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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • Yes, and actually with low amounts of money to work with you can make your contributions very efficient. To best spend save for retirement, choose the first option from this list that applies to you (and if you are able to save more later, go down the list after exhausting each option):

    • 401k up to maximum company match
    • pay off high-interest (>4%) debt
    • IRA up to the contribution limit
    • investment-type HSA up to the limit
    • max out 401k contribution
    • personal investment account without tax advantage

    For most people, it’s recommended to use a traditional 401k and a Roth IRA, but it varies by situation. As for what to invest in, I would recommend a popular low cost ETF or index fund, like Vanguard or SPY. You can also look into ESGs if you want to do good with your money, but your expected earnings may be lower. I’m in ETHO and TICRX.

    You might check out fire@lemmy.ml or personalfinance@lemmy.ml if you have questions about getting started.














  • Yes, there is the possibility that self-reported cases are untrustworthy. But there is no reason to think vegan cat owners would be more biased than non-vegan cat owners.

    My desired outcome is simply showing that it is possible for cats to be healthy on a vegan diet. I only need one example to show that. And there are examples of such cats in the study my link had. At least for its tested disorders, reported vegan cats on average were slightly less likely to have at least one. The majority of both groups were in fact “healthy” (having no measured disorder). The difference between the healthy rates is small enough that it can be explained by variance and other factors contributing to health besides diet, and that’s fine.

    Before anyone starts, yes there could be health metrics not being measured that are relevant to the spirit of the idea being explored. But you need to measure easily quantifiable things. If you just asked “Is this cat healthy?”, you would have some owners disqualify a cat for having a cut on their paw, and others disregarding serious concerns just because there hadn’t been a diagnosis. This is as wide a scope as you can expect to explore a qualitative idea with.

    Unless you are suggesting that literally every owner reporting a healthy vegan cat in the study is just lying, my claim is supported by the study. And if you thought otherwise, you invented a different claim and assigned it to me.

    I genuinely want people to engage honestly with other people’s arguments made in good faith. I know Lemmy is ultimately a collection of largely anonymous internet users, but still, I expected better than what I have seen in this thread.



  • I noticed you forgot to include a very important contextual sentence for your myopathy quote:

    Only three studies [27,29,30] have carried out hematological and/or biochemical analysis of blood in cats that were fed vegetarian diets, and it is worth noting that sample sizes were low. Cats on a high-protein vegetarian diet exhibited hypokalemia which accompanied recurrent polymyopathy [29]. There was also increased creatinine kinase activity, likely reflecting the muscle damage caused by the myopathy, and reduced urinary potassium concentrations. Potassium supplementation prevented development of this myopathy, strongly suggesting a link between the potassium and myopathy.

    Meaning there was a health problem when one of the cats’ dietary needs wasn’t being met, which no longer appeared when the deficiency was corrected.

    Even so, no one was trying to claim every conceivable vegan food mix is healthy for a cat. Of course trying to switch an animal who would be a carnivore in nature to a healthy synthetic vegan diet would be difficult. But there only needs to be one diet that succeeds to show it’s possible. And unless you’re going to claim literally all of the vegan cat guardians who reported healthy cats are lying about their cat’s health or diet, that requirement has been met.


  • What? That wasn’t my source, and it was a different comment chain created after my comment. How am I supposed to have read that?

    Anyway, to be clear, the source commenter claimed it is impossible for a cat to be healthy with a vegan diet. All that’s needed to refute that is an example of a healthy cat with a vegan diet. So I found an article discussing how that has been observed. That’s it. But many people in this thread are either unwilling to concede this or are creating strawmen.




  • Look, block who you want, but I don’t get this adamant rejection of reality. You think a thing is impossible, someone shows you a study stating that the thing does happen, and you still insist the thing is impossible. You don’t even give a reason why. But you have the nerve to say others are being irrational?

    To all the other free thinkers using the disagree button for dissent, reflect on if you are actually open to having your mind changed about things in the face of new information. Being occasionally exposed to sincere people that challenge your way of thinking is healthy. You may walk away with a more accurate view of something you previously dismissed, or even if you don’t have your mind changed, you are enriched with the confidence that your views can withstand a degree of criticism. And you don’t have to reply if you don’t want to argue or whatever, but at least be honest with yourself so you can grow.