What happens when …?

1746: 

You might well think that you're addicted to all the yummy, creamy, rich, salty, meaty items that you've been indulging in all your life. You try a change - start eating solely plant-based foods, perhaps at first gritting your teeth with determination, only to find to your surprise a whole new and satisfying food experience. It might be like the ease of breathing with clean lungs when you stop a long lasting tobacco-smoking habit.

When we give up animal foods, taste buds quickly readjust. They almost tingle at the clean-out and the chance to open up to new sensory sensations.

The biggest surprise for new vegans is that we no longer crave the crap foods. Once you get this (about vegan food) you'll probably never want to go back to the old ways; you find energy levels are higher, you're less sluggish after meals and your general health improves. One more thing - you notice how much more alert and mentally sharper you become.

But the big bonus is that there's a self-esteem boost too. You're thinking things through for yourself for the first time. You're no longer doing what nearly everyone else is doing. You're repairing the ‘spiritual’ damage done by years of using animals, and condoning their enslavement and killing. 

         

My main point here is that if survival isn’t dependent on animal-foods (or animal anything-else) then it has to be questioned. We don't in fact need animals to survive. If eating them was essential, our vegan arguments would collapse, since it would be suicidal to ignore survival-needs. However, since no one has put up a serious argument along those lines (ever since the first vegans appeared seventy years ago) we must assume that plant-based foods are efficacious and safe. (But, vegan doctors advised we take regular vitamin B12 supplements, since that vitamin is in short supply in plant-based foods).

         

Once you are living a safe and satisfying vegan lifestyle you can then (and only then) assume the role of animal advocate with a clear conscience.

A journey much shorter!!

1745: 

To inconvenience oneself by becoming vegan, for the sake of farm animals, will seem unnecessary to most people. They won’t think through the logic of the issues. They’ll come to the conclusion that vegans are just attention-seeking.

Our biggest challenge is to say what we have to say despite rejection, disagreement and even ridicule. And to remain vegan without the need for others’ approval or encouragement. I know ex-activists who have given up (activism, not vegan food) in frustration at the public’s ethical weakness over animal issues; they haven’t been able to accept that this radical change of attitude, affecting so much of one's normal lifestyle, might be very slow to catch on. It is, after all, a major shift of emphasis from human-centred concern to concern for the non-human. But that is why there is such a need for activists to stay active, to hang in there for the duration, if only because omnivorousness is SUCH an ingrained habit.

It seems that animal issues, because they are so closely connected with our daily food, are shunted off into the too-hard department. In a conspiracy of silence, the issues are rarely talked about, either in the media or at home around the dinner table. Maybe people make a small gesture, mainly for health reasons, of reducing their red meat intake. Maybe others give up meat altogether (for ethical and/or health reasons). But in general, stopping all compliance with animal farming and boycotting all animal produce is not on the cards, because the using-of-animals suits human convenience so very well.

If we boycott animal products there is obviously going to be a dramatic change to our daily life. However, if we don’t, then we are condoning the abattoir and all that it stands for (and that also involves the exploitation of hens and cows for eggs and milk). If demand for animal products dropped, abattoirs would have to shut down: if abattoirs shut down, commercial animal farming would stop, and animal products would no longer be commercially available. That would spell such a dramatic change in the way humans operate that we guess it's not likely to happen overnight; if there is no obvious threat to human survival, such a change isn’t likely to happen.

If change doesn’t seem likely, then an activist vegan might lose heart. But if we are NOT dependant upon the likelihood of change in order to remain vegan, then we are vegan simply because it is right. By choosing to lead a life of non-violence, we must be able to handle living in a society where we might never see the sort of substantial changes taking place that we’d like to see.

The abattoir symbolises our compliance-with-the-norm. This side of 'normality', the shameful and violent side, is rarely spoken about. The crimes against animals are rarely witnessed. The abattoirs are located well out of town, and most people wouldn’t even know where the nearest one was. Nor would they know in any detail what goes on there, apart from the raw fact that animals are slaughtered there.

From the Animal Industry’s point of view, the secrecy surrounding the treatment and execution of animals is essential. The Industry comprises people who farm, kill and make things out of them, and whose income is generated from animals. They obviously have a main interest in maintaining the market and their own income, for which they need a knowledge of customer predictability. They know the customer will always cooperate, to maintain supply of all the items they love to eat, wear and use, and to have them at the lowest possible cost.

Vegans, however, are on the side of the animals, and since animals can’t defend themselves we take on the role of their advocates and protectors; we stand against the juggernaut of abusers and their myriad customers. We hope to succeed in winning animals their ‘rights’. But at the same time, in reality, we might have to accept that animal rights are still very far from being won.

Our efforts are not futile. We start out with high hopes and brave intentions, and then have to face up to disappointments and come to terms with the reality of a much slower change than we would want. But along the way something else happens to help our resolve. We realise what omnivores can’t possibly know, that our food is clean, our health is on the ‘up’, and our own tastes are not as fixed as we feared, and therefore our cravings aren’t as powerful as we thought. And that's what is so intrinsically attractive about becoming a vegan.

Laying it on the line

1744: 

People don’t usually like hearing stories of cruelty and waste in relation to animals. They feel guilty about what they’re eating and wearing, but the problem is that they can’t imagine a world without animal farms and animal foods and animal-based clothing. They can’t accept life without meat or, if they’re vegetarians, without eggs, cheese, milk and products using animal ingredients. Most people think a plant-based diet would be boring and unhealthy. But today people are better informed on both counts.

         

Back in the 1970s there was far less information, and so I was sceptical on both counts. But what made me most determined to try living as a vegan were stories I heard about what they did to the animals, for their meat and milk and eggs, and the corresponding stories concerning plant-based foods. I vaguely knew that animal farming wasn’t nice but I didn’t want to know too much, in case I persuaded myself to act. I liked animal-based foods and yet disliked them because of their animal association. And this is the dilemma for most people today, unable to face a life without prawns, steak, ham, eggs, ice cream, milk chocolate, cheese, yoghurt and cream cakes.

Every time I go to someone's place for dinner or a celebration like a wedding, there are always attractive items to eat, made with lots of animal ingredient. To pass it up seems rather masochistic. And clothing (leather shoes and gloves, woollen jumpers, blankets and coats) whilst being available, affordable and fashionable, also have to be ruled out if made from animals.

         

For vegans there's a lot here to ‘do-without’. It’s a huge challenge to impose on yourself. If I decide to deny myself these eating pleasures and wardrobe items, I'll effectively be stepping aside from normality and from the lifestyle of most of my friends and family. But it's not about me and my convenience. It's up to me to show my choices as possibilities, as ethical statements and as attractive alternatives. By making plant-based foods seem interesting and canvas shoes, cotton, linen and synthetic fabrics look cool, I am proposing that such radical changes should be made, in order to ‘save animals’. And at this point some will fail to understand, since they feel no particular empathy for pigs and chickens. But for those who do empathise, if for this reason alone, they'll know that they must change, eventually. Radically

The consumer: no-touch-animal

1743:

We live in a country, indeed on a planet, where almost every human is using and therefore condoning the abuse of animals. The vast majority of these animals are imprisoned on farms and are denied any semblance of natural life. They live in squalor and die in terror. Until the consumer stops buying meat and eggs and dairy products and all the foods and commodities which make use of animals’ bodies, the cruelty will continue and the decline of human life will continue. It’s up to the individual consumer to stop consuming all this animal-based stuff. Only then will products be free of cruelty and the way ahead will be clear for human progress.

The vegan animal activist, in order to live according to their own principles, has to adopt a philosophy of not-touching-animals. I mean by that, not using them, not condoning the imprisonment or killing of them, and of course not eating them.

Almost everybody is still deeply involved in the exploitation of animals. Those who aren’t, ‘vegans’, have made an agreement with themselves to keep their food and clothing plant-based and animal-free. In this way we show how life is possible without using animals for anything. 

How to stop hurting animals

1742: 

You can ask any three year old kid why we are abusing animals and, even if they don’t know the answer they’ll understand the question. It isn’t complicated. It’s just a sad indictment on those who are still caught up in the whole sorry mess of violence-towards-animals. I think it’s an adult-ego thing. Most people try to justify what they do, so the average adult still argues that we DO need to eat animal food. They will argue that it's necessary for our health, even though they probably know that argument is dead. They might realise the benefits of a plant-based diet, that it's quite safe, healthy and maximises energy, but still be reluctant to change.

There’s been an information revolution over these past two decades, with an abundance of nutritional details available on the Internet. There’s advice about preparing vegan food and how to make it taste good, and where the vitamins and minerals are to be found. Where we used to spend hours searching for information from books in the library, it now takes no time at all. It’s now just a matter of being prepared to learn and make changes to personal eating habits.

If we aren’t prepared to change then it augurs poorly for us - we can’t see any hope for a world which relies on exploiting animals. And so the whole sorry mess of our situation continues, and animal farming (and our part in it as animal-consumers) stops us progressing.

Telling it as I see it

1741: 

This is how I, as a vegan, see things:  I see the violence in the ugly foods people eat, because of the things done to animals, and I find it’s hard to eat with people while they eat animals. I even feel awkward mixing with them socially, because of their insensitivity. It’s no wonder I seem to be a social misfit, even to some a pariah. But there’s an up-side.

If this is the lonely reality for me, you might think it sad, but at least it builds up my will power. I need that, for those times when I say “no” instead of  “yes”. It’s easier to fit in, to do what others do, to indulge in the evident food-pleasures on offer, plus the social side of things. But once the line is drawn there’s no going back, and I’ve often been surprised to find that, when we stick to principles, we find it’s not as hard as we thought it would be.

For me, as for other vegans, it’s important to build a resistance to the popular culture. If I can’t do it then how can I expect others to do it?

The most important driver for me is that I must want to make the attempt to counter the culture. And be convinced that by following a vegan lifestyle it will be liberating, and will bring me happiness. If I’m gritting my teeth and only ‘doing it for the animals’ it will never work. If I don’t think it will make me happy then I won’t be able to persuade others of anything. Why would you take any notice of me if you didn’t think I believed that veganism made me happy?

In truth, there’s always a struggle. It isn’t a breeze. To stand up against such an entrenched culture isn’t in itself meant to make me happy. Because it’s not an easy game to play, I must also say to myself that I do not necessarily have the right to be in a constant state of happiness while so many animals are suffering. Why should I expect to enjoy my freedoms when so many creatures languish in cages? This is at the heart of social justice.

Becoming a vegan isn’t just about me. It’s not about my feeling good about myself, it’s just as much about developing empathy whilst living within a world of indifference. And if I ever  resent missing out on all the 'goodies' on offer, I must be able to balance that in terms of my sadness for what my own species is doing to other species, knowing that nothing can change for the animals until something changes in humans.

Instead of our becoming more compassionate as we humans advance, we become less so; animal suffering gets worse; the planet dies another death every time we miss our chance to revive it, every time we procrastinate. And we must wonder why people are so blind to the crime of exploiting animals, and why we can’t see animal slavery for what it is.

Vegans don’t want to offend people unnecessarily. As individuals we don’t set out to lose all our friends. But, whatever the cost to us personally, we can’t condone the zombification of the human species. We can’t stand by and passively watch the drone mentality take a hold.

I don’t want to whinge. That will get me nowhere. My attention should be on how to talk effectively, how to talk from the heart and how to talk so that even kids can understand. I want to talk to fellow adults so they don’t grow to become embarrassed but grow in their understanding. All I want to get across is that whenever we buy anything from animal sources we attack them. And if this can be understood then it’s up to the animal advocate to find a way to appeal to people’s hearts. It’s really not so much about healthy eating or saving the planet but about the human ability to rise above the ubiquitous animal-eating habit. Once the habit is broken, then there will be no stopping the advance of the human. 

England's Poison Palaces

1740:

Edited by CJ Tointon

Today there's a feast of 'poisons' available to the English in their supermarkets. I visited a Sainsbury's store with notebook in hand and wearing a thick jumper to keep warm in the 'cool food' sections. I was horrified by the sheer quantity of crap food on sale! There are aisles of products deemed suitable for human consumption but obviously unhealthy by any sane standard. 

There's the obvious - the obscene and bloody mess that is meat and sea food. Obvious because you get what you see. But perhaps more insidious is the milk, hidden in so many seemingly benign foods. In England, the ingredients listings on all compound foods have to be listed for each of the preparations which combine to make up each item on sale. Any foods which might contain an ingredient that could have an allergic effect, are listed in bold print which makes it easy for a vegan (like me) who wants to avoid anything with animal content to see if there is milk or egg in any products. But who reads ingredients listings unless they have allergies? I discovered that the ingredients in almost all food preparations that aren't solely 'flesh', are awash with milk and many contain egg.

Let's see what's on offer as we wander down the aisles of a big Sainsbury's supermarket. We start with yoghurts, all primarily milk, of which there are dozens of flavours. They must be popular considering the volume and number of varieties available. Then there are the various butters and spreads laden with saturated animal fats, the sweets and desserts, most containing cream and most thick with sugar to make them invitingly tasty. Another aisle is devoted to an endless variety of sweet cakes that are oozing with cream and filled with milk chocolate. Next is a dizzying variety of soft, creamy confections including ice cream, mousse, cream fool and meringue. There's cream or milk in almost every sweet item, a few of the favourites being Tiramisu, Lemon Meringue Pie, Double Belgian Chocolate Sundae, Sweet Pancakes, Sponge Pudding and Cream Slices. I saw nothing at all for the sweet-toothed vegan!

There's every conceivable variety of cheeses, either locally homegrown or imported from all over the world. There are sauces for every taste, like Apple and Cider Creamy Sauce and Creamy Lasagne Sauce (where I noticed 'milk' appearing in one of the ingredients listings nine times). And there are dozens of products like quiche and custards containing eggs which are almost certainly from caged hens. Even such an obviously cruel and unhealthy item as 'egg' is unlikely to deter the average customer from buying these popular foods.

Leaving Sainsbury's, we go to the food hall of Marks and Spencer's where we find countless varieties of the ready-made-meal. This is big business in England where a complete dinner can appear on the plate within 5 minutes of microwave heating. There's Potato Dauphinoise in Rich Cream and Garlic Sauce, a simple Ultimate Potato Mash topped with Cheese or a hundred other varieties of 'instant' dinners suitable for busy people who are short of time (and brains!).

These mega-supermarkets are places where choices are endless. There's a vast array of meats and meat preparations - Fish Pie, Beef Ragu, Pulled Ham in Mustard Sauce, Aromatic Lamb, Meatballs and Potato, British Beef Casserole, Fish and Chips, Cottage Pie in Rich Wine Gravy with Cheese Mash and endless combinations of highly processed ingredients that make up all the favourite meals remembered from home dinners or from the menus of restaurant meals. But perhaps the most blatantly ugly trio of items I found were Rack of Lamb (with seven of the lamb's ribs protruding from the muscle tissue), Dry Aged Beef Rib (boneless and 28 days matured with Mustard Basting Fat) and lastly and most cynically - Rose Veal Escallops  (from 'calves reared to our own high welfare standards').

This is just a random selection comprising a tiny percentage of the hundreds of animal-based food products designed to attract the consumer. It's obvious, by the huge quantities of such items, that they're selling very well. If English customers are falling for this unethically produced and highly unhealthy so-called 'food', they really don't stand a chance to survive very long before they end up obese, ill or dead! These products look attractive, but they are empty foods and just plain dangerous. There's plenty of profit being made by the big retailers who fill the stomachs of a hungry nation with foods that deplete the energy levels of an already hard pressed population. It's no wonder that as one walks the streets of England, the people one passes look overweight, sluggish and depressed. They just don't seem to get it - that they're being fooled by attractive packaging and rich tasting, fattening products.

And what about us Aussies? It's likely that as soon as the retail giants notice a market worth exploiting here, Australian customers will be just as stupidly delighted with a similarly vast range of food products and we'll fall into a similar state of ill health and compromised ethics as the English have.

The Enslaved of England - Part Four

1739: 

Edited by CJ Tointon

Setting Conscience aside, perhaps we can look at this from a non-moral-animal-cruelty angle. Maybe it is really all about money, especially our own money, and our habits of spending it. If the worst crimes are committed by the rich, then the worst habits belong to the regular consumer. There's always a shortage of money, reminding us of our 'slave' status. It's all about money and finding ways of acquiring it. And if that isn't hard enough, there's the managing of it. Money demons jump out of the bag when we neglect the reality of money management (maxing-out credit cards or undertaking unrealistic financial commitments, etc.). Wake these demons at your peril! When money goes wrong, everything goes wrong. Relationships go wrong! For the 'enslaved' classes, there's plenty to worry about. A psychological bubble bursts when we live beyond our means. 

But where's this going? I'm trying to paint a picture of those who are NOT fighting for their freedom (maybe as 'slaves' they can't) who only want to improve their own enslaved lives and can think of nothing else. If they're aware of farm animals at all, their only concern might be that they need better conditions - bigger cages for hens, etc. Otherwise the attitude that it's acceptable to USE animals is fixed. And it's this same fixed attitude we hold about our own unchangeability. We don't believe we'll ever be free. But by starting to think about animal welfare, there comes a slender hope that we can improve the unchangeable life of ourselves and the animals. And we can do it by the most peaceful method of all - by letting 'them' go out of business; by NOT buying 'their' stuff!

The enslavers (they know who they are) are our jailers as well as being the jailers of animals. You might say (kindly) that they don't set out to be cruel bastards. They might want to be different, but their hands are tied. They must walk the path of convention or go out of business.

Today's present-day 'slavery' spreads everywhere; into our freedoms and into our overall health. Of course, we do ourselves no favours by eating animal rich foods. But (despite guilt) it always comes back to humans impacting on innocent animals' lives. Humans are a danger to them. The human separates sentient animals from sentient humans and that one attitude is underscored every time we make a cheese sandwich. If I weren't vegan, I'd be attracted to those thousands of different temptables on those Durrington Tesco shelves too. I'd be attracted to buying the many harmful consumables omnivores buy. Their unwillingness to change is a mixture of stubbornness and self-focus. The stubbornness is relatively easy to fix compared to the self-interest surrounding the attitude that animals are of little importance and no danger to us since they can't fight back in the traditional way. We think we can do anything with them and there'll be no consequence. But the consequence is that we are not altruistic enough to look beyond ourselves. And it's this narrowing, this anthropocentrism, that becomes narcissism.

Our daily mantra should be that it's not only about US. We should be aware that our lifestyles cause collateral damage to BILLIONS of animals. We humans have incurred a moral debt from years of theft from and assault upon animals.

In the consumer mind there are money worries, relationship worries and moral/ethical worries. People are worried about many issues. The planet, the climate, the refugees and the malnourished millions. It's sad to think that animals and vegan principle don't figure large. The animal issue is put in the Too Hard basket. And therein lies the rub! People must know that the animal industries play a big and ugly part in their lives, but to consider animals and their welfare the way vegans do - is almost unimaginable!  

The Enslaved of England - Part Three

1738: 

Edited by CJ Tointon

On a recent visit to England I visited the suburb of Durrington-on-Sea. It boasts 'Britain's Second Largest Supermarket'. It sells everything one's drab dreams could be made of. Just choosing, selecting and planning is fun. The thought of consuming what we buy is fun. It sets up a sort of euphoria that rises as our shopping trolley mounts up with promises of much pleasure to come. These specific items of pleasure lie seductively on shelves in endless aisles. But the pleasures aren't confined to food. They're found in shoes - in practically everything! But the allure isn't necessarily about buying, for this is Durrington's Tesco Superstore. A cathedral (with en-suite cafe) in which one may window-shop all day. The Retail Pleasure Palaces of England (and there's at least one in every town) earns that town the reputation of it being a proper town, a city no less, for having its own Retail Super Palace. Why are humans so trusting when it comes to food safety? Why do they still trust the cruel bastards who profit from exploiting animals? It seems they think they have to spend their money on anything animal exploiters sell!

And so to - money! Money to pay for it all at the till. And this means the daily drab of work. It seems that the purpose of the human slave/consumer is to earn money by putting in ten hours a day of boredom and commuting. In return they get holidays, clothes, cars, kids, homes and a vast choice of foods. As converts to the "I buy therefore I am" religion, they feel they have a duty and purpose to spend. They consider that by leading lives as skilled spenders, they take best care of their loved ones. These habits of spending are developed in childhood and perfected as we get older.

So why change any of this? It happens that ethics and spending aren't necessarily connected. We're trained NOT to think about such connections. We're here to consume which means we must be educated to NOT think of animals when shopping. This is the way to enjoy eating them; by NOT developing any pro-animal attitudes. Every time we squash the Conscience, life is made more comfortable. A numbed conscience no longer issues orders. It's as if Modern Man has laid the conscience on a safe top shelf to be forgotten about. Only then will it not interfere with accepting that which is available.

The Enslaved of England - Part Two

1737: Posted Fri

Edited by CJ Tointon

Being employed or having a way of generating money is necessary for basic survival these days. Without work, life is scary. Without work, we have no access to money, or at least the sort of money we need if we plan to have a family of our own. But if there IS work - what then? It's still no bed or roses! The job ties you down to years of compulsory and uncomfortable activity. The journey to work is uncomfortable, the work might be boring and meaningless and the journey home again is uncomfortable. Not much pleasure there - the day's energy gets drained away in myriad discomforts.  But for humans in general, especially in the West and as long as we're not in prison, life isn't too bad. We have sex, shopping, TV and eating for pleasure. And we have pleasure-boosting intoxicants and prescription drugs to help us escape the drab. Most of us feel no need to look back to see what's being left behind in our consumer wake. How dull is our indulgence on the rubbish offered. 

But much drabber and painful with fewer prospects for improvement is the life of the domesticated animal. If we ever feel imprisoned and enslaved, just think how farm animals feel living in slum conditions for ever behind bars just to provide human consumers with all the stuff we feel we cannot live without. Our own enslavement dulls our senses, forcing us to accept the unacceptable, permitting a terrible war to be waged with its dreadful animal sacrificing. Surely when we impose a hell-life on an animal, we do it to divert ourselves away from our own enslavement.

Many (if not most) humans are forced to live with job insecurity and housing unaffordability. Both issues point to an incarceration of sorts where we are forever paying for a roof over our heads, forever paying off debt. It's no wonder we go looking for pleasure! And so we run up the debts by over spending on pleasure. It's a vicious circle. We fall into debt when we over produce children. Paying off the car means debt. We incur too much student debt. But it's the roof that drives us the hardest and we all know that bank managers don't lend money to the jobless!

To want children is not unusual. But if you intend to reproduce, you risk everything by planning a family without a roof - aka, a job. Running a family is an expensive business in terms of energy and money. There's a car to maintain, a dog, two children, the Internet - that's a big layout even before paying the mortgage or the rent. It means a lot of pressure, anxiety and frustration with not much left over for 'pleasure'. And 'pleasure' is often children oriented. Time and energy just won't stretch far enough to question any other central lifestyle habits. If we do try to stretch things, energy runs out and moods change. We get knocked down. Mistakes are made. Our minds again focus on 'pleasures' if only to stop meltdown. Anything for relief. But there is a sort of Don't Panic button we can always press. We know where to go for a boost. If we're close to our fridge there's lots of 'pleasure' in store and we can hit it anytime. A treat, a snack, a meal, something to eat to titillate our taste buds. But it's at this point that we make contact with the animal issue. It jumps out of the fridge, the ghost of the animal-that-was in the form of cheesecake, ham sandwiches or cream whips. 

These days, almost every adult knows the connection between animal produce and Society's dodgy health condition. Yet adults and infants alike also know what 'tastes good'. Small children know what produces that pleasure taste/eat feeling. They spend their young lives listing and insisting on getting what will produce just that! But (as older ones come to learn) the yummiest tucker involves the worst animal cruelty and it alerts the conscience. It makes many people want to lead vegan lives. If you've heard of veganism, it's likely you've discovered what it means and you'll know why vegans are vegans.

By not challenging this mouth/stomach call for satisfaction, we effectively cave in to temptation. We end up eating something we shouldn't be eating. If it's not about health, it's about ethics. When the latter is ignored, we effectively sideline Conscience. We give in. We head for the fridge for 'self medication'. We go to get energy, despite all the many nutritionally (or ethically) dubious considerations. We go because the call of the Body's discomfort is loudest. Our pressured lives and general enslavement can make us so miserable that we need a lift from any source that's available. We need energy to survive, therefore we eat.  As sufferers of the System, we do all we can to alleviate our own suffering. We lift our spirits by letting food become our main source of pleasure. No longer do we eat to live - we live to eat! And the retail outlets are very welcoming. Their temples are warm and well lit. Like the Tesco supermarket I visited.

The Enslaved of England - Part One

1736: Posted Thur

Edited by CJ Tointon

On a recent visit to England, it seemed to me that the English were leading somewhat 'enslaved' lives with lifestyles that only serve to worsen things for animals. English lives are pressured beyond belief and the food they're eating, heavily laced with animal products, is disastrous! It's ironic that enslaved animals reflect the self-enslaving habits of the humans who're eating them.

The lifestyle in England is grim. On the face of it, all seems sophisticated and abundant; but it's crowded and rushed and one has to queue for everything. To a visiting outsider like me, it seems like a slave community - not exactly poverty-stricken like slaves of the past - but a community of slave consumers who, if they're lucky enough to have work, have nothing but rubbish to spend their money on. They earn their spending tokens only to feed it all back into the consumer slot. The contrast between Australia and England is so marked that the English appear to be slaves, if only because they're denied any useful level of independence. They lack freedom, or rather free-time. They lack energy because of the empty food they eat and the face on the street looks pretty depressed. But perhaps it's the same in all Western nations. Too much profiteering by too many dubious industries, too little quality in anything one buys and too many people, each missing something in their lives - something important - and without that 'something', it's as if life itself is taken away.

In England, I noticed too much time being spent in energy-draining inactivity - waiting and queuing. There's money to spend and much to spend it on. Spending has become the chief pleasure, although most of the stuff is not even worth buying. And the warning's always there to 'stay on your toes', 'keep your job or you'll end up in a big mess'. If work is not certain, then money is not certain and lack of money stops everything. Poverty, feeling enslaved, general insecurity, enforced meaningless work, conformity, loss of freedom - it all points to the modern-day version of slavery. It's a system most people dislike, so you'd think they'd be inspired to rebel and go on to discover an entirely different reality. But by a certain age, consumers are too energy depleted to do much about their condition. The only truly liberating opportunity is to "Go Vegan" and disassociate from the society which is devoted to second-rate pleasures, most of which come from exploited animals.

Once you're vegan, you have to do without the 'plenty'. Vegans learn what 'doing without' really means in the context of today's world of plenty. But it goes much deeper than this. That one decision not only leads us to energy food and avoiding most of the rubbish on sale, it lets us switch attention from 'me' to 'the other'. It lets us see our role on this planet, if not to act as guiding/guardian figures, then to see ourselves as equal participants within the vast world of sentient beings.

If we can escape the slavery of this sort of consumer society and if we can maintain a plant-based lifestyle, we just may survive. We may even go on to lead useful lives, acting unselfconsciously (and possibly anonymously) for the greater good and eventually feeling part of our own society, which at this stage is almost impossible for obvious animal-oriented reasons.

How vegans and veganism are perceived

1735: 

There are two things vegans are saying, firstly about the criminal attack on animals, and secondly about the opportunity afforded by vegan consciousness. And the bonus too is that by avoiding all animal-based foods we prevent ourselves from buying crap food.

That's all-good, for us. If it were only a private matter of conscience and personal diet we'd adhere to the principle but feel no need to shout about it. But some of us feel duty bound to speak about it, so that anyone, who is unaware of all this, will be able to get to know about it.

In our modern day culture, enough is known for people to want to avoid the subject altogether. It’s obvious that most people don’t want to hear what we are saying. And as vegans, we neither have the power nor the right to force anyone to change their minds. If we attempt to change people’s fixed attitudes we’ll immediately seem too ‘good’ or too superior. If we stay silent we seem too stand-offish. Certainly, vegans are open to criticism for rejecting the traditions of our culture, and crazy for ignoring the fine cuisines of that same culture. To the outsider, it seems like self-denial to restrict ourselves to a plant-based diet.       

The usual reaction, when someone finds out I’m vegan, is that "it’s NOT for me!!". They say, "I’d go mad denying myself all these foods, let alone the animal-based clothing". They’ll conclude that vegans are just trying to be different. More generously they might say, so as not to hurt our feelings, "I admire vegans for what they stand for" and "I wish I could do it myself". But what they are really thinking is, "Ugh! No way! Never! Not for me!".

Vegans: Toughening up and softening up

1734: 

In these ‘early days’, of the growth of animal-rights consciousness, vegans need to become hard working, and to adhere to their plant-based food regime whilst helping to build a new product market. We need strength of character. We need to be committed, and press for change in others.

But how 'press'? It can work both ways. When people want to know what we’re on about, we can tell them, but we can't force people to want-to-know; we can't use unsolicited pressure. If we tell others that they MUST give up animal-eating, there’ll be a negative reaction.

“You want me to be like you? It’s a free world. I can eat what I like and no one’s going to stop me”.

The main question facing vegans is how we talk about animal issues without seeming like nut-case evangelists. We need to solve this question, of how to ‘talk-animals’ with people who initially don’t want to know. And we need to learn how to interest people working in the media, who also don’t want to know.

To a vegan, this subject is so ‘on our minds’ all the time that it’s difficult to resist the temptation of ‘talking vegan’ to non-vegan friends, in the hope of converting them. Generally, people won’t be pushed into anything quicker than they feel comfortable with. Pressure! It damages how people relate to us, and it’s worth keeping our friendly relationships, because they are our most precious resource; by being pushy with friends, it’s likely we could already be on the road to becoming ex-friends.

Friends keep us going when we are down, so it seems like a good idea to show our friends, and indeed everyone we speak to, that we will love them at all costs. We can answer questions, but we must resist the temptation to try to convert. I'd propose that unless they ask, we say little. Reserve the oration for those times we might be invited to speak in public. And of course, there’s always that latest and most valuable public forum, the Internet!

Choices

1733: 

Humans have two choices; either we ignore the plight of domesticated animals or we act to liberate them. It’s the one big choice still left to us, and it’s the only choice an individual can make that can break the cycle of violence within our collective nature. Each of us can choose one way or the other. If we do choose to work to liberate animals, then it follows that everything else may fall into place.

Every mistake has a potential for repair, and in this case one thing can so easily lead to another. On an individual level, the use of plant food can lead to health. This can lead to listening to a more ethical conscience, which in turn can lead to environmental sensibility, and inevitably to a solution to world hunger problems. But if we choose NOT to go along that path, then nothing can substantially change, ever. Things will only continue to get worse, and we humans will continue to be more shackled than ever.

Freeing ourselves starts at home, making personal choices, and disregarding Society’s indifference. It’s a grass roots approach to social change, and it has to start this way because no government will ever take the initiative to close down the abattoirs without the electorate’s consent. All the time abattoirs are open, commercial interests will flourish and animal issues will be sidelined.

Public attitudes to farmed animals can only change when people are inspired by vegan principle, and not put off by it. Fashions will change when there are enough suitably-minded people who are trying to make their principles work for them on a daily basis.

Perceptionally, vegans need a face-lift. We need to be seen as attractive, aspirational and inspired. Our food, clothing, ideas about non-violence, all this must come across as the most intelligent and self-benefitting choice one could ever make for oneself.

Attitude

1732:   

It’s a deep set trait within the human attitude towards animals which allows billions of beautiful, innocent, non-humans to be ruthlessly seized or bred, imprisoned, have painful things done to their bodies and substances sucked out of their bodies, and then cruelly killed. It’s the unremarkableness of this attitude which is such a worry. We routinely exploit animals and think nothing of it.

Our attitude contains no sympathy for the animals that are enslaved and even more tragically, we fail to see this attitude as dangerous for us. We kill without care, and this type of killing is the very opposite of mercy killing; it’s cold and hard and cruel.

This is mainly why vegans call for such a radical change to our eating habits.

Collective attitudes, like customs, are so subconsciously embedded in our psyches that they seem to be rock solid. We are dealing here with food, with habits from childhood, with habits practised since time out of mind. And we’re dealing with determined human beings, intent on eating meat and animal secretions, enjoying the textures and flavours they've loved since childhood. And then there are others whose livelihoods are entirely dependent upon animals, who make their money from producing animal products.

A whole world culture has this one thing in common – the using of animals for human benefit. It is no wonder, therefore, that almost no one is giving any serious consideration to what vegans are saying. They're not listening to us yet, not the producers, not the consumers and not the educators of children. Vegan animal rights advocates are a lone voice. But we’re saying what we have to say, nonetheless.

Gutsy Talk

1731:

To stand up for animals you have to be vegan, and to be vegan you have to have guts. No need for any tickets on yourself. No need to start boasting about it. You just need a strong will and to be determined. Being vegan is not for the faint hearted. It isn’t a breeze. Apart from no longer indulging in the huge array of 'delicious' animal-based food products, you’ll find even your best friends will pretend they can’t understand your reasons for abstaining from animal-based foods.

So, why do we go this far? Perhaps because it’s the starting point to all the changes humans need to make if they really want to move on from our violence-based natures which we’ve inherited.

Humans have done horrible things to each other and even worse things to the animals, and in the process nearly wrecked many of the delicately balanced systems of the planet. Those who are making the strongest and most significant stand against this deeply ingrained violence are vegans. We have such a simple solution, and yet because the starting point involves abstaining from animal-based foods, most people refuse to see the connection, and so have to dismiss us. By rejecting the rationale for our diet and the ethics behind it, they miss the solution. And so, the problem of human violence is allowed to continue.

The reason we make such a fuss about animal slavery is because it’s as ugly as any slavery gets. It reflects the nastiest side of human nature, the ability we have to turn a blind eye towards something so clearly visible and acknowledgeable. For this alone we should all be ashamed. It is, after all, the clue to solving global problems related to the destructive behaviour of our species; the clue lies in the way we’ve chosen to treat the ‘sub-species’.

An egg for breakfast

1730: 

There’s a belief that eggs produced by free-ranging hens come from happy hens. For sure, they’re probably happier than their sisters in cages, but when they become no longer economically viable they go to the same cruel deaths as their caged sisters.

A 'vegetarian' friend of mine, who still eats eggs, reckons she pays twice the price for her free range eggs. And because these eggs cost more to produce, it’s the ‘battery egg’ which is used in commercial food products that contain egg.

So if you're against the battery system but have just bought a food item with egg in its ingredients, which of course you could have read before purchase, then you aren't against the battery system at all. Likewise, if you love animals and you eat them, you can't say you 'love' animals. You're either true to yourself or you're not. It's the simplest of choices.  

Interviewing an Inmate at McNasty's Battery Egg Production Unit

1729:

It’s worth knowing the story of the caged hen. Perhaps I should let her speak for herself:

"What exactly is it you don’t like about hens? Keeping us pressed behind metal bars like this. It hurts. There’s no room to move and the ammonia rising from our excrement makes it hard to breathe. There’s no fresh air in the shed we’re kept in. There are thousands of us crammed into tiny cages. We lay an egg nearly every day of the year for about one and a half years, then we’re taken to the processing plant. 

"You saw on TV the other day a story about egg-laying. You used the word “disgusting” when you saw those batteries of cages in the shed. Nasty sight eh? One shot showed a hens claws grown around the wire-mesh floor so she couldn’t even lift it. Another shot showed a dead hen in the cage being used as something soft for other hens to lie on, and lay on.

"Maybe it caught you by surprise. Sitting there in front of your TVs. There was a lot of shaking of heads in disbelief, and some drawn-in breaths, and a few despairing hand gestures. But there wasn’t much more happening. You didn’t say “No more eggs for me”.

"So much for all that disgust and shaking of heads. What did it mean? Probably not very much at all.

"I suppose you’d sometimes like to boast, “I’m a Vegetarian – I abhor all killing?”. Well, let me tell you, vegetarianism isn’t just about not eating meat. Eggs are all about killing too, and worse. When we hens don’t lay enough eggs, they throw us into crates and take us off to the killing factory, which doesn’t sound too bad when it’s called a ‘processing plant’. Then they hang us upside down by our thin spindly legs and send us on a conveyor into a prickly trough of high voltage water that stiffens every nerve in our body, so they can  position our necks for the final cut, a set of sharp revolving blades. And that’s the end.

"Can you believe this happens? No? Well, let me tell you, it’s been this way for a long time, the egg business has pioneered the ultimate cruelty, from caged hell to the terror of the killing machines. And YOU don’t care, because here you are, all seated around the breakfast table, tucking in to your breakfast eggs, with no thought for us poor birds.

"We suffer unimaginably, from birth to death. We girls almost envy our brothers who were thrown, live, into the grinding machine, on Day One. At least their agony wasn’t prolonged. They never had to experience the terrible suffering we went through for the twenty or so months of our lives".

A visit to a dairy

1728: 

Once, I visited a dairy in Queensland, to see for myself how the dairy cow lived. I had to be up early. It was pitch black – 5 am. Two all-terrain-vehicles were already roaring around the hillsides rounding up the herd. At 5.15 things were coming to life. The main approach to the dairy sheds was getting crowded. Two hundred and fifty cows queuing to be milked. Every day at this time and again in the afternoon, they queue in mud and excrement, some for up to two hours, eventually entering the yards and then the milking shed. Inside the shed it’s all bright lights, hard concrete and iron. Twenty cows on one side of the milking pit are plugged in to have their milk drawn from their udders whilst being fed cotton seed to supplement their poor diet in drought-affected pastures. After being milked they are released, but by 6 am only sixty cows have gone through. One hundred and seventy were still waiting outside.

In one corner of the holding shed, in a pen, there was a newborn male calf, who had good reason to feel frightened. On the dairy farm he’s regarded as trash because he’s male (and therefore useless to the dairy) and shortly he would be disposed of. If the calf was female, she’d be taken away from her mother 6 hours after birth, which is thought to be adequate time for her to receive all the essential antibodies from her mother’s colostrum. She’d be taken to the calf rearing section of the farm, quite a distance from the grazing herd, and some months later she would join the heifers in another paddock. At 2 ½ years she is mated with the bull or fertilised by artificial insemination - and she bears a calf. From here she starts a career as a milker, and bearing a calf every year. She’ll be milked daily until she is no longer economically productive, at which time she will be sent to the abattoir. She’ll have her throat cut and bleed to death. Her body will be used for canned dog food.

Meanwhile, at the calf sheds, it’s 7.30 am and 30 young animals drink milk from buckets and are put out in enclosures which are ringed with electrified wire and infested with flies. High above swarm a huge flock of cockatoos attracted to these paddocks, mainly by the undigested cotton seed from the excrement of the cows. Their constant screeching adds something of an eerie atmosphere to the place. There’s a feeling of doom here. The river is drying up, not only from drought, but because its water is being used to irrigate the winter rye grass being grown for fodder. Chemical fertiliser is being spread over the paddocks and these same chemicals, mixed with the wastes from the dairy herd, leech into the river causing a bloom of blue-green algae. This particular river has always been clean enough for platypus, but now there is a danger that they might disappear. And all this destruction and interference is just for milk. Milk to pour on our bowl of corn flakes or into our cup of tea, or be the main protein-rich ingredient of countless popular ‘dairy’ foods.

So, who will benefit? The big dairies down south will and the intensive dairy farms that push their cows to three milkings per day - they will! It’ll be cheap milk for all, but for the animals it will be just more misery and slavery. 

The Milk Myth

1727: 

When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is eat. It’s a routine most people observe, young and old. It often involves milk (not for me of course). There’s a vague sense that protein is needed to start the day, an ingrained habit, often a ‘corn flakes and milk’ habit. Kids go for cereal and milk, which makes it easier to get them to eat something for breakfast. Milk is central to breakfast and therefore great for the milk industry.

My milk, if I use it, comes from soy beans or rice or oats, but traditionally milk comes from cows. Children use milk, as it’s associated with sweet things, used with sweet cereal, used in making most confectionary. Kids grow up believing milk is an essential food. They’re told that it’s ‘given’ willingly and comfortably by cows.

That’s all they need to believe for an uninhibited milk-habit to form. From the parents’ point of view it’s a great food, it’s fresh, it’s cheap (subsidized) and available from any corner shop. Cow's milk is found in almost every fridge. Children drink lots of it and so do adults. Yet how it comes to us is a mystery to most people, other than it comes from cows. Most people wouldn’t think that milk involves cruelty and death, but it does.

Cows get killed for milk, as do their calves too. The dairy cow must be made pregnant to stimulate her mammary glands to secrete milk. Simple biology. And because humans want the milk, the calf isn’t allowed to drink it. So once it is born, the calf has served its chief purpose in utero and, unless it’s a female destined for the herd, it is usually killed, either for veal whilst still very young or fattened in a beef herd and then killed when it has put on sufficient weight.

If a female calf is produced, she may be put with the dairy herd and milked and impregnated for seven or so years, after which, as a milked-out dairy cow, she is sent to the abattoir - some 10 years short of her natural life span; by that time, her milk output will have dropped below the commercially viable level, and therefore  no longer useful, and therefore expendable.

Milk production is something most people don't want to know about in case it is associated with animal cruelty. If they turn away from milk on ethical grounds they will have to turn away from many hundreds of food items made with milk. And that wouldn’t go down too well with kids, which is why they are never told about cruelty to dairy cows and calves.

Children love to see animals

1726: 

What message is given to school students taken to zoos, by their school teachers or parents? If I pity the animals, I also pity the kids for being lured to such places on the pretext of educating them about wildlife. They get to see a lot of bored, caged animals, and that’s all.

In the grander scheme of things, I suppose a trip to the zoo will help to desensitise them, when it comes to their acceptance of animal factories. It helps them to see the intensive battery cages that hold thousands of hens, as okay places.

Our society certainly doesn’t want children to be too sensitive towards animals in case they stop eating them. By the time they grow up into adults, the process is supposed to be more or less completed; by this time, the adult should be too obstinate to see what their own eyes are telling them. They have been trained to believe that animal-based foods are essential for good health, and that zoos “save animals”.

So just what do we get when we pay to get into zoos? A lot of imprisoned exotic creatures, showing the reduction of wild beauty to captive ugliness. If you love animals don’t go to the zoo, it will upset you. If you like a nice bit of horror, Taronga is just the ticket.

What I saw at Taronga Park Zoo

1725: 

Zoos busily justify themselves on the grounds that they provide "captive breeding programmes" and "constitute a 'lifeline' for endangered species", implying that they offer a sort of protective custody for them from the unsafety of the wild. But with diminishing habitats, there’s little likelihood of returning animals to the wild, either for present or future generations. In reality zoos are for entertainment.

But I wasn’t entertained. I was ashamed. I saw things which haunt me still, particularly the once-mighty lion reduced to a mere shadow of his former glory, living in concrete well. There was a clouded leopard with merely six square metres of flooring and no exposure to any sunlight. Great apes walked about like zombies. The fur of the Kodiac bear was rubbed to the skin, from lying on concrete all day. I saw Back Swans swimming in a shallow concrete tank with their wings clipped to prevent escape. The mysterious Dancing Brolga was cooped up in a 4 metre high cage, and was certainly not dancing. A 2½ metre-wingspan Andean Condor was imprisoned in a similar sort of cage.

But it gets worse. I visited the ‘Nightlife Show’, inside a concrete bunker. There was a row of glassed-in cages, containing some of Australia’s nocturnal animals and birds. They are being kept here in perpetual dim blue light (to simulate night in the bush). To give the place a ‘realistic atmosphere’. These creatures endure a continuous ghostly drone of a dingo howling (from a hidden tape recorder). A nasty addition from a particularly sadistic imagination.

If we want children to grow up immune to cruelty like this, give them a day out at the zoo.

Zoos are prisons

1724: 

Some animals are imprisoned on farms and executed when the farmer is ready. Food is produced and omnivores pay good money for it. Other animals are not being fattened to be eaten or reared to produce food, they are reared and captured for the sole purpose of entertaining us and to some extent educate us. But what price this sort of education?

Not long ago, I visited Sydney's Taronga Park Zoo. I had to see what was going on there for myself. It turned out to be a harrowing experience. I hear people say that the animals are better off in the zoo than being hunted in the wild. I say they are better off dead.

Those of us who don’t eat animals or wear them or gawp at them in cages for entertainment find it difficult to understand how it is that zoos are still legal. Here in the zoo is a perfect example of Society sanctioning animal cruelty. The animals imprisoned in these places have no hope of any kind of natural life. They are merely exhibits. Parents and teachers bring children to these places and in doing so effectively desensitize them. To kids, a visit to the zoo (let’s call them animal incarceration centres) becomes just an exciting day out. Small children are likely too young, when they first go to a zoo, to be revolted by what they see - especially when the adults around them are telling them that zoos are good places. "Zoos help to preserve species" (very few!), and "Zoos treat the animals well" (??), and "Zoos keep the animals safe from predators". All to justify profit from sales of entry tickets.

At zoos like this one, for these once-free animals each day brings deadly boredom in barren surroundings. All you see is concrete and iron bars and thick glassed-in enclosures. The animals are imprisoned for life, in entirely sterile surroundings. There’s a mock mountain for the goats, a concrete tank for the seals, a few shrubs to give a savanna effect for the lions. It’s odd they call these places zoological gardens. What little greenery there is tends to be separated from the inmates by electric fences, otherwise I suppose the wicked animals might eat the plants.

Go to your local zoo, pay for a ticket, take a note book, write down what you see and then write to your local paper and explain why you are sickened by seeing all these banged-up animals. When the kids grow up and learn the truth about these places, if you don't want to be accused of child abuse, just don’t take them there when they're children. And don’t let their teachers take them. Ask your freedom-loving children how they'd feel being locked up all day, every day.

Child-friendly propaganda

1723:

Family-friendly farms got me thinking just how we indoctrinate children about animals. These farms look like fun places, for animals and children alike. Kids will believe anything if enough adults are telling them the same thing. After all, they’ve spent their entire lives being taught by adults, how to do things, how to survive, how to enter the world of the grown-up.

It’s important that Mum and Dad, who provide the food for their children, get them to eat what they believe will make them healthy and strong. And these same adults have grown up believing that their parents fed them the sorts of foods which made them what they are today, and which will be good for their own children. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle, teaching the rights and wrongs of life to kids, so that they can pass the same thing on, when the time comes.

However, we are not only born with parents and teachers to advise us, but instincts too. And for many of us, those instincts are strong enough to make us question our educators. We might see the cruelty shown to animals and decide to take up a vegetarian diet, to avoid the worst of the animal cruelty. Some become vegans to boycott every aspect of that same cruelty. They'll re-examine the value of certain foods in order to avoid illness and the eventual poisoning of the body.

But desensitisation of instinct takes place. Children are led to believe that instincts are unreliable or misguided. So if we see fear or agitation in the face of an animal (or a human) it might not warrant pity but instead give rise to contempt. The child is taken to the circus and sees bears dressed in frilly skirts or lions leaping through rings of fire. The animals are seen as subservient or ridiculous, and without any semblance of dignity. It’s as if they are too stupid to protest or too cowardly to refuse to cooperate with the friendly-looking humans, who appear to love them. Such is the deception played out on gullible, innocent children. The child is taken to the zoo, for much the same reasons, to desensitize them and invalidate their instinctive sense of compassion. They are told that these animals are happy (in cages!!) when clearly they are not.

How could a child question the adult about such things, when they have no basis for questioning except their own innate instinct. It would be a brave child who stood against such a barrage of persuasion put up by teachers, parents, uncles, aunts, and seemingly the whole of their society. As children grow up, if they have come to accept the rightness of zoos or the rightness of eating meat, they will have been indoctrinated. Their attitudes will have been fixed, since they will have taken part in so many questionable activities, for so long, any tendency to protest will have been drummed out of them long ago.

Cynical Rules of Parenthood:

1722:

Number One: Don’t encourage your child to make the connection between animals and the food you feed them.

Number Two: Tell the kids as little as possible about animal farming.

Number Three: If you want to keep a child’s dreams alive, hold their memory of that fine summer day, at the farm, with the little piggies. The memory is priceless.

Number Four: Encourage the kids to fit in.

With these rules of childhood, you can guarantee they'll grow up overweight and enter adulthood aiming to work hard to ‘bring home the bacon’, without a second thought.

Friendly farms

1721: 

My next door neighbours had just come back from holiday. I knocked on their door to give them their mail. Their little daughter was four years old and she couldn’t stop telling me about the piglets she saw. Their holiday was in the country, and when they visited one of those ‘family-friendly farms’, she’d be allowed to play with them, in the straw.

“They weren’t very little” she said, “Guess how big they were”.

 “The size of a small dog”, I said, and she simultaneously stretched her hands out wide. “Just like Sammy” she said. “And they snuggled up to me, and grunted and pushed their noses under my arm”. Animals. She was over the moon.

         

She went on like this for some time, but while I was listening to her stories I could smell bacon and eggs frying for their breakfast. I doubt if her mum and dad will draw her attention to the link between pigs and bacon. They wouldn’t like to spoil her memory (or damage her innocence). They’d have been nervous about what I might say in the circumstances. As if I would over step the mark.

I’m not a parent. I know nothing about the dynamics of living with young people. But I do realise why the truth about animals may not be made clear to youngsters, and that parents always decide that their kids must be kept in the dark, to prevent them making too many inconvenient connections. “Yes dear, they go off to market”, much the same, no doubt, as when we go to the market on Saturday morning to buy food. Their ‘going to market’ is of course not quite the same thing, as they end up becoming food.

         

“When they’re older they’ll understand”, but understand what? Perhaps the kids will understand that a loving parent can be ultimately duplicitous, and not on a small scale like of telling fibs about Santa Claus, but on a grand scale – they never tell children the truth about Execution Day. The parent reckons that if a young child’s curiosity about animals and meat and farms and killing can be sidestepped, it’s likely the whole thing will blow over soon enough. On some level, as a child grows older, they’ll stop worrying about the animals and start salivating over how delicious crispy bacon tastes, and how tasty their breakfast googy-eggs are!