En esta, como quería hablar del vegetarianismo, busqué y encontré estas imágenes; algunas, acompañadas de una historia alusiva. Pero todas nos dicen que es absolutamente posible vivir bien sin nada de carne...
Meet Dante: Britain's first vegetarian cat who refuses to eat meat or fish
By David Wilkes
Last updated at 1:19 AM on 14th April 2009
When he was found starving in an alleyway, the abandoned kitten clearly needed a square meal.
His rescuer Becky Page took him home and prepared a hearty bowl of chicken- but the black and white bundle of fluff just turned his whiskers up.
A plate of fish prompted the same response.
It was only when the kitten spotted some leftover vegetables by the kitchen bin that he began licking his lips.
He 'wolfed' them down, says Miss Page- and ever since he has stubbornly stuck to a vegetarian diet.
Now aged two, the kitten Miss Page went on to name Dante continues to refuse to eat tinned cat food, and could even be the world's first vegetarian cat.
Instead of meat, he happily feasts on fruit and vegetables his owner grows, such as Brussels sprouts and rhubarb.
He also has a penchant for melon and asparagus and has been known to raid the fruit bowl for bananas.
Dante's eating habits have baffled experts because cats are natural carnivores and unlikely to willingly forgo meat from their diet.
Unlike humans and dogs, they can only derive certain vital nutrients in sufficient quantities from meat.
These include taurine, an amino acid essential for cats but not for other mammals.
In the prolonged absence of taurine, a cat's retina slowly degenerates and it can become irreversibly blind. Others include arachidonic acid- a fatty acid vital for helping wounds heal.
Dante, however, has remained as fit as any puss his age- perhaps because his owner secretly tries to hide scraps of meat in his food.
Yesterday Miss Page, 21, a child minder, said: 'Since he had that first plate of veg, he won't go near anything fatty and prefers the things I grow in the garden'.
Maggie Roberts, director of veterinary services at the animal charity Cats Protection, said: 'This is extremely rare, I have never before heard of a cat that will not eat meat.
'We advise that cats be fed a complete cat food, which provides all of the necessary nutrients in the right balance'.
Miss Page is convinced Dante does not supplement his diet by hunting for wild prey.
'He doesn't really like going outside much, he finds it all a bit too scary,' she said.
'I've never seen him chase any birds or small animals. He hunts bits of string around the house instead to fulfil his predatory instincts.
'I have to smuggle bits of meat in among the veggies because I want him to get all the nutrients he needs. But sometimes he spots the meat and will just leave it'.
Miss Page, who lives with her partner Adam Carpenter, 26, also keeps three chickens, a rabbit, two guinea pigs, a rat, a hamster and fish at her home in Tasburgh, near Norwich.
But Dante has not been tempted to try to catch any of them either.
A Vegetarian Society spokesman said: 'Although it is possible to keep dogs on a vegetarian diet satisfactorily, cats are more specialised'.
Some vegetarian cat foods are available which include synthesised forms of the nutrients they need from meat.
"After I had given a brief discourse in Hindi on Vedanta, our group left the peaceful hermitage to greet a nearby swami, Krishnananda, a handsome monk with rosy cheeks and impressive shoulders.
Reclining near him was a tame Lioness. Succumbing to the monk's spiritual charm -not, I am sure, to his powerful physique!- the jungle animal refuses all meat in favor of rice and milk.
The swami has taught the tawny-haired beast to utter "Aum" in a deep, attractive growl- a Cat devotee!"
Dos imágenes de Little Tyke (las más conocidas)...
TIGRE VEGETARIEN !
Posté par Archives le 20 juin 2009
Lettre d’un Citoyen du Monde (ex anesthésiste-réanimateur en T.O.M., acupuncteur, écrivain et créateur d’art) à Mme Aharonian qui a eu la gentillesse de nous la communiquer. Celle-ci retrace un événement peu banal qui donne à réfléchir…
Marseille, le 16/09/1998
« Madame,
Sur votre demande téléphonique, j’ai recherché dans mes archives de 1989 la découverte et l’élevage d’un bébé tigre royal de quelques jours, en pleine jungle montagnarde d’Asie du Sud-Est.
Alors que notre jeune pépiniériste recherchait en jungle des arbustes à transplanter dans notre domaine de 4800 hectares, il fit la découverte d’une tigresse pendue dans un traquenard de braconnier, lequel piège avait été mal conçu pour que la bête soit prisonnière et non pendue.
Notre pépiniériste ayant constaté des mamelles très développées a compris que cette bête devait avoir un bébé, d’où il se mit à parcourir les alentours pour chercher la progéniture de l’animal. Après une heure de recherche, il découvrit 2 bébés tigre de quelques jours à demi morts de faim. Vite mis dans un sac, ces animaux furent transportés en toute hâte vers le campement de notre confraternité Confucianiste. Aussitôt, il fut confectionné des récipients avec des bambous et nous nous mîmes à recueillir du lait de nos chèvres pour alimenter plusieurs fois par jour ces 2 bébés tigres. Le lendemain, le bébé femelle était mort, alors que le mâle continua à être alimenté. Après quelques jours, il n’était plus utile de le tenir à plusieurs personnes pour lui faire avaler son biberon. Après plusieurs semaines, il a été décidé de le nourrir avec la pâtée que nous faisions pour les animaux de basse cour (poule, canard, oie, phacochère). Cette pâtée est confectionnée avec des légumes, des germes de plantes diverses, de la farine de graines diverses. Ce mélange est légèrement cuit mais on y adjoint des fruits de saison. Cette pâtée pourrait convenir à une alimentation pour carnivore vu le soin que nous prenons pour qu’il y ait tous les ingrédients, vitamines et minéraux, ainsi que protéines. Nous nous aperçûmes vite que les ongles de cet animal étaient très acérés et capables de nous causer des blessures, donc nous avions décidé de couper ses ongles et de les limer tous les 2 ou 3 mois. Cet animal, que nous avons nommé d’un commun accord « Ghuan », était au début un chat, puis un gros chat, puis un énorme chat, auquel on a institué un régime lacto-fructo-végétarien intelligemment équilibré, ce qui ne l’a pas empêché de croître et embellir. Après deux ans de cette nourriture, nous avons essayé de mettre dans sa pâtée de la viande de volaille qu’il prit entre ses dents, la mit de côté sans y goûter, ce qui pourtant fit le délice des phacochères.
Ce tigre pèse actuellement 270 kilos. De temps à autre, on le voit se promener avec 2 ou 3 gosses sur son dos. Lorsqu’il juge la promenade suffisante, il se couche sur le côté et va donner des coups de museau aux enfants pour, sans doute, se faire pardonner. Il dort tantôt dans une case, tantôt dans une autre, au gré de sa fantaisie au milieu des hommes, des femmes et enfants qui sont là. Parfois, alors que je travaille à écrire mes mémoires sur une machine à écrire, il vient mettre sa patte gauche sur la table, l’autre sur mon épaule pour me lécher abondamment le cou, les oreilles, la joue. Après un moment, je lui donne une tape sur son museau, ce qui le fait grogner et venir avec moi sous la douche.
Bien des gens qui se prétendent défenseurs des animaux m’ont demandé l’autorisation de venir dans ce coin du monde, que je tiens secret afin de ne pas nuire à la quiétude des animaux « animal » et des animaux humains qui y vivent. Dans ce domaine, il est interdit de photographier et de filmer quoi que ce soit. Les animaux « animal » prétendus fauves et les animaux humains vivent tous en bonne entente et sont des apprentis de la sagesse universelle.»
Lea, The Lioness From Italy
Watched by camera-toting journalists, in January 2002 a very remarkable Lioness named Lea arrived at the Rhino & Lion Nature Reserve near Johannesburg, South Africa, after a 30-hour journey from Rome, Italy.
Why 'very remarkable'? Because this seven-year-old female feline did not fit the 'ferocious carnivore' Lion stereotype, having been raised not on meat but on a diet of potatoes, green vegetables and cheesy pasta. Lea had in fact been nicknamed the 'Spaghetti Kid' after her favourite food, spaghetti, which she especially loved flavoured with Neapolitan sauce.
And now the caretakers at her new home in South Africa were facing 'the real challenge', for the first time in Lea’s life, of introducing this 'Spaghetti Kid' to meat and to the companionship of other Lions.
Lea's mother lived in Naples Zoo, which had a policy of selling the cubs born there. So at the tender age of six weeks, Lea found herself in the Italian village of Nettuno in the care of a man called Antonio Vincenzo. The two seemed inseparable; Lea slept on Antonio’s bed at night and accompanied him everywhere by day, without any leash or restraint- across busy streets, among crowds and even to the local supermarket. No wonder that 'everyone in Nettuno knew Lea', and of her diet of spaghetti, vegetables and tomato sauce.
But when Lea was a year old, Antonio's work circumstances changed and he could no longer look after his 'pet' at his home. A zoo on the outskirts of Rome agreed to accommodate Lea, provided Antonio supplied the zoo with her food. And so Lea continued to grow on her diet of pasta, ricotta cheese and vegetables. But, seeing her confined to a 4 m x 4 m (13 ft x 13 ft) concrete enclosure at the zoo, Antonio resolved to find Lea better living quarters. (Antonio visited her every Sunday- the Lioness would whimper and cry when it was time for him to leave.
After years of fruitless searching, eventually the way was clear for Lea to be sent to South Africa- Antonio would accompany her on the journey and remain at Lea's new home for a few weeks to help her adapt.
Given Lea's distinctive nickname ('Spaghetti Lioness') and the publicity associated with her move to South Africa, many people got to hear of what Lea had eaten for the first seven years of her life—and were amazed. One journalist wrote: 'Not with standing her strange diet she thrived'. This Lioness had not only survived (for seven years), but thrived on a meatless diet from infancy.
But Lea is not unique in recent (Lion) history in having successfully been raised on a meatless diet. A renowned vegetarian lioness in the USA did not eat meat at all during her entire lifetime. And many other animals normally regarded as being meat-eaters (e.g. dogs, vultures), are known to be able to live on meatless diets.
To understand such a situation, we need to go back into history. But which history is correct- evolution or the Bible? It just doesn't make sense if one has an evolutionary perspective- that this is a 'dog-eat-dog' world, and that animals with sharp teeth, claws and beaks evolved over millions of years to be meat-eaters.
In contrast, the Bible tells us that felines were originally created vegetarian (Genesis 1:30) and it also speaks of a time when 'the Lion will eat straw like the Ox' (Isaiah 11:7, 65:25). So, from the Bible, vegetarian ‘carnivores’ make much more sense.
As Lea emerged from her transportation crate at her grassy new home, a crowd of camera-clicking reporters awaited the photo opportunity: Lea devouring her first South African meal of pasta, cheese and sliced tomato.
But Lea took one sniff and walked away.
"No, no, no", said Antonio. "It has to be Italian pasta and cheese, and tomato sauce- never cut tomatoes".
As they say- you can travel the world, but there’s nothing like good old home cooking!
La comida favorita de Lea
