Wanting

1525: 

Edited by CJ Tointon

Because omnivores are so focused on wanting animal products, they won't listen to what vegans have to say.  We can scream all we want about animal cruelty and health issues, but we really know we're looking at a deep-seated fear (often unexpressed) that some serious illness awaits people who exclude animal products from their lives.  These 'animal users' prefer to gamble with their health rather than give up the things they like.  Take people with heart disease who are facing surgery.  They might have avoided the damage altogether just by not clogging up their arteries with fat-saturated animal-derived foods.  But they didn't.  They continued wanting (and getting) non-plant based foods and then just let the hospital system deal with their problem later.  

            

So vegans have two jobs.  To show that plant foods can be attractive enough (and healthy enough) to live on without needing animal products and to convince food addicts that prevention is better than cure.  We need to inspire on the one hand and warn on the other.  And that's before we get down to the serious business of trying to prevent the ethical damage involved in the torturing and killing of innocent animals!!  

        

Those people who are most obstinate are the most food-seduced.  They believe they're unable to go without animal-based foods.  It's not just a matter of nutrition.  It's a matter of 'habit'.  And getting out of the habit is easier said than done for most people. 

         

Before reaching adulthood, most of us are powerless to change our eating habits.  In this respect, parents are guilty of feeding their children addictive, harmful and unethical foods.  When kids grow up and start feeding themselves, they soon get hooked on the fast-food version of what Mum or Dad used to cook for them.  Weight creeps up and a 'live-now-pay-for-it-later' mentality sets in.  Kids aren’t warned about the dangers of addiction, so effectively, Mum and Dad turn out to be the kids' drug dealers.

 Like the use of narcotics (or anything else that’s stimulating but difficult to give up) animal foods are in our daily lives from the get-go.  And with such a great variety of these mildly addictive products on the market, many of them are as difficult to shake off as any of the classic abuse-substances.  Once we’re in the grip of these products, there seems to be no way out, especially when we see almost everyone else in the same grip.

Because animal foods are addictive (not in quite the same way as narcotics, but addictive all the same) then the taste of them, the thought of them and the low cost of them, make people determined to get them.  It may be a burger or a chocolate confection or a quiche, but every day that 'hunger' leaves its mark.  For the wealthy 'Westerner' there’s no thought of doing without these foods.  The very idea of giving up a favourite food because of the link with animal suffering or ill health consequences, is unthinkable.  In fact animal welfare (let alone animal rights) is something to which most people never give a thought.  But when they do, they're well on their way to becoming vegan.