Priorities

1063: 

Ed: CJ

Our first priorities, if we want to protect animals, is to stop eating them, wearing them, and buying products tested on them.  People supporting the Animal Industries are not in the best position to protect animals.  You cannot eat them, but want to save them too.  That would be hypocritical.

Once you’ve adopted vegan principles, you can speak out on the animals' behalf.  If you aren’t willing to ditch everything made with animals or from animals, you can shout as loudly as you like, but as soon as people look at your shoes they’ll think you have double standards.  When they ask you if you still wear wool, still eat cheese or own a leather sofa:  if you can’t answer "No", then they’ll have you banged to rights.  Animal advocates have to be squeaky clean if they want to be taken seriously.

There are a thousand products on the market which you might have taken for granted.  You might have used them all your life, enjoyed eating them, wearing them, right down to the shampoo you run through your hair.  If you’re willing to look into the ingredients of all these products and ditch the ones with 'animal-based ingredients' or which have been 'animal-tested', then you’re well on the way to 'getting clean'.

When your shelves at home are free of all this stuff, then you can represent the exploited animals with a clear conscience.  You can embark on the most fascinating, most challenging journey imaginable - persuading the omnivore to think for themselves and not follow the crowd.

It has to be remembered that none of us is completely vegan.  We can’t avoid some association with products  from animals.  But we can all be moving towards being as animal-free as possible.  If you intend to speak against the use of animals, all you have to do is admit that you are doing your best to observe vegan principles.  Otherwise you might get caught out when using essential items for which there are no animal-free alternatives.

It’s worth noting that 45% of the animal carcass is not used for food, but for inedible by-products. If you travel (as we all do) in a car, on a bus or on a bike, it’s likely that in the production of the tyres, they use animal-based stearic acid (helps the rubber in the tyre hold shape under steady surface friction).  Your shampoo might not have been 'tested on animals', but it might contain animal by-products such as Panthenol, Amino acids or Vitamin B.  You might have animal products in your toothpaste, sugar or plastic bags.  It’s not always easy to find out, but there are web sites which address this very problem.  Google them.

We have to be vigilant and make an effort to find out what is actually IN the things we buy, for we buy them on trust.  We trust, for example, that our foods are not going to poison us, that they don’t contain what we don’t want them to contain and that the manufacturers are honest when they state 'this product contains no animal ingredients' or 'not tested on animals'.  Web site researchers have exposed many of the frauds, and they list them.

Things aren’t always the way they seem to be.  It’s only when we are fairly sure we aren’t involved (that we’ve minimised our support of the Animal Industries) that we can urge others to follow our example.

(Ed: CJ)