922:
I know that maintaining an animal-food habit doesn’t ensure
good nutrition; animal foods are the chief destroyers of good health, but I
also realise that most people have a taste for animal body parts. The meat of
animals, the by-products , anything from muscle tissue to bodily secretions.
The taste, the seductive,
mouth-watering experience is never lost. What is it? The texture, the
saltiness, the blood, the richness – there’s no one feature of animal product
that explains the allure of these foods and the thousands of food products on
the market containing animal ingredients, to which humans are universally
drawn. Perhaps it’s the comfort of the repeated eating of familiar foods,
forming a link between our childhood to the present day. Perhaps it’s the
feeling of being part of a community of fellow humans who share the same type
of food attraction. And who knows, maybe it’s the lust for eating the animal
the human has come to dominate and enslave, confirming in us the feeling of
being at the ‘top of the pile’, the superior being, the species that reigns
supreme over all other life forms.
Whatever it is that is so
attractive about the eating and using of animals, it clouds our better
judgement and obscures the writing on the wall, which has long spelled out the
dangers of these foods to our overall well being and health, not to mention our
complicity with the cruelty that is part and parcel of animal farming and
animal slaughter. Added to this fixation (which humans have about the need to
make full use of animals) is a worrying tendency, amongst those who are
supposedly better-informed, that the science behind the danger of eating animal protein is invalid; if it were true,
that indulging in animal protein ruins one’s health you would see all people
suffering ill health – but surely, that is exactly what seems to be happening.
The next worrying tendency is that of the sleeping-conscience – that because
everyone does it then it can’t possibly be something we should stop doing; and,
if I stop condoning the cruelty it will make not a scrap of difference, because
more than 99% of people will carry on regardless, despite what I do.
The problem for omnivores is that
they are losing control of how they live; their lifestyle has somehow been
fixed for them, and there is little point in trying to change it, especially
not when taking on a vegan diet would impact on so many varied aspects of daily
life. If this were a conspiracy to wreck the human species, the promotion of
animal products would be a very neat way of succeeding.
As humans, living in the wealthy
West, if we stopped using animal foods, we believe that we’d suffer terrible
withdrawals. It is almost unimaginable for most people to stop, especially
since food is one of the few remaining pleasures of life, which would be
compromised if we gave away the things we love to eat.
One has to ask oneself upon what
basis one might decide to boycott animal products. If it were an ethical
boycott then logically we would have to eat nothing which contained animal
products, knowing that they are often surreptitiously used in foods and may
only be spotted if we are willing to study the fine print on the ingredients
list (and even that might prove difficult since many are listed under the cover
of words we won’t be familiar with, like gelatine, whey and albumin - bones,
milk and eggs).
We humans are social animals. We
eat together, and over our shared meals we talk and interact, sharing a common
bond by eating the same sorts of food. And since no meal is thought to be
complete without meat or at least some cheese or milk-derived product,
‘incomplete’ meals would lead to hunger and worse. Even if we did want to stop
using ‘it all’, we’d have too little faith in our own willpower to stop
altogether, and if we don’t make a complete break, then these yummy products
will always sneak back onto our shopping lists and be pulled off the shelf into
our shopping baskets.
It seems then we are doomed -
neither logic nor ill health nor guilt nor environmental impact will stop us
buying ‘animal stuff’, and therefore nothing will stop the killing of animals
for food, and therefore we will always continue participating in the sort of
human activity that we can never be proud of. Our collective shame over this
prevents us from moving on as a species.
Having empathy for food-animals is rare, so let’s say that
at the moment, here in Australia, ‘it’ isn’t happening. Animals don’t touch our
hearts enough. Our omnivore friends are brick walls when it comes to animal
liberation and vegan diets.
And yet there are people coming
over - vegans do exist and are growing in number, leaving behind their omnivore
friends with their omnivore habits, who are developing empathy for exploited
animals and willing to go it alone. Any important trend has to start somewhere
and in this matter vegans are stepping out in front, to prove that it can be
done and indeed should be done.
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