Misinforming the public

712:  

Because the dangers of an omnivorous diet are well enough known by our food producers, it could be the very reason why essential information is suppressed, or rather why people are swamped with ‘misinformation’. The Animal Industry is influential in our society; their interest is to make money from producing and selling foods which aren’t optimal to good health. But because they are so well established no one can touch them. Their insistent advertising is so clever that their products always sell well ... and the more the Animal Industries thrive, the more human health deteriorates and Animal Welfare worsens.

            You’d think by now we humans would have wised up. With such advances made in food technology, we should be demanding healthy food, but the animal business is so persuasive that nothing ever changes for the better. Mass production means mass demand, means low costs and a lot of sophisticated scientific ingenuity, which is being used to make foods addictively tasty.

Wealthy people identify themselves by the rich foods they eat and the aspiring classes emulate them. The poorest people eat the cheapest foods available, which are mainly plant-based foods, but whenever their circumstances improve they increase the animal protein content of their diet, and that unfortunately brings them closer to a whole new range of deadly, diet-related diseases. 

Advocating nutrition, for a start

711: 

By pursuing non-violence, in all its manifestations, we have to start by not attacking animals. Plant energy will do the rest for us, giving us optimal energy, and letting us see a whole potential by using that particular energy.

            Firstly, the animal industry must stop producing food. Secondly consumers must stop demanding it. For this to happen, it must be first suggested, thus making it down to vegans to put their case effectively.

But in keeping with our harmlessness we need to advocate in a non-violent manner, without using fear or force. There’s no better way for people to identify with us than by finding our persuasions helpful and not pontificating.

            If we are to put a credible case forward, for switching over to a plant diet, our persuasions need to come in different flavours. Our arguments have to be comprehensive, the alternative to meat and dairy presented attractively, and the foods we’re suggesting need to be tasty and efficacious. Above all, as advocates, we shouldn’t seem to be partisan but fair minded - to show that we’re looking out for people as much as for animals; we must seem to be concerned as much for the safety of human health as for the ethical treatment of animals.

            Whatever we might say about ethics and compassion, it’s as well to never lose sight of the importance of nutrition, for no one is going to ‘take the leap’ if they think it’s dangerous. To avoid putting their lives at risk, most people will stick to what they know best; they’ll follow the accepted scientific advice regarding the foods they’re used to, perhaps cut down here and there but never be too radical with the foods they love to eat.

People will latch onto any argument that might persuade them to NOT change too radically.  And so it is that the most convincing reason people continue using animals for food, is that animal protein has a complete combination of all amino acids, whereas vegetable protein has to be more carefully balanced in the diet, not much more but somewhat.

For vegans, there might be a need for Vitamin B₁₂ supplementation, owing to the inability of some of us to metabolise this vital element from a solely plant-based diet, but other than that we can feel safe with plant foods; if we are eating whole foods, then any amount of vegetable protein will do us no harm and be ultimately nutritious.

The same can’t be said of animal protein. With so many varieties and combinations of attractive animal-based foods on the market, people are indulging in as much of them as they can afford. Consequently there’s a danger of over-eating (animal protein) which is associated with high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease. Because the conventional animal-based diets are high in saturated fats and salt and low in fibre, people who indulge in them are doubly at risk.

But the mental pressures of animal-eating can be debilitating too. The foods associated with the conventional diet are getting a reputation these days. Their use is the cause of fear, especially in people of middle to old age. After many years of eating rich foods the fear of life-threatening illness can too often prey on the mind.

Maybe we vegans have to exercise some small amount of care over our diet, but that’s a small price to pay compared to the  dangers associated with a typical omnivorous diet.

Meat and evolution

710:

By cleaning up our own conscience (in the knowledge that a vegan diet is safe), our eating habits can accord with plant-based living, both for healthy pleasure and for reasons of survival.

It has been shown that humans have no reason to keep and kill animals for food, other than for reasons of convenience. In having discovered that, we make a unique step forward; for the first time in history we can say that all animal farming is unnecessary especially because it is unethical. If there is no reason to continue it then we can add the further reason, that the environment would also greatly benefit.

Without having to provide food for all the millions of captive ‘food’ animals, fertile land could produce crops for humans, and deforested lands could be returned to tree cover. In addition, the methane produced by ruminants would be eliminated and waterways would no longer become polluted by effluent run-off.

By lifting these dead weights from ourselves we can better help to restore so much of our world from the damage that previous and present generations have inflicted. By merely changing daily eating habits we can save our planet, and into the bargain save our very souls!

For those who’ve become vegans, there’s a sense of relief. The body feels lighter, the mind sharper and the conscience calmer. But there still exist arguments for not changing, held by people who are still locked into the ‘conventional’ diet.

They will say that animal protein has been used for feeding humans since time out of mind. That we are what we eat! That every advancement of the human brain is down to there being meat in the diet.

            But has the human race ‘advanced’ or been ‘held back’ by its much heralded, meat-fuelled brainpower? Has it achieved everything it can achieve or is it yet to reach its true potential? If we are proud of our amazing artistic and scientific endeavours, then aren’t we also ashamed of our amazing warfare and violence? I doubt if a veggy diet will crush our creativity or deaden our artistic spirit, but I wonder whether, if the world has come this far, that it is still making true progress, enough to justify complaissancy.

            Many ‘thinking people’ today see the writing on the wall; that where humans have used violence, we have always fallen into chaos. If violating animals is normal and the meat diet is normal, then it may be that our diet, and the necessary condoning of animal cruelty, is responsible for our violation of the human body, which in turn is bringing us close to our own self-destruction.

Plant-based diets make everything else possible

709:

Plants are not motile or considered sentient and if humans can live solely from plants, there’s no longer any need to kill animals for food or clothing. That breakthrough allows us to adopt a vegan diet/vegan lifestyle.

For those who become vegan, certain opportunities and responsibilities open up. We are now able to advocate for Animal Rights, whereas before, that option is not possible; non-vegans are always caught up in the ‘animal-attack business’, whereas vegans can campaign for animal liberation. This is a great cause and one that many people might like to take up. A great many people want to see the end of cages and confining pens, but too few want to see the end of all animal use and even fewer are willing to make the sacrifice of no longer using animals for anything in their lives.

            If someone isn’t yet vegan but is moving that way, it bodes well for them and for us all, animals included. But for all others, who must be described as ‘non-vegans’, they are hardened into habits of daily animal consumption, and aren’t yet ready to convinced into giving up meat and milk and all the rest.

Their reasoning may not be based on need, but on want. The taste for flesh and/or animal by-products has become a habit of a lifetime, and has been further entrenched by the ready availability of thousands of popular food products made with animal ingredients. The shops are full of them and at prices we can all afford. This easy availability has given rise to a certain attitude, that we can eat or use whatever we like, because humans have learnt how to manipulate their environment (or so we think).

As we learn more about this whole subject of animal-use, we open up to the question of ethics, which might suggest the possibility of living more harmlessly and more compassionately. And that logically leads to the possibility of living without violating animals at all.

Perhaps, for some, this is taking things a little too far.

            However, for those of us who have gone this far and gone even further, we’ve found it possible to understand the equality between all sentient beings; that we are all sovereign and equally deserving of mutual respect; and that, since we are humans and have so many advantages, we are in the best position to set a good example.

Here are the three main points to think about: firstly that animals needn’t be harmed, secondly that eating animals shouldn’t be allowed and thirdly that animal-derived foods should not be available, since they do so much to damage human health. By avoiding using animals we might want to avoid them for our own sakes, but by doing so we also atone for what others have done to them in the past.

The humane response to a story about cold blooded killing

708: 

I often wonder what is worse, the act of hurting animals and killing them or the unwillingness of people to acknowledge that it happens at all. If any of us saw an animal being killed, or indeed being mistreated, our first instinct would be to want to do something to help that animal. But since there’s nothing we can do, instead we turn away and pretend not to know. We pretend we don’t care and that ‘turn-off’ switch is used so often we no longer notice ourselves becoming desensitised. To re-sensitise, we surely have to first stop our involvement in the routine killing of animals, by not buying the produce from abattoirs.

            Whether the killing is done at the abattoir or in the back yard in modern clinical surroundings, today or at any time in the past, these moments of horror don’t change much. The innocent animal, nurtured by relatively kind humans, is now forced to meet its ugly doom. The human heart’s capacity to turn, in such a cold and calculated way, from kindness to violence illustrates how human have hardened, by playing a trick on the animal victim, lulling it into a false sense of security in order to manage it with minimum difficulty. The cold-heartedness of today’s animal food industry exemplifies this. And it’s this ugliness that many of us want to put behind us. Vegetarianism starts by disassociating from this.

            What are animals? How are they different to humans? Perhaps they can’t match our brain power, but does that justify human cruelty towards them? Most animals that are useful for food have long since been enslaved and denied any form of natural life. We justify the ending of their lives to meet our own need to survive. It trumps every other consideration. We say that if we have to kill them, then we have to be practical about it by keeping them captive and controlling their feeding, so that their productivity is maximised and their killing presents as little problem to us as possible. We say that if there is any ethical component here, we have to weigh usefulness against compassion even if it involves cruelty. Economics rules the animal-production business. We say that every cost is calculated to keep ahead of the competition. It’s a ‘dog-eat-dog’ mentality, and there’s no room for sentimentality.

            But many of us today are not able to accept this, because for us, empathy and ethics are based on the sentience of animals. They are like us in that they have the ability to suffer and have the need to escape attack. On a farm or at the abattoir, where there’s no escape, animals must experience the ultimate terror. And this has always presented a dilemma for those who are more kind-hearted but who still believe they need meat to be healthy - not being able come to terms with the ‘necessary’ animal suffering! But as any Vegan knows, that myth has long ago been exploded. We can now live with a clear conscience, without any need to hurt animals, because we no longer need to ‘use’ them. Animal products need play no part in any human life whatsoever!

A story about killing

707: 

If you’ve ever read Jude The Obscure you might remember a chilling account of a killing - a depiction of a pig being slaughtered in the nineteenth century, not behind the closed doors of a modern abattoir, but out in the open, in a family’s backyard. It wasn’t an easy thing to do then, as it isn’t now.

            In this book, Thomas Hardy illustrates the same betrayal of the animal which is still felt today; by contrasting Arabella, the pragmatist (who was used to killing animals) with her husband, the more tender hearted Jude, who was more of an idealist. Each was aware of their dependence on the food the pig would provide or the money it would bring when sold. The scene is set:

            It was thick snow and the pig-killer was delayed and not likely to be coming after all, and the pig had to be killed that day since Jude and Arabella had, the day before, run out of barleymeal feed. Jude would have to slaughter the animal himself. The pig had been starving since the day before. Jude says to his wife Arabella “What - he has been starving?”

            “Yes. We always do it the last day or two, to save bother with the innerds. What ignorance, not to know that!”

            “That accounts for his crying so. Poor creature!”

            “Well - you must do the sticking. There’s no help for it. It must be done”.

            He went out to the sty and placed the stool in front with the knives and ropes at hand. He got into the sty and noosed the affrighted animal who, beginning with a squeak of surprise, rose to repeated cries of rage ... they hoisted the victim onto the stool, legs upward, and while Jude held him Arabella bound him down, looping the cord over his legs to keep him from struggling.

            The animal’s note changed its quality. It was not now rage, but the cry of despair; long drawn, slow and hopeless.

            “Upon my soul I would sooner have gone without the pig than have had this to do!” said Jude. “A creature I have fed with my own hands.”

            “Don’t be such a tender-hearted fool! There’s the sticking-knife - the one with the point. Now whatever you do, don’t stick un too deep.”

            “I’ll stick him effectually, so as to make short work of it. That’s the chief thing.”

            “You must not!” she cried. “The meat must be well bled, and to do that he must die slow. We shall lose a shilling a score if the meat is red and bloody! Just touch the vein, that’s all. I was brought up to it, and I know. Every good butcher keeps un bleeding long. He ought to be eight or ten minutes dying, at least.”

“He shall not be half a minute if I can help it, however the meat may look,” said Jude determinedly. Scraping the bristles from the pig’s upturned throat, as he had seen the butchers do, he slit the fat; then plunged in the knife with all his might.

            “ ‘Od damn it all!” she cried, “That ever I should say it! You’ve over-stuck un! And I telling you all the time ”

            “Do be quiet, Arabella, and have a little pity on the creature.”

            ... However unworkmanlike the deed, it had been mercifully done. The blood flowed out in a torrent instead of in the trickling stream she had desired. The dying animal’s cry assumed its third and final tone, the shriek of agony;  his glazing eyes riveting themselves on Arabella with the eloquently keen reproach of a creature recognizing at last the treachery of those who seemed his only friends.

            “It is a hateful business!” said he.

            “Pigs must be killed.” said she.

About killing

706: 

For a long time, the poor in our society have eaten animal protein because it was the only high-protein food available. The belief was universally held that meat was an essential food. In rural areas, many people kept a cow, a pig, sheep and chickens to provide their families with food, clothing fabrics and many other useful commodities. But the question of feeding and caring for domesticated animals presented people with a dilemma. Humans have a great capacity for love and caring. Farmers are no different and believe they truly do care for their animals. The relationship of trust and cooperation between man and animal has always been important to anyone who farms them, but that mutual trust is broken by putting the animal to death. To get around this, most people who had animals, who lived amongst them almost as friends, preferred not to do their own killing or even witness it. The meat and by-products were considered vital food and important sources of cash, but the inevitable betrayal of the living animal meant that only limited affection could be felt or shown to any individual animal during its life.

            The act of attacking a captive animal in the clinical confines of the modern abattoir is not that much different to the roped-down animal being slaughtered in the farmyard or backyard. The animal’s terror is unavoidable, whatever type of death it faces. Whether we call it murder, slaughter or betrayal, it happens to every domesticated animal used for food, whether it is killed for its carcass or killed when it becomes no longer economically viable or productive. There is no such thing as showing gratitude to an animal for all the milk or eggs or wool it has produced by sending it into retirement.

            So, an animal is to be killed. How does that affect us? It impacts heavily on the more tender hearted person and is the reason why compassion for animals is not encouraged on farms.