get off my side
Nov. 20th, 2007 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emmelinemayWorst. Campaign. Ever.
Ok, So it's the Daily Mail. Hardly a shining light of unbiased reporting. But this particular Viva campaign has got me ranting.
Why is it that so few vegans also understand environmental issues?
On an LJ community I'm on for veganism, the ignorance of issues outside of 'hurting the baybee animals' is astounding. One person who asked for advice on where to buy leather-free shoes was told that PVC was a good alternative o_O
I went off meat at a very young age, when I put the two and two together - lamb outside in the field, lamb on plate. From then on, Mum struggled to get me to eat it. If it looked like meat, I wouldn't eat it. I'd only eat meat in disguise - chicken nuggets, burgers, shepard's pie. There was no such thing as Quorn back then, and vegetarians were considered a bit weird. When I was about 12, and hit Big School, I badgered mum to let me go veggie. She made me start off still eating white meat, but by the time I was 13, that was it for me. I simply couldn't bear the thought of eating animals.
It was never really an ethical reason, although I'm sure as a little girl there were 'baby lambs are cute' things going on. Dad lived very near a cattle market, and I regularly walked past the cramped stalls, 5 cows where 1 would be barely comfortable, lambs and calves separated from mothers (I didn't know why, back then, and never thought about it until relatively recently), and above all the SMELL. It was an in-your-face reminder of exactly where your food started. And I thought that was disgusting. Meat. It's what we're made of. It's inside bodies. With nervous systems and livers and kidneys and blood moving around and it dies and decays and just EUW EUW EUW. That was pretty much the key thing for me. I just found the whole idea of eating meat thoroughly disgusting. Now I think about it, I used to take my sister there to see 'the moo-cows' and the 'baa-lambs' when she was small. She's vegetarian now too, has been since she was about 12.
Even back then, I realised that this was entirely personal. It wasn't at all an ethical decision, and it wasn't one I should force on anyone else. It was simply ME, not being able to eat meat because I personally found it, well, icky. Therefore, I never felt a need to make it a campaign. If other people wanted to eat meat, that was fine, after all, we learnt in school that humans were naturally omnivorous, we have omnivores teeth. We digest meat. Therefore, it seemed to me, it was natural to eat meat. Other animals did it. And that was it, for the next 20 or so years.
I realised I had a problem with dairy about 6 years ago, when a friend asked me about the stomach pains I got after pizza. She gave me an 'ultra lactase' pill thing from the good old USA, who have pills for everything, and for the first time in a very long time indeed, I ate a pizza and didn't feel dreadful afterwards. From then on, I tried to cut down, but couldn't give it up, I loved chocolate and pizza too much, and as far as I knew, milk didn't hurt the cows, did it? I grew up in sheep country, I'd been to nice little friendly farms and milked a content-looking cow, and that was the image in my mind. It never occurred to me to wonder how milk was produced in such enormous quantities. I knew NOTHING about the dairy industry. I knew relatively little about the farming industry AT ALL, having assigned it to being SEP¹ and nothing to do with me. I didn't eat meat, ergo I didn't need to know.
Going out with a vegan can open your eyes. I learnt more in 3 months than I had in YEARS. I'm not going to go on at length about the dairy industry, or meat farming, or the oppression of the baby bees, those that want to know can find out, those that don't can leave it as SEP. But learning more about the way farming worked, the way milk is mass produced, what 'rennet' and 'whey' actually are and where they come from, that all gave me the nudge I needed to throw away the ultra lactase and go properly dairy free. And this time, unlike when I was a child, it really was an ethical decision. But it was still MY ethical decision, no-one else's. I still didn't feel like it was my mission to go around telling the world about the evils of the farming industry.
I now try and make sure I remain informed, so that my decision remains the right one. It's been dawning on me, since I've been vegan, that there are many more issues surrounding living an ethical a lifestyle as possible that goes far beyond not-using-stuff-from-animals.
Animal testing, for example. Cosmetics and toiletries, well, that's just vanity. I'm agaisnt that. But medical testing? Would I be alive today without some of the treatments and medications I've had to have? If I get cancer, am I really going to turn down potentially life-saving treatment because the development of it used animals? The answer to both is probably not. Actually, the answer is no. Definitely not. Therefore, I can't be against medical animal testing. To do so would make me a hypocrite. I'd prefer it if it didn't happen, if there were other ways, and of course I'd support alternatives to it first. But that doesn't change the fact I can't be against it per se without being a raging double standards monster.
Or wool. Selective breeding over centuries means we now have sheep which need to be sheared, or they're horribly uncomfortable and may even die. Surely that means we have a duty of care to these species we've created?
There's more, but those are just two issues off the top of my head.
Which brings me back to the article. Animals cause green house gases which harm the environment, do they? So, Viva suggests we don't eat them. The flaw in the logic there is pretty obvious. In the long term, you can see what they are saying, fewer animals being produced for the meat/dairy industry = fewer animals. But they will all still be here. What should we do, cull them?
Peta have a similar problem with their 'total emancipation' campaign. They want to free ALL animals from 'slavery'. This includes domestic pets.
I'm sure I don't need to point out the flaws there.
I regularly find myself yelling at these groups, at people on the LJ veggie communities, at celebrities who become the face of whatever new campaign for animal rights/veganism. I yell "GET OFF MY SIDE".
While the groups touting veganism as the 'right' way to live, using celebrities who turn up in 4x4s, or who go naked to protest against fur and yet wear a fur coat as soon as it's fashionable, or the vice president of a charity that actively campaigns against animal testing is diabetic and taking medicine developed through animal testing², vegans will continue to be seen as loony, hypocritical, wrong thinking hippies. And judging by an awful lot of the people in some of the communities I read, a lot of them actually are barking mad. Either that or they just haven't thought it through.
When I tell people I'm vegan, I see this look pass across their face. I then say 'It's ok, I'm not THAT sort of vegan'. The sort of vegan who tries to convert everyone they meet by telling them how milk kills baby cows, and honey kills baby bees. I'm not one of those vegans. I'm doing this for personal ethical reasons.
I'm also starting to realise that veganism isn't even the most ethical way to eat. Really, it's a lot better for the environment, and for the farming industry, if people check what is in their food, and make sure they buy, where-ever possible, food which has been made as ethically as possible; locally sourced, organic, from small farms and small businesses. Choosing that free-range chicken from a small farm instead of the 1kg bag of chicken breasts from a battery farm. The financial cost is higher, unfortunately, which is what prevents many people from being able to do this.
It does make sense to eat meat though. We're omnivores. I'd never go around telling people not to eat it. (Although I do regularly get people telling me I'm stupid for being a vegan...) What I would tell people is to read the ingredients on your food. Know what you are eating. And then decide, once you know EXACTLY what it is you are eating.
That's a campaign I'd support.
[1] - Somebody Else's Problem, for the non Douglas Adams readers out there.
[2] - Mary Beth Sweetland, Vice president of PETA. She claims she needs to take the medicine to stay alive so she can continue to fight for the rights that animals can't fight for. How selfless of her.
You can read a related rant about hunting here.
Ok, So it's the Daily Mail. Hardly a shining light of unbiased reporting. But this particular Viva campaign has got me ranting.
Why is it that so few vegans also understand environmental issues?
On an LJ community I'm on for veganism, the ignorance of issues outside of 'hurting the baybee animals' is astounding. One person who asked for advice on where to buy leather-free shoes was told that PVC was a good alternative o_O
I went off meat at a very young age, when I put the two and two together - lamb outside in the field, lamb on plate. From then on, Mum struggled to get me to eat it. If it looked like meat, I wouldn't eat it. I'd only eat meat in disguise - chicken nuggets, burgers, shepard's pie. There was no such thing as Quorn back then, and vegetarians were considered a bit weird. When I was about 12, and hit Big School, I badgered mum to let me go veggie. She made me start off still eating white meat, but by the time I was 13, that was it for me. I simply couldn't bear the thought of eating animals.
It was never really an ethical reason, although I'm sure as a little girl there were 'baby lambs are cute' things going on. Dad lived very near a cattle market, and I regularly walked past the cramped stalls, 5 cows where 1 would be barely comfortable, lambs and calves separated from mothers (I didn't know why, back then, and never thought about it until relatively recently), and above all the SMELL. It was an in-your-face reminder of exactly where your food started. And I thought that was disgusting. Meat. It's what we're made of. It's inside bodies. With nervous systems and livers and kidneys and blood moving around and it dies and decays and just EUW EUW EUW. That was pretty much the key thing for me. I just found the whole idea of eating meat thoroughly disgusting. Now I think about it, I used to take my sister there to see 'the moo-cows' and the 'baa-lambs' when she was small. She's vegetarian now too, has been since she was about 12.
Even back then, I realised that this was entirely personal. It wasn't at all an ethical decision, and it wasn't one I should force on anyone else. It was simply ME, not being able to eat meat because I personally found it, well, icky. Therefore, I never felt a need to make it a campaign. If other people wanted to eat meat, that was fine, after all, we learnt in school that humans were naturally omnivorous, we have omnivores teeth. We digest meat. Therefore, it seemed to me, it was natural to eat meat. Other animals did it. And that was it, for the next 20 or so years.
I realised I had a problem with dairy about 6 years ago, when a friend asked me about the stomach pains I got after pizza. She gave me an 'ultra lactase' pill thing from the good old USA, who have pills for everything, and for the first time in a very long time indeed, I ate a pizza and didn't feel dreadful afterwards. From then on, I tried to cut down, but couldn't give it up, I loved chocolate and pizza too much, and as far as I knew, milk didn't hurt the cows, did it? I grew up in sheep country, I'd been to nice little friendly farms and milked a content-looking cow, and that was the image in my mind. It never occurred to me to wonder how milk was produced in such enormous quantities. I knew NOTHING about the dairy industry. I knew relatively little about the farming industry AT ALL, having assigned it to being SEP¹ and nothing to do with me. I didn't eat meat, ergo I didn't need to know.
Going out with a vegan can open your eyes. I learnt more in 3 months than I had in YEARS. I'm not going to go on at length about the dairy industry, or meat farming, or the oppression of the baby bees, those that want to know can find out, those that don't can leave it as SEP. But learning more about the way farming worked, the way milk is mass produced, what 'rennet' and 'whey' actually are and where they come from, that all gave me the nudge I needed to throw away the ultra lactase and go properly dairy free. And this time, unlike when I was a child, it really was an ethical decision. But it was still MY ethical decision, no-one else's. I still didn't feel like it was my mission to go around telling the world about the evils of the farming industry.
I now try and make sure I remain informed, so that my decision remains the right one. It's been dawning on me, since I've been vegan, that there are many more issues surrounding living an ethical a lifestyle as possible that goes far beyond not-using-stuff-from-animals.
Animal testing, for example. Cosmetics and toiletries, well, that's just vanity. I'm agaisnt that. But medical testing? Would I be alive today without some of the treatments and medications I've had to have? If I get cancer, am I really going to turn down potentially life-saving treatment because the development of it used animals? The answer to both is probably not. Actually, the answer is no. Definitely not. Therefore, I can't be against medical animal testing. To do so would make me a hypocrite. I'd prefer it if it didn't happen, if there were other ways, and of course I'd support alternatives to it first. But that doesn't change the fact I can't be against it per se without being a raging double standards monster.
Or wool. Selective breeding over centuries means we now have sheep which need to be sheared, or they're horribly uncomfortable and may even die. Surely that means we have a duty of care to these species we've created?
There's more, but those are just two issues off the top of my head.
Which brings me back to the article. Animals cause green house gases which harm the environment, do they? So, Viva suggests we don't eat them. The flaw in the logic there is pretty obvious. In the long term, you can see what they are saying, fewer animals being produced for the meat/dairy industry = fewer animals. But they will all still be here. What should we do, cull them?
Peta have a similar problem with their 'total emancipation' campaign. They want to free ALL animals from 'slavery'. This includes domestic pets.
I'm sure I don't need to point out the flaws there.
I regularly find myself yelling at these groups, at people on the LJ veggie communities, at celebrities who become the face of whatever new campaign for animal rights/veganism. I yell "GET OFF MY SIDE".
While the groups touting veganism as the 'right' way to live, using celebrities who turn up in 4x4s, or who go naked to protest against fur and yet wear a fur coat as soon as it's fashionable, or the vice president of a charity that actively campaigns against animal testing is diabetic and taking medicine developed through animal testing², vegans will continue to be seen as loony, hypocritical, wrong thinking hippies. And judging by an awful lot of the people in some of the communities I read, a lot of them actually are barking mad. Either that or they just haven't thought it through.
When I tell people I'm vegan, I see this look pass across their face. I then say 'It's ok, I'm not THAT sort of vegan'. The sort of vegan who tries to convert everyone they meet by telling them how milk kills baby cows, and honey kills baby bees. I'm not one of those vegans. I'm doing this for personal ethical reasons.
I'm also starting to realise that veganism isn't even the most ethical way to eat. Really, it's a lot better for the environment, and for the farming industry, if people check what is in their food, and make sure they buy, where-ever possible, food which has been made as ethically as possible; locally sourced, organic, from small farms and small businesses. Choosing that free-range chicken from a small farm instead of the 1kg bag of chicken breasts from a battery farm. The financial cost is higher, unfortunately, which is what prevents many people from being able to do this.
It does make sense to eat meat though. We're omnivores. I'd never go around telling people not to eat it. (Although I do regularly get people telling me I'm stupid for being a vegan...) What I would tell people is to read the ingredients on your food. Know what you are eating. And then decide, once you know EXACTLY what it is you are eating.
That's a campaign I'd support.
[1] - Somebody Else's Problem, for the non Douglas Adams readers out there.
[2] - Mary Beth Sweetland, Vice president of PETA. She claims she needs to take the medicine to stay alive so she can continue to fight for the rights that animals can't fight for. How selfless of her.
You can read a related rant about hunting here.
