emmelinemay | get off my side

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get off my side

Worst. 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.

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I can only assume the bit about rats & dogs milk has been misreported, as that's not vegan.

The campaign posters are still laughably awful, though.

I did go 'whaaaa?' at that bit.

Having not had milk for the last year (apart from the odd accident - I know about it as I get all bloated and it's horrible) I'm starting to find it a bit, well weird. Are there any other animals that (in the wild) drink the milk of other animals after they're weaned? We don't actually *need* milk at all - that's a wonderful myth that's been very successfully promoted by the milk companies!

I often wonder how humans first figured out we could drink cow's milk...

Yeah, it's like how the first person to eat a lobster must have been seriously hungry!
I don't think the argument from naturalism works, though, because there are lots of things humans do that animals don't do naturally.

This is true.

After we did ecosystems in biology at school, and about food chains and balance and so on, I became convinced that we weren't really from this planet, and had come from somewhere else, because we didn't seem to fit into this 'chain' properly at all. After I saw Stargate, I bored everyone thoroughly with my belief that it was ALL TRUE and the Egyptian gods were the aliens that put us here.

It probably didn't help that I was an avid reader of the Fortean Times from the age of about 12.

We can drink cow's milk, then again we can drink sludge or petrol, that doesn't mean that it makes any sense *g*

I know that I am preaching to the choir here, but what makes anyone think that we should? There are some fundamental differences between the digestive processess of cows and of humans - starting with the fact that we only have one stomach, and even cows need four to break down the milk...

I thought they needed the stomachs to extract what they needed from the grass?

It is a very weird thing - people think milk is necessary mainly because of all the milk adverts over the years telling us

'if I don't drink enough milk, I won't be good enough to play for Accrington Stanley'

True enough about the grass, and the milk made by evolution for calves is also designed for a 4 stomach system.

I will curb my anti-milk rant at this point.

Feel free to have an anti-milk rant! Although you are right, you are preaching to the converted ;)

If only soy milk wasn't so MING.

I think that soy is an aquired taste, I have to say that I actually quite like it now - an Alpro chocolate milk has kept me going through tooth nightmares...

Oh man, that must suck, having Heather Mills as the poster child for your chosen lifestyle.

Wasn't Pol Pot available? Or Dennis Nilsen?

I saw a photo of her in Metro today, attempting to smile sweetly (a bit like the Alien Queen did at the end of Aliens)- it was one of the most terrifying things I've seen in a while.

Every time veganism ends up with a higher profile in the media, I die a little inside.

There's a sane comment in there, amoungst the general Daily Mail frothing:

How antagonistic is that second advertisement! Environmental issues are very complicated and I think trying to guilt people into altering their behaviour does more harm than good. In any case, I won't become vegan because then I can't use animal products (wool, leather) to clothe myself and will have to rely on synthetic products that may be worse for the environment than the animals.

- Bella, Netherlands

thank you, Bella from the Netherlands!

Yeah, that is a rare note of sanity.

That's the thing that annoys me - while I support veganism as a lifestyle, even if I choose to be a vegan myself, I've often been irritated by some vegans and their all-or-nothing attitude.

The two biggest annoyances are firstly being dictated to that veganism is the one true way, all vegans are saints, and I am an evil murderous bastard for eating meat/wearing leather/not unequivocally condemning anything whatsoever to do with animal products.

And the second, and even more frustrating, is the argument Bella mentions - The assumption that anything vegan, especially if it’s labelled as such, is automatically much better for the environment than something non-vegan. I mean, yes, the meat and dairy industries are pernicious in a lot of ways, but I’m not entirely sure the processed soya industry is terribly eco-friendly either.

Also, I have a leather coat from the seventies that I bought in Camden Market for a fiver, that had presumably been owned by at least one person before me. Wearing it does not mean I killed a cow for it, and no, a brand new gore-tex jacket is not more environmentally friendly (these are two points someone made to me in the Dev once).

did you also see the photo of her getting into a merc 4x4 with leather interior... i didn't know veganism excluded upholstery in gas guzzling cars.

Well, if vegetarians can eat chicken and fish...

the thing i don't get is that Mills has a high profile, so therefore gets headlines, although at the same time she is a loony fantasist and hated by a large proportion of the general public. People forget that the rule all publicity is good publicity isn't actually true, Peter Sutcliffe was a well known figure, but you wouldn't want him raising the profile of child safety......

Channel 4's newest Reality TV show - who can raise a child best? The contenders:

Claire Verity

Mr and Mrs McCann

Myra Hindley

Who will turn out the most well-adjusted and happy child? Watch nest week to find out!

My recently-acquired (but old) ovloV has seats that have led to it being christened the "MeatMobile" by vegan friends. I keep a blanket in the back for them to sit on.

(I'm a veggie, not vegan, but I'm going to worry about the whole "car" part long before what the seats are made of.)

Surely the "not eating meat = left-over animals" thing is only a problem if everyone, or a very large number of people, very suddenly stop eating meat? Which is pretty monumentally unlikely. If Viva's campaign does have an effect, it'll be a gradual one, so the number of animals bred for meat would gradually drop as demand decreases.

With sheep: we may have a duty of care to the current animals that exist, but we don't have a duty to breed more animals that suffer from these problems.

Having said which, I am still contemplating the wool vs other fabrics issue, as cotton for example has environmental problems. And I certainly agree that getting people to *think* about what they're actually eating, eat more locally and sustainably, etc etc, is something I'd support.

I think a campaign like this is unlikely to speak to anyone who isn't already vegan/vegetarian or thinking of doing so. The posters are pretty nonsensical, and the environmental 'facts' misleading.

The trouble with an awful lot of campaigns like this is that they alienate the people they are trying to reach - they're blame-throwing and antagonistic. The tend to do very little to support the idea that vegans/veggies can be perfectly ordinary people with a perfectly ordinary lifestyle. This campaign is a great example - the popular perception of Ms Mills is that she's a raving lunatic, obsessed with publicity, an inveterate bullshitter, and all-round bunny boiling psycho hose beast.

Whatever she may be like in 'real' life, I don't really want someone like that being the face for veganism, any more than I think Jodie Marsh should be the face of anti-bullying. Jodie Marsh - there's another BONKERS vegetarian for you. She said on celebrity bog brother that Eskimos were wrong to wear fur, and that they should 'just try harder' to get synthetic fabrics. o_O

I am still contemplating the wool/leather vs synthetic fabrics too. It's such a complex issue, you can't reduce it to right/wrong. Even within the industry there are degrees - for example apparently British leather is 'more ethical' because the leather is a by-product, cows aren't produced solely for their skin, as oppose to cows bred for the skin and the rest is 'wasted'.

The important thing, though, I think, is not to firmly come down on either side, but to KEEP THINKING, and keep revising your thoughts with new information. It's the hardline USING ANIMALS IS WRONG attitude where people become unstuck, as the logic just doesn't follow through.

For the purposes of Not Making My Head Explode I am constructing a reality in which there was massive sarcasm that was miss-reported with the whole 'drink cat's milk' thing ...

You, however, make a lot of sense.

I'm assuming that's the Daily Mail being the Daily Mail. I wouldn't put it past her though, she clearly doesn't fully understand, what with the 4X4 and the leather seats!

I presume that the message that was supposed to be put across was "Why do we drink cows' milk". Does it make more sense than drinking cats' or rats' milk?

However everyone just assumed "Oh that loony Mills - she's suggesting we drink rat and cat milk".

I'm intrigued by how many veggie things use her to garner support. There was a "veggie show" in London recently - I knew a couple of people who were promoting it who were trying to search for publicity material without her on it as she was putting everyone off.

She may be a lovely person (I've neve met her), but the general public perception is "nutter". Not a good choice for a campaing urging people to think deeply about ingrained attitudes.

Especially not when we're seen as nutters already.

Where are all the sane vegans??

To be honest I find that the people who have an issue with me being vegetarian are not vegans, they're meat eaters. Some people seem to presume that the fact of me being veggie is a covert judgement on them. And the next thing they do is look at my shoes to see if I'm being enough of a hypocrite by wearing leather to make them feel better about themselves. I don't need to say anything or participate in any way in this fantastical train of thought.

People are nuts!

Vegans eat their own, though. As it were.

I've seen so many stupid rows along the lines of 'I'm more vegan than you' on the LJ communities!

(deleted comment)

EL OH EL

You're funny :P

I'd just like to say that I much prefer your comments on veganism etc. than that of somebody famous.

Yours have much more depth.

I like to think I have more depth than Heather Mills...

I think if you are going to hold a fairly extreme or unusual ethical viewpoint, and lets face it, veganism is fairly extreme right now (as vegetarianism once was) then you really have to think it through first, and now why you are doing it, and where you draw the line.

I've thought, in the last 6 months, that I'm not really a vegan - I eat a vegan diet, yes, and I try to avoid animal products where I feel they are unnecessary, but I also think there are environmental and ethical reasons for using animal products, provided the animals are treated well and fairly.

There isn't a label for that though, so for now I'm a vegan, or a lactose and egg intolerant vegetarian who doesn't eat honey.

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