The Animals are for Cooking????

1564: 

Edited by CJ Tointon

There’s little comfort for vegans when we read or hear about animals in the Media. They're portrayed as the necessary victims of human lifestyle: 'ingredients' or 'centrepieces' in various cuisines which make great use of animal body parts. Cooking programmes are all about new taste sensations with our star TV cooks showing no care whatsoever for the animals they so liberally use. Their emphasis is on the 'art' of creating exotic dishes; something they tell us we all deserve - "Go on, spoil yourself".

By creating these savoury dishes, rich in tender flesh, set off with creamy sauces, these cooking gurus make full use of both land and sea creatures. And their big show-off dishes (without which a meal would be incomplete) are desserts, rich in creams, eggs, flavourings and various artificial additives. No thought is given to the harm these ingredients do to human health - let alone to the animals who produce the products! Television cooks are primarily spruiking their latest cook-books. They perform as entertainers. But if we look a little deeper, we find them to be leading agents of the Animal Industries who do very well out of these TV 'celebrities'. 

 Our omnivorous society has no desire do anything to endanger this industry, which is entirely legal and never admits to harming health. Because the vast animal-based food industry is so entrenched in our various lifestyles and is such a vital part of our economy, there’s barely a whisper of concern as to the methods used in modern animal husbandry. The animals themselves are forgotten. They are made to appear as units of production, peripheral to the products taken from them.

 We are so familiar with the names given to the most popular meat products, that we've come to know them as pork, veal, poultry or beef; diverting us away from any association with the real, live creatures. The animals themselves are pushed into the background, unseen, unmentioned and forgotten about. This is why most vegans are keen to show these euphemistic renamings as a perfidious sleight of hand. The word 'beef' doesn't bring to mind a picture of a steer any more than the word 'pork' does a pig. This smokescreening makes it all the more difficult to encourage awareness or change public attitude. We have nothing coercive with which to fight! 
But this might eventually be to our advantage. We have no power to stop the cruelty and the killing. All we can do is expose it for what it is - and offer suggestions. We can teach, but we can’t touch. Down-the-line (when people are ready to change their attitudes) at least we won’t be accused of using violence or emotional blackmail to promote change. By then, our compassion both for animals and humans will show up as a single, all-encompassing  principle - that of well meaning non-violence. The impact of this single principle will be seen to be of paramount importance. Animal liberation will eventually be seen as a logical consequence of non-violence.


These days, we vegans are part of a tiny minority, surrounded by the vast majority who believe animals are put here on Earth to be used (by humans). Perceptively speaking, confronting such a core belief will get us nowhere because the odds are so heavily stacked against us. However, our powerlessness ensures that we take up only non-violent forms of persuasion. Although this might seem too slow and frustrating, it’s certainly good training for being non-judgmental. That 'hold back' feeling is probably going to encourage us to better tolerate those who disagree with us. Non-violence (not to be confused with passivity or apathy) gives us an edge. It that might not be immediately obvious, but the implicit strength in observing the principles of non-violence can greatly impress and become a prerequisite for opening deaf ears to our 'difficult-to-listen-to' vegan views.