Armaiti May, DVM is an integrative housecall veterinarian and vegan advocate practicing in Los Angeles. She graduated with a B.S. in Bioresource Sciences from UC Berkeley in 2001. After graduating from University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine in 2005, Dr. May worked at an emergency dog and cat hospital and then trained in veterinary acupuncture through the Chi Institute of Chinese Medicine. Dr. May provides housecalls for dogs and cats in Los Angeles. She also founded a non-profit organization called the Veterinary Association for the Protection of Animals, to educate the veterinary profession about the benefits of veganism and encourage veterinary schools to offer humane surgical teaching methods to students.
Talk Title: “Vegan Dogs and Cats: Why and How”
Feeding nutritionally complete and balanced plant-based diets to animal companions provide significant health benefits over meat-based diets including reduction in toxin exposure and improvement in allergies while also drastically reducing the carbon footprint and sparing the lives of millions of farmed animals.
Speech Synopsis:
Feeding meat-based diets to dogs causes unnecessary slaughter of farmed animals, is unhealthy for the dogs and unsustainable for our environment. Scientific studies show that meat-based diets have dangerously high levels of cancer-causing heavy metals including arsenic in chicken, mercury in fish, and a vast array of other harmful chemicals. The concentration of these carcinogens and other hazardous substances are much higher in meat-based foods due to bioaccumulation of the toxins up the food chain. Cancer is on the rise in dogs, with approximately 50% of dogs dying from cancer. Dogs are omnivores and can digest carbohydrates more effectively than their wolf ancestors. Dogs have no nutritional requirement for meat. In fact, dogs can and do thrive on plant-based diets. Most of the human-generated greenhouse gas emissions originate from the livestock industry. Switching dogs from meat to plants will help preserve our planet’s natural resources and significantly reduce animal suffering.
