The animal issue

1652: 

There’s a great gulf between people, over their attitude to animals. We all love the cute and cuddly ones. We love far less the ‘edible’ ones.

Until a few decades ago, no one thought much about it - farm animals were just different types of animal which we needed to eat to stay alive. Then the myth was exploded – it was shown that animal protein was NOT essential for good nutrition, in fact it was harmful to health, whereas plant protein gave optimum health benefits. That in itself was a bombshell. But then the rest of the story came tumbling out, about how animals were being treated on farms and what horrors happened at abattoirs.

In the 1940s and 50s the idea of a vegan diet was being tested and found to be healthy - plant-based nutrition was coming of age. By the early eighties The Animals Film and the book Animal Liberation were released and together they had a profound impact on a lot of people.          

I was shocked, certainly, realising for the first time how much our food relied on animals and what actually happened to the animals reared for food. The information seeped into public consciousness and suddenly everyone seemed to be talking about it. But then, surprisingly, it all came to a standstill. At least it did in Australia.

Once the novelty had worn off, once the shock was over, people returned to what they knew best, and what tasted best. Old habits die hard. Ethics and rich cuisine make poor bed fellows. In the general community there was reluctance to face up to animal issues - probably because people who eat animals feel too uncomfortable to think about it too deeply. In private, if there’s any talk of it at all, it centres on health issues rather than the ethics of imprisoning and killing animals. People like their animal foods too much to discuss the rights and wrongs of the origins of their food with any sort of intellectual rigour. In any supermarket there are probably thousands of choices of animal-based edibles. In any one day the meals and snacks we eat probably all contain some animal ingredient, because it adds richness, flavour and bulk to foods. The food industry has worked hard to make us crave their food products which contain animal ingredients. And since we now know so much more about animal cruelty but still want animal-based foods so badly, we’re reluctant to even discuss the subject seriously.

Those who are against the ‘eating of animals’ are usually the butt of jokes. Those who are likely to want to talk about animal issues are usually avoided or discouraged from even bringing up the subject in conversation. The whole subject has been tabooed. Who knows, but if we don't think about it, it might just go away!!