Virtuous Vittles is a vegan dog food that has a meaty texture dogs love. They might just think it’s meat.
Briana Schweizer and Lisbeth Merrill
Los Angeles, February 19th, 2026 — Virtuous Vittles is a plant-based dog food that looks, smells, and tastes like meat — without containing a drop of animal ingredients. From the first sniff, dogs have been known to gobble up the stew-like morsels, convincing even skeptical guardians that something different is happening in the pet food space.
UnchainedTV’s journalist Jane Velez-Mitchell had a conversation with Virtuous Vittles’ co-founders Briana Schweizer and Lisbeth Merrill whose motto is – when it comes to feeding your pet a healthy diet – it’s not about meat. It is about the nutritional content. You can watch it here.
A Meaty Look Without the Meat
Virtuous Vittles’ Beautiful Land product
Virtuous Vittles immediately challenges expectations. UnchainedTV host Velez-Mitchell started off the conversation by explaining her two rescue dogs – Sunday and Wednesday – are vegan and have sometimes turned their snouts up at what she offers them. But, when she gave them Virtuous Vittles, they charged at their bowls and devoured it. She explained, “I believe they think it’s meat, but it’s not. It’s 100% plant-based.” Co-founder Briana Schweizer describes the product as “the first and only on the market with meaty morsels and gravy,” explaining that the team created a plant-based meat, chopped it into nuggets, and paired it with a hearty gravy and vegetables. The goal, she says, was irresistible flavor built from whole foods and careful observation of what dogs actually enjoy eating.
That attention to detail came from watching Schweizer’s own dog, Xiggy. “We really looked at what Xiggy loved to eat,” she says, noting that quality and texture mattered just as much as ingredients. The result is a food built around plant proteins like vital wheat gluten, pea protein, and yeast proteins. “Dogs can taste quality,” Schweizer adds, emphasizing that palatability doesn’t require animal flesh. The meaty, chewy chunks are made of seitan, which is often called “wheat meat” and has long been considered a meat-like alternative to animal flesh.
The founders also prioritized packaging and processing choices. Lisbeth Merrill explains that shelf-stable packaging was selected to avoid the environmental costs of frozen foods while preserving nutrients. “We wanted something that was shelf stable, that was whole foods, that can seal in all of the delicious nutrients without having to do a lot of processing,” she says. After years of testing and searching for a human-grade co-manufacturer, Virtuous Vittles launched with sustainability and scalability in mind.
Nutrition, Not Myth, Drives the Formula
Some of the ingredients of Virtuous Vittles dog food
The mission of Virtuous Vittles is to shatter the many myths about dogs and meat. Veterinary nutrition expert Dr. Sarah Dodd addresses these concerns directly: “When we’re feeding a plant-based diet to dogs, it’s really no different, from the essential nutrient perspective, than it is feeding an animal-based diet.” She explains that industry standards focus on nutrients, not the origins of those nutrients, adding, “The ingredients are different, but the nutrients aren’t different.”
Dodd notes that plant-based therapeutic diets already exist to manage conditions like allergies, liver disease, and kidney disease. “One of the mantras is nutrients matter, not meat,” she says. Virtuous Vittles, she explains, meets and exceeds essential amino acid and protein requirements while offering balanced fatty acids, naturally sourced vitamins, and seaweed-derived calcium.
The founders also respond to common fears about taurine and protein. Schweizer explains that taurine is added intentionally, even though dogs can synthesize it, as part of a formulation designed for long-term and urinary health. “Every choice that we put into this food was for health,” she says. The many videos of dogs eagerly chowing down on Virtuous Vittles serve as visual proof, reinforcing the argument that properly formulated plant-based diets can support energy, digestion, and overall wellbeing.
Climate, Compassion, and the Bigger Picture
Co-founder Briana Schweizer with companion dog
Beyond individual health, Virtuous Vittles is framed as a response to a larger environmental issue. Schweizer shares a striking statistic: “Twenty five percent of the meat proteins in this country are consumed by our cats and dogs.” She adds that a 50-pound dog can eat as much meat annually as an average American. Switching dogs to plant-based diets, she argues, offers meaningful climate savings alongside ethical benefits.
Velez-Mitchell connects these points to UnchainedTV’s broader mission, challenging misinformation and industry influence. “We really try to show people that plant-based nutrition is a completely valid thing,” she says. Merrill adds that, as guardians seek higher-quality pet food, meat-based options can worsen environmental strain by competing directly with human food systems.
From rescue dogs regaining interest in food to guardians aligning their values with daily choices, Virtuous Vittles is presented not as a sacrifice, but as a delicious expansion of options.
