Meat is good because the TV tells us so.

815: 

What can we do about it? It’s everywhere you look. We see it all the time on the ads on TV. It comes at you in your living room. The okay-ness of eating or using animals creeps into our lives until we hardly even notice it. And the normality of it is reinforced by its regular appearance in films, soaps and cooking shows. Beyond the home it’s everywhere too, being advertised on the streets, in shops and playing centre stage at the ubiquitous sausage sizzle at every community event.

Take the ads - there are good looking actors who appear as friends, telling us ‘meat-is-okay’ and talking about animal-based foods as if they were nothing to do with living animals themselves. Meat acceptability seeps into our psyche and into our habits, and actually contributes to our sense of normality. Only ‘good’ is ever spoken of the items advertised -  the drawbacks aren’t mentioned.

But the consumer isn’t entirely gullible. We are all much more aware that we’re not being given the whole truth. And yet, even the most ‘telly-wise’ people will go along with what they want to believe about their favourite foods. They want to find it all acceptable. The consumer may not necessarily believe what they’re being told, but they take it in rather gratefully.

Ads work on a subtle level, getting us to engage with what’s happening on the screen, if only to make the ads pass quicker, so that we can get back to the programme we’re watching. We’re half tempted by what we see or are being told and generously accept even the most obvious lies. That’s just television. Even kids ignore the insult of them.