that they were always some kind of harmonious whole. Like as if the EU made up something using ancient medical beliefs from Portugal to Romania in order to enforce the idea that Europe was somehow historically a whole and therefore should be today. It's utter rubbish.

This may be a bit off topic but I can't help but feel the need to rant whenever TCM is mentioned and hopefully this is informative to someone.

Fair enough, like most matters of language I suppose it's ultimately subjective and comes down to differences in personal interpretations. Specific context and perspectives will always have the potential change things but by and large I stand by my point in general application.

I completely agree with what you mean, but I would argue it is actually quite simple just not easy. People often talk about the two like they're the same but it's important to remember that at times simple things can be quite hard and complicated things may still be easy.

Again, I don't think your actually understanding what is being said. Yes, that is ridiculous. We agree. However what has been done has already been done.

Time as we humans experience it moves only in one direction. We can not go back to change that. Time travel does not exist. So the question is what should be done going forward.

Attempting even the least harm reduction, while inferior to avoiding harm altogether, is better than no harm reduction. Should OP have done much better? Yes. Should they do something now rather than nothing at all? Also yes.

Did you actually read Pelicanen's reply? They're not disagreeing with you. I don't disagree either. The point they're making is that it's better late than never. Obviously doing the right thing in the first place is best, no one is saying otherwise.

Edit: if you're trying to argue that returning 'later today', as OP claims to plan to do, is too slow/late then that's a fair argument. That's not what your comment reads like though.

From the conclusion of the paper you linked:

This review has found that there is no convincing evidence of major impacts of vegan diets on dog or cat health. There is, however, a limited number of studies investigating this question and those studies available often use small sample sizes or short feeding durations. There was also evidence of benefits for animals arising as a result of feeding them vegan diets. Much of these data were acquired from guardians via survey-type studies, but these can be subject to selection biases, as well as subjectivity around the outcomes. However, these beneficial findings were relatively consistent across several studies and should, therefore, not be disregarded.

There is an urgent need for large-scale population-based studies to further investigate this question, with a particular focus on assessing the dietary aspects cited to be of particular concern, e.g., taurine and folate. For guardians wishing to feed their pets vegan diets at the current time, based on the available evidence it is recommended that commercially produced vegan diets are used since these are less likely to lead to nutrient imbalances.

While it does support the viability of specially formulated vegan dog and cat diets based on the current research it is important not to gloss over the fact that they also stress that the current research is lacking and largely based on self-report surveys. Personally I'm not terribly swayed by this paper one way or another and wouldn't take it as being definitive. Of course I recognize that more precise research has difficulties due to the ethics involved, but I'm also confident that we can do better.

I agree with what you say about the obsession with natural diet being weird by the way, but I think there is a reasonable disconnect in the leap from natural meat -> meat based pet food ------> no meat. For example, even if I don't eat the same food an early homo sapien would eat I still eat the same kind of food rather than an all mineral diet or something. That's not to say that I wouldn't if such a thing were viable of course, just that I'd want to be very sure first.

That's not a strawman. You should review your knowledge of informal logical fallacies and be certain of their application before leveling accusations of them at people, even if you really disagree with them.

This has got to be parody, right?