Violence-free fridges

1067:

Every day I work in other people’s homes and often put my lunch and water bottle in their fridge.  And while I’m there I will probably have a squiz inside, to see if I’ve inadvertently stumbled on a vegan fridge. In thirty years of fridge-squizzing I’ve only ever seen dead animals and other evidence of animal death. So far, no luck. How disappointing is that?

           

There they lie, the same old bits of dead flesh in nice white trays or there’s some smelly cheese or a carton of politically correct free range eggs.

           

My clients are usually lovely people but they’re not at the forefront of social change, let alone leading the transformation of the human species. Many are well educated, intelligent and kind hearted and yet few of them would realise how closely involved they are in ‘systemic violence’, by eating what they eat. Nor would they realise that their leather shoes have anything to do with the killing of animals – even vegetarians consider leather as a ‘ left-over’ of the meat trade, which is isn’t. Leather is a co-product rather than a by-product, and in countries like India, they’re skin is often of greater value than their flesh.

Because animal-based foods and leather are so popular, the habit of violence against animals is endemic the world over. That we don’t care if our food comes to us at the expense of animals show the hard side of us. It shows that we accept that we have a violent side to our nature. The soft side, on the other hand, is the side vegans are trying to nurture. We buy cruelty-free foods and keep ‘violence-free’ fridges.

Vegans are making a start. We are beginning to adopt an attitude-of-non-violence, and that example will hopefully inspire people to follow our lead.