Tag: Vegan

• The Case for Veganism

  April 24, 2019 10:22 am Comments Off on The Case for Veganism

  On 9 April 2019, traffic chaos surged in Melbourne while vegan activists blocked Flinders Street intersection as part of a nationwide protest. Police eventually acted, arresting the protestors and throwing them into paddy wagons. Placards were left on the road, their message still visible: “You have been lied to. www.watchdominion.com.”
  Widespread condemnation erupted. Prime Minister Scott Morrison dubbed the activists “green-collared criminals”. Greg Sheridan, journalist for The Australian, complained that his “productivity was diminished” because of “vegan militants”.
  Even The Betoota Advocate, usually favouring the underdog, took an admittedly humorous swing: “Melbourne’s Vegan Protests Lose Momentum As Activists Begin Napping Due To Iron Deficiencies”, their satirical headline read.
  An important message was forgotten among the furore surrounding the protests. That veganism – the belief we should not eat or use animal-based products – has a rational basis. In fact, veganism is based on an uncontroversial moral principle that everyone reading this will accept: that we should not cause unnecessary harm.
  So let me carve out the meat behind this argument – so to speak.
  Consider why we should accept the principle in the first place. You approach a fork in the road while driving. Road A and Road B are your options. Both have pleasant views, require similar travel time, and lead to your destination. However, driving along Road A causes a boulder to fall from a cliff, killing someone. Nobody is harmed on Road B.
  Obviously, everyone would choose Road B. Otherwise you would harm someone unnecessarily. Consuming animal products, however, is analogous to choosing Road A.
  Nonhuman animals are sentient – capable of experiencing pleasure and pain – and thus capable of being harmed. We know animals suffer because they virtually all scream, cry or resist when subjected to mistreatment, behaving just as humans do. Backing up this inference, the nervous systems in vertebrates are fundamentally similar to humans.
  However, invertebrates – and especially bivalves like oysters – have less similar nervous systems. Therefore, we should be less confident these animals experience pain. Nevertheless, recent research suggests that crabs, prawns and octopuses all experience pain. With the science inconclusive, we ought to give invertebrates and bivalves the benefit of the doubt if killing them is unnecessary.
  There is no significant evidence to suggest that plants have the capacity to feel pain.
  Killing nonhuman animals for food and clothing causes them harm. Many modes of killing animals do not inflict an immediate death. Instead, they cause animals to suffer greatly as they die. Intensive farming practices confine sentient animals in cramped, unsuitable conditions for their entire lives. Eggs regularly come from hens in small cages, and the male chicks are killed at birth because they will never produce eggs. Dairy products often come from cows who are artificially inseminated in confined barns – their calf taken to the slaughterhouse shortly after birth, leaving the milk for humans, but the mother and calf wailing.
  The lives of free-range animals are undoubtedly better than those raised in factory farms. Using them for food, however, still requires killing them. Even hens and dairy cows are killed when their productivity declines, which is usually early into their life span. By killing them, we are eliminating their future pleasures – all for the mere difference in taste between a plant-based and animal-based meal.
  So, using animals for food and other items causes harm to animals. We have no good reason to discount this suffering simply because they are not members of the species homo sapiens.
  Animal agriculture also produces more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transport sector worldwide. There are many more negative environmental impacts associated with non-vegan diets. In 2018, Oxford University researchers concluded that plant-based diets are the most sustainable: the “single biggest way” to reduce your environmental impact. For anyone who believes in climate change, the harms associated with non-vegan diets are clear.
  Consuming animal products is completely unnecessary for most. According to the American Dietetic Association, “appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain conditions.” Granted, vegan diets can be unhealthy, but with proper planning all essential nutrition is available. A plant-based diet may even be healthier as growing evidence connects red and processed meat consumption with higher incidence of bowel cancer. It is no coincidence, after all, that many elite athletes now opt for vegan diets.
  There are many delicious vegan dishes too. True, some vegan products are more expensive, but many are not. Lentils, chickpeas and tofu – great sources of protein – are much cheaper than meat-based equivalents. My favourite dish – Spinach Dhal – is cheap, easy to make, and mouth-wateringly tasty.
  Therefore, consuming animal-products harms animals, the planet and ourselves. We lack good justifications to cause this harm. It is analogous to choosing Road A.
  Other objections to veganism remain. “It is natural to consume animal flesh,” some say, “as nonhuman animals eat each other.” Are other things nonhuman animals do – including torture one another – therefore acceptable among humans too? Moreover, most animals who kill for food would not survive if they did not, whereas we have no need to eat animal flesh.
  “We do not actually cause the harm by purchasing animal products,” people contend. “Such products already exist – irrespective of whether we consume them or not.” Nevertheless, there has to be some threshold that – if consumption levels drop beneath – will precipitate a change in ordering patterns. If demand falls for animal products in a supermarket, less will be ordered in the future; triggering a reduction of animals harmed. Vegans, therefore, are not attempting to change the past, but prevent the persistence of objectionable practices. Just as boycotts of products coming from South Africa during apartheid endeavoured to do.
  Granted, some days a vegan diet will make no difference. But on other days, refraining from purchasing may cause the threshold to drop beneath the level of profitability. Thus, we ought to avoid animal products. After all, we would all avoid Road A even if there was only a small chance the boulder would fall and crush someone.
  Veganism is based on strong foundations – and everyone who accepts the moral principle that we should not cause unnecessary harm thereby accepts the premise of veganism. You may indeed disagree with the Melbourne protests. But a misguided protest does not render the cause itself misguided.
  I strongly encourage everyone to watch documentaries about slaughterhouses – to see, for yourselves, the abhorrent reality that underpins our consumption of animal products; hidden from us in the supermarkets, restaurants and clothing stores we frequent. And if you agreed that driving on Road B was the right thing to do, I encourage you to think about how you may be steering the wheel in your own life. On reflection, you may decide to eat like the world depends on it.

  Anthony Merlino

• MEAT!

  April 22, 2019 2:20 am Comments Off on MEAT!

  There are four Greggs bakeries flanking the Manchester Piccadilly bus station. By noon, all are guaranteed to have run out of their newest menu item: the vegan sausage roll.
  I became attuned to the lifeline of the vegan sausage roll last semester, which I spent doing an exchange program in Manchester. These 95p golden brown pastries arrive at 9:00am – there, they languish until the lunch rush begins. Without fail, I arrive around 10:00am, en route to the library for a gratuitous study session (I only needed to pass my classes) and pair up with my little sustainable(?) partner.
  I first heard about the vegan sausage roll on the news, which, for context, is a medium for critical global issues. Piers Morgan spat one out into a wastebasket on live television because, like, vegans are millennial snowflakes and stuff. Granted, I don’t ascribe to the view that meat consumption’s damaging effects must be the first thought on everyone’s mind when they grab their morning coffee and pastry. Veganism has not done much to counter its reputation as being elitist and sanctimonious. Although I’m absurdly horny for the environment, I’m able to do this because I have more time and money on my hands than the average citizen of planet Earth; not everyone does.
  So, surely, the availability of a cheap, readily available vegan alternative is a great way of de-snowflaking sustainability. The benefits of veganism are indisputable, but it’s devalued because of its association with trends. The online backlash Greggs received for its product was largely attributed to the fact that it was buying into this hippy-dippy culture of Ray Bans and beard oil – i.e, catering to an audience that didn’t typically need to buy 95p lunches.
  But, as anyone who has been on exchange will tell you, cheap bakery goods are a must. Another staple of the exchange experience: budget airline Ryanair. In the midst of researching for a report I was writing on the UK agricultural industry, I came across the concept of lab-grown, or cultured meat. I was familiar with the technology, but I was surprised to learn how far along it was. I learned that the Chief Scientific Officer of the pioneering company Mosa Meat was based 614 km from Manchester. I watched 5 hours of TED Talks, read every relevant news article since 2013, wrote a gushy email to a total stranger, and bought a £9.99 flight to Eindhoven.
  Dr Mark Post is a pharmacologist and professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. In 2013, his team created their first burger out of cultured meat. Briefly, cultured meat describes the product of growing meat cells – primarily muscle – in a lab environment, as opposed to harvesting meat from a living organism. The benefits of this technology are astounding. The meat has a drastically reduced carbon footprint. In the absence of livestock, many harmful environmental impacts are all but eradicated: methane emissions by animals, the massive amounts of water used for irrigation, and the emissions involved in the preparation and transport of animal feed. Importantly, Mosa Meat’s product is meat, genetically and texturally – it just hasn’t been in a cow.
  His product, Dr Post explained, wasn’t meant for people like me. I don’t eat meat unless it’s being thrown away and I largely avoid dairy by virtue of being Asian. But then who is Mosa Meat for? Cultured meat isn’t the miracle solution to the environmental impact of meat, and the vast majority of us could thrive on plant-based diets, so why eat meat at all?
  Dr Post explained that people need to be wooed. Sustainable food initiatives like veganism and insect consumption haven’t gained momentum because they put too much onus on the actor. He used the metaphor of bread makers, and how everyone’s dad or uncle got one for Christmas at some point. Yes, it’s cheap and easy to make your own bread, but who can be bothered? That’s why Mosa Meat needs to be strategically marketed and commercially competitive, so that consumers are never made to go even a bit out of their way.
  However, Dr Post recognises how it might seem as though meat is a half measure. After all, if any of us can go into our local bakery and have a vegan meal for less than $2, shouldn’t we just do that? But attitudes like that, which reinforce the dichotomy of vegan and carnivore, are unhelpful and unnecessarily adversarial. If people are deterred from making an effort from the get-go, we’ll never get anywhere.
  Nevertheless, as the evidence currently stands, avoiding meat and animal products is the single most significant lifestyle choice you can make to reduce your environmental impact. Ambivalence towards environmental issues will define how/if we respond to this evidence. I hope that we’re moving away from meme-ing PETA’s Facebook content and towards seeing informed consumption practices as empowering rather than as an orchestrated attack on liberty.
  So far, I’ve made a point not to mention the statistical evidence about the damages caused by animal agriculture, or invoke hotly-contested animal rights. The impact a reduced market for traditionally-sourced meat would have on the Australian economy is also far too muddy for me to go into. Being a Netflix food documentary aficionado does not qualify me to explore these issues, nor to promote my agenda. All I can say is that there is a very real issue at hand and smart people out there developing solutions. As for me, I’m just excited to share a positive experience I had, and to strategically flout my exchange.

  Nicole Yu