Manipulation

Monday 5th April 2010

We want to let people know how they’re being manipulated into buying “yummy” foods made from animals. Of course, in order to push our point home, we’d love to talk more about “addiction”, but that would touch a very raw nerve.
So, therein lies the difficulty for vegans. How do we explain our reasons for being optimistic without mentioning our reasons for boycotting? It’s almost impossible to do that without offending most people. People make great daily use of all the stuff we’re telling them to avoid. We talk about saving money by not wasting it buying rubbish. We talk about the health benefits of eating only from the plant world. But mostly we talk about the guilt of the animal industries and by implication, the consumer’s guilt. This is how we distance and separate ourselves from non-vegans - because we ‘preach’ about it; but we know we can’t afford to be seen simply as shame-merchants if we want to change peoples’ attitudes.