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