This Is Vegan Propaganda (& Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You)

by Ed Winters

We have placed ourselves above the ecological life support systems that our species depends on for survival and exploited them for our own short-term benefit, cutting down forests and polluting rivers and oceans. We have destroyed millions of years of evolution in the blink of an eye, quite literally bulldozing our way around this finite planet. For all of our intelligence, we have still failed to grasp the simple reality that we need the planet more than the planet needs us.

Aristotle said, ‘The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.’ Undeniably, the issues of animal exploitation, climate change and disease are bitter issues to learn about, but the potential benefits of doing so cannot be overstated. It is quite literally a matter of life and death.

Veganism is instead a social justice issue that recognises that non-human animals deserve autonomy, moral consideration and the recognition that their lives are far more valuable than the reasons we use to justify exploiting them. Although not everyone thinks about animal consumption from this ethical perspective, instead choosing to ignore the question, or framing it in terms of human nature or cultural norms, we can always bring it back to whether it is the right and moral thing to do.

People often call vegans extremists, and yet veganism is merely living by the principle that if I am against cruelty then I will do what I can to avoid perpetuating systems that cause physical and mental harm to animals. It is a clear indictment of how ingrained our state of cognitive dissonance is that we see attempts at moral consistency as signs of extremism. Is it not strange that we call those who kill dogs animal abusers, those who kill pigs normal and those who kill neither extremists? Is it not odd that someone who smashes a car window to rescue a dog on a hot day is viewed as a hero but someone who rescues a piglet suffering on a farm is a criminal?

At one point in the documentary, the narrator, Joaquin Phoenix, recites a quote from the nineteenth-century philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson: ‘You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.’ I felt angry and frustrated with myself as I acknowledged that even though I was vegetarian, I was still guilty of perpetuating these systems of violence that so utterly disgusted me. The animal products on my plate existed because I paid people, albeit indirectly, to cause suffering to animals. Just because the knife wasn’t in my hand, or the blood on my clothes, I was still complicit – just as bloodstained, just as culpable.

It is ironic that we often believe that empathy and complex emotions only really exist in humans but we then fail to empathise with the animals who suffer at our hands. Primatologist Frans de Waal refers to the denial of these emotions and capabilities in non-human animals as ‘anthropodenial’,3 a term he coined to describe the behaviour of discounting the complexity of other animals. As he states, ‘Anyone who wants to make the case that a tickled ape, who almost chokes on his hoarse giggles, must be in a different state of mind from a tickled child has his work cut out for him.’4

However, do we actually believe that intelligence should define worth of life or that being more intelligent than someone else gives you the right to harm and exploit them? Disturbingly, this line of thinking could also then be used to justify harming human infants and those who are cognitively impaired, because they also lack these abilities. Thankfully, not only do we still think such people deserve moral consideration, we often give them special consideration because of their lower cognition and agency. The fact that we simultaneously justify giving animals less consideration for the same reasons is yet another example of how inconsistently we apply our moral framework.

It was considered the most comprehensive analysis ever to explore the relationship between farming and the environment, leading to it being published in the highly renowned scientific journal Science. The study showed that even though meat and dairy take up 83 per cent of global agricultural land, they only provide 18 per cent of global calories and 37 per cent of global protein consumption.10 In other words, animal products are staggeringly inefficient – there is a massive disparity in the amount of resources we put into animal farming compared to what we get back. Simply put, the consumption of animal products is just not tenable in a sustainable food system.

On a positive note, the University of Oxford researchers discovered that if the world shifted to a plant-based diet, we could feed every mouth on the planet and reduce global farmland by more than 75 per cent. This is the equivalent of land the size of China, Australia, the USA and the entire European Union combined no longer being needed for agriculture.

The most problematic greenhouse gasses related to animal farming are carbon dioxide, which is produced through practices such as deforestation, the destruction of natural habitats and the damaging of soil, methane, which is produced by the digestive system of ruminant animals through the process of enteric fermentation, and nitrous oxide, which comes largely from manure and fertiliser use. It is currently estimated that animal farming accounts for somewhere between 14.5 per cent and 18 per cent of total emissions.16 This means that animal farming is responsible for more emissions than the combined exhaust fumes produced by all global transportation, which is estimated to be around 14 per cent of the total.

But what about local animal products? Are they not more sustainable than buying plant foods from abroad? Well, not according to the science. In fact, when it comes to beef, only around 0.5 per cent of the emissions come from its transportation and for lamb it is only 2 per cent, meaning that the issue with animal farming is the farming itself.

In fact, it is estimated that if we were all to eat plant-based diets, the land no longer needed to produce food could be returned to nature and remove the equivalent of 8.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year over the course of 100 years, which is about 15 per cent of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions.31 So, not only would a plant-based diet reduce total emissions by 13 per cent, but it would also allow us to sequester a further 15 per cent of total annual carbon emissions on top of that.

Alarmingly, one study reports that 96 per cent of mammal biomass is now just humans and farmed animals.39 It is startling that humans only make up 0.01 per cent of the Earth’s total biomass and yet we have caused the loss of 83 per cent of all wild mammals, 80 per cent of marine mammals and half of all plants. Half of the Earth’s animals are thought to have been lost in the last 50 years alone. At the same time, the number of animals that we are breeding into existence keeps growing all the time. So, we are now living through a biodiversity crisis, while paradoxically creating more and more farm animals. Of course, these animals are products of years of selective breeding and artificial insemination and are not bred for the sake of the planet but instead for our dinner plates. The problem is so immense that research published by the Royal Society has stated that animal farming has changed the global biosphere to the point where future archaeologists and historians will define our current time through the fossilised remains of the mass of farmed animals that they will find.40

Similar to bottom trawling, the lines are indiscriminate, meaning that bycatch is also a huge issue. Every year, around 650,000 whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions and turtles are killed because of the fishing industry106 – the equivalent of more than one every minute. On top of that, it is estimated that 100 million sharks are killed each year, either for their fins through illegal fishing or unintentionally as bycatch.107 It is also estimated that 10 per cent of all fish caught are discarded,108 which means many species are being fished to the brink of extinction simply as an unintended consequence of commercial activities, which is in turn having a big impact on the biodiversity of the oceans.

‘Great Pacific garbage patch’, an area of plastic accumulation in the North Pacific, showed that 86 per cent of the macroplastics in this area were fishing nets.112 Furthermore, discarded fishing nets are the most deadly form of plastic pollution, posing the greatest risk to marine life.

There is also the issue of crops being used for feed as well. For example, a review study showed for every 19 grams of protein from eating farmed fish, around 100 grams of protein will have been fed to the fish, and for every 10 calories we get from farmed fish, 100 calories will have been used in their feed.

In July 2021, Argentina became the first country in the world to ban salmon farming because of concerns about their environmental impact.

Within the next 30 years, our population is expected to increase to 10 billion.121 However, global trends show that food consumption isn’t increasing proportionally to the growing population but rather regardless of the increase in population. This means that overall food demand is predicted to be 50 per cent higher by 2050, with animal-based foods being 70 per cent higher and specifically ruminant meat being 88 per cent higher.122 An additional 593 million hectares of land will be needed to meet this demand, which is nearly the equivalent size of two Indias.123 This will mean more deforestation and land conversion, more habitat loss and species extinction, more freshwater use, more soil erosion and more greenhouse gas emissions. Simply put, we can’t afford to keep animal product consumption at the levels it is at currently, let alone increase consumption by 70 per cent. Something clearly has to change. Shifting to a plant-based diet is one of the most significant decisions that we can make as individuals to reduce our impact on the planet, and moving to a plant-based food system that also focuses on reducing food waste needs to be an essential part of sustainability goals.

In the words of the lead author of the most comprehensive analysis on farming and the environment to date, who incidentally started his research as a meat eater but became vegan because of the findings of the study, ‘A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use.’124 Going vegan really is our best chance to save the planet.

Animal farming in particular has been linked to an increasing list of outbreaks and diseases. Back in 2004, the WHO, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released a joint report in which they listed rising demand for animal protein as being the first point on their list of the biggest risk factors in the creation of infectious zoonotic disease.9 Since then, the same message has been continuously emphasised by a number of organisations.

When it comes to outbreaks of infectious disease, it is easy to point the finger and place the blame on other countries and cultures, something that became very evident at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the risk of infectious disease isn’t restricted to Asia, or even to wet markets – though it is worth noting that wet markets also exist in the USA, with more than 80 in New York City alone, and bird flu viruses have been found there.52 Between 1959 and 2015, the majority of conversions of low-pathogenic avian influenzas – strains that pose a low risk of illness and death to chickens and little threat to human health – to highly pathogenic avian influenzas – strains that pose a high risk of illness and death to chickens and a much greater threat to human health – have occurred in Europe and the Americas.53 In the USA, between December 2014 and June 2015, highly pathogenic avian influenza was reported in 242 premises, leading to 50 million farmed birds being killed.

If we stopped eating poultry products, we could eliminate the part of the process that turns avian influenza into a mass killer, and because the overwhelming majority of chickens are killed at around six weeks, within two months we would have all but eliminated the biggest threat in the creation of highly pathogenic avian influenza. Stop eating pigs and within six months we would have all but eliminated the next biggest influenza threat.

Most of us eat meat because we like it, not because we have to; however, for many people in lower-income nations, the consumption of bushmeat is a necessity. A 2016 report highlighted how Chinese and European-subsidised fishing vessels were contributing to decreased fish populations in the coastal regions of West Africa, forcing more people to turn to bushmeat for food, which in turn increased the risk of Ebola outbreaks.72 In essence, our consumption of fish is creating food scarcity for those in low-income nations. So, as well as being a contributing factor to previous Ebola outbreaks, it could also be the cause of the next one.

But even abstaining from eating animal products doesn’t necessarily safeguard you from the problem, as is evident from outbreaks of E. coli linked to the consumption of lettuce, spinach and other plants. In fact, between 2005 and 2020, there were 40 E. coli outbreaks linked to contaminated lettuce in the USA alone.111 But plants don’t have intestinal systems, so how are they becoming contaminated? Because of manure spreading and water contamination from nearby animal farms. Unfortunately, not even plant foods can escape the disease created by animal farming.

Thankfully, there are more scientifically robust recommendations of what really constitutes a balanced diet available. The EAT-Lancet planetary health diet is the first full scientific review of what would constitute a healthy diet within a sustainable food system. It was created by an international commission made up of leading scientists from 16 countries and published in the Lancet, one of the most respected medical journals in the world. It recommended that people in Western countries eat between 77 and 84 per cent less red meat, categorised eggs, poultry and dairy as optional, and confirmed that a plant-based diet is a healthy option.11

But this perception, which still persists today, is hugely due to the prolific marketing of the dairy industry, which has made calcium synonymous with dairy products. But while they do provide calcium, they are by no means the only or healthiest source. For example, dairy consumption has been associated with prostate cancer, as was shown in an analysis of 47 studies, incorporating more than 1 million participants, looking at the effects of animal and plant foods on prostate cancer risk. The study found that men who ate the highest amount of dairy products had a 65 per cent higher risk of developing prostate cancer than those consuming the lowest amounts, whereas those who ate plant-based diets had a 36 per cent lower risk.27 A correlation between an increased risk of prostate cancer and dairy consumption has also been found when comparing the incidence and mortality rates of prostate cancer in 42 countries alongside the dietary practices of the countries.28 A review of three studies suggested that substituting one serving of dairy per day for nuts and legumes was associated with a 14 per cent lower risk of total mortality.29

However, it’s true that the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA that are also important for the body are virtually non-existent in plant foods. This is one reason why it’s believed that it’s necessary to eat fish or take supplements derived from fish. However, fish do not produce long-chain omega-3 fats themselves – the source of these fats in our diet is algae eaten by the fish. So this essentially means that we are filtering the nutrients through an animal unnecessarily when we could just consume it from the source instead by taking an algae oil supplement. Our bodies can convert ALA into both EPA and DHA, but the rates of conversion can vary, so an algae oil supplement is the best way of ensuring that you are consuming the recommended amount each day. By getting long-chain omega-3 fats from algae oil supplements we are avoiding the saturated fat that is found in fish, not to mention the toxins and pollutants that they often contain, including mercury and micro-plastics. Ironically, the fish-farming industries often give algae oil to the fish to boost their long-chain omega-3 fats,31 meaning we create the supplement and then give it to fish in aquatic factory farms that produce waste, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and that also cause huge amounts of suffering and disease that we then have to treat with antibiotics. All so we can then kill them and claim fish is a good source of omega-3 fats. It’s cheaper, healthier, more sustainable, more ethical and red...

Studies have shown that up to 40 per cent of people in Western countries have low or marginal B12 status, meaning that inadequate B12 intake is far from only being a vegan problem.32 Moreover, similar to how farmed fish are supplemented with algae oil for long-chain omega-3 fats, factory-farmed animals are given fortified feed and supplemented with B1233 because they’re not getting B12 in the natural way either. Even grass-fed animals are often supplemented with B12 or cobalt – which is necessary for ruminant animals to produce B12 in their digestive system – because lots of soil is now cobalt-deficient. In essence, the majority of B12 in our diet is coming from a supplement one way or another. So we are faced with the choice of contributing to animal suffering, environmental degradation, an increased risk of infectious disease and antibiotic resistance to get B12, or we can take a supplement, which is more often than not the way the animals we consume get B12 in the first place.

There are a range of risk factors associated with heart disease, including smoking and lack of exercise. However, according to one major analysis of 195 countries, diet is the largest risk factor when it comes to heart disease, with the findings showing that approximately 70 per cent of ischaemic heart disease deaths across the world could be prevented by people adopting healthier diets more focused on fruits, vegetables, nuts and wholegrains.

Studies have also found that the brains of patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease have significant oxidative damage,58 so eating antioxidant-rich plant foods could play a role in Alzheimer’s-disease prevention. This was shown in one study that discovered that those participants who consumed the highest amount of plant-based flavonoids, a type of nutrient rich in antioxidants, were associated with a 40 per cent lower risk of developing dementia when compared to those with the lowest intake.59 The 2014 Dietary and Lifestyle Guidelines for the Prevention of Alzheimer’s, which were developed as part of the International Conference on Nutrition and the Brain, also recommended that ‘vegetables, legumes [beans, peas and lentils], fruits and whole grains should replace meats and dairy products as primary staples of the diet’.60

Another study found that those on a plant-based diet were associated with a 78 per cent lower risk of type 2 diabetes when compared to those who ate meat on a daily basis.63 They were also associated with a 27 per cent lower risk than pescatarians, suggesting that to maximise the potential of diet we need to do more than just swap saturated fat for unsaturated fat – we also need to move to a diet of whole-plant foods.

Soy intake has also been associated with lower risk of cancer, with a study showing that women with the highest dietary soy intake were associated with a 12 per cent lower risk of breast cancer compared to those with the lowest intake.75 For men, soy intake has been associated with a 29 per cent lower risk of prostate cancer.76 And on the point of soy, there is a pervasive belief that soy intake has a feminising effect on men due to it containing phytoestrogens. However, phytoestrogens are plant hormones and don’t have the same effect as oestrogen in the body. An analysis of 41 studies showed that intake of the plant does not affect testosterone levels in men,77 and a narrative review of clinical evidence also showed that soy intake does not affect oestrogen levels in men, even at intake levels considerably higher than are typical for Asian males,78 who have been shown to consume the most soy.

The researchers behind the EAT-Lancet planetary health diet that I referenced earlier predict that switching to a more plant-based diet, which in Western countries, according to their analysis, would mean around an 80 per cent reduction in red meat, a six-fold increase of beans and lentil consumption, a fifteen-fold increase of nuts and seeds consumption, and an increase in the consumption of wholegrains, fruits and vegetables, could save at least 11 million people a year from deaths caused by eating unhealthy foods.79,

In 2019, a cow affectionately named Daisy by people online escaped from a slaughterhouse in Carlisle, England. Daisy ran into a nearby cul-de-sac and prompted a huge outcry from people wishing for her to be rescued, even though she was running away from a fate that is determined by the actions of many of these people, most of whom would happily have eaten her had she not escaped. The police ended up shooting Daisy and killing her, leading to public condemnation.2 This story reveals so much about how we view animals and their slaughter. The fact that we yearn for escaped animals to live speaks volumes about how we value their lives once they become separated from the anonymous herd. We then acknowledge that they are individuals with their own personalities and a clear desire to live. We recognise that there is something they are trying to escape from, that they are fearful and in a situation they do not want to be in, which is so troubling that they would rather take the risk of running into the unknown than allow what is happening to them to continue. In essence, we view these animals as underdogs, heroes overcoming adversity, and yet the adversity they are trying to overcome is us. They’re only there because of the choices that we make. These animals are not simply escaping the slaughterhouse or trying to evade the police. They are running from us, the people who have decided their fate long before they were born. It may be the slaughterer’s knife or a police officer’s bu...

There are even laws in the USA, Australia and Canada known as ‘ag-gag laws’, which make it illegal to film farms and slaughterhouses. If an investigator or journalist in Iowa, for example, went onto a farm and secretly filmed an animal being abused in an illegal way, they could be jailed for two years,3 which is the same sentence that the person caught abusing the animal could receive.

As consumers, our cognitive dissonance means we often believe these are just bad apples, that they don’t represent the industry as a whole and don’t reveal a systemic problem. And yet by this point there have surely been enough bad apples to suggest that the whole tree is rotten. Another good example of the cognitive dissonance of consumers is demonstrated by the story of a man in Florida who pleaded guilty to nine animal-cruelty charges for killing nine ducklings by running them over with a lawnmower and macerating them. He was sentenced to a year in jail, with three years of probation, and was ordered to have a mental-health evaluation.7 However, is it not jarring that macerating nine ducklings constitutes nine separate charges of animal cruelty but killing 7 billion male chicks every single year as soon as they are born, often by macerating them in grinders, is not only viewed as acceptable but is often defended by people who claim that it is those who do not believe in killing male chicks who are extreme? How can it be wrong to kill nine ducklings but not billions of male chicks, especially considering both acts are ultimately needless? This example demonstrates an obvious contradiction, which speaks to the wider issue of our cognitive dissonance in relation to animal product consumption. The reality is that if we took the legally sanctioned practices from the animal farming industries and then applied them to other situations, we would think those practices horrendous.

Another major way in which we devalue the intelligence of farmed animals, and thereby psychologically justify our treatment of them, is by viewing them as all being the same. One of the reasons for this is that we have bred them to be genetically similar, which further plays into the idea that they are just a collective mass that lack any significant or meaningful individuality. When we remove characteristics or traits that would make it easier to see them as individuals, we instead view them as a mass of interchangeable ‘things’. Fish are of course the ultimate abstraction – thousands of species all categorised as if they are merely one. We remove all individualism from them, and, even with all the scientific evidence that supports the fact they feel pain,9 we still treat them as if they are nothing more than inanimate ocean objects.

In another example, a dairy farmer interviewed on a BBC programme called The Dark Side of Dairy broke down when asked about the process of separating calves from their mothers, saying that there were mother cows who would ‘bawl for days’.15 No doubt many other dairy farmers would accuse him of anthropomorphising cows.

A fascinating example of this was the scandal in Europe in 2013 when many beef products, such as burgers and lasagnes, were found to contain horse meat. People in the UK were outraged that they were consuming horses and not cattle, although morally there’s no difference. Horse meat is widely consumed across many areas of Europe, tastes similar to cattle flesh and even has twice as much iron as steak from a cow.16 And the UK is one of the biggest horse-racing nations in the world, with many horses dying on the track each year, often with a black curtain pulled around them so that they can be shot out of sight. Hundreds of racehorses are slaughtered17 and often exported to places in Europe where they will be eaten.18 So, by British standards, it’s acceptable to shoot a horse on a racetrack, it’s even acceptable to kill them in a slaughterhouse, but eating them is immoral and scandalous.

yet the fact that dogs, cats, whales and many other edible animals are also high in protein doesn’t then make us feel differently about consuming them. Imagine how people would react if someone bred dogs into existence, gave them six months of life and then cut their throats with the justification: ‘I gave them a good life, I cut their throat humanely, I like how they taste and they’re a good source of essential nutrients, such as protein and zinc. Besides, people have been eating dogs for thousands of years, and it’s not right for you to force your views on me.’ It’s interesting that millions of people sign petitions condemning dog-meat consumption in Asia, but if a vegan questions their consumption of other animals, the vegan is forcing their views on them.

It is clear, then, that the media latched onto this particular story not because they were outraged about the threats per se – unfortunately, most outspoken people on social media have received threats in one form or another – but because it played into a deeper narrative: the portrayal of veganism and animal rights as being militant, problematic and dangerous, something that exists outside of normalised society and poses a direct threat to its citizens and traditions. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book: the ad hominem attack of those who want to disrupt the status quo. Personal attacks are an effective way of avoiding debating the actual issues – if you can’t argue against the message, you attack the messenger to try to muddy their public image and portray them in a way that puts people off.

There is even a brand called Happy Eggs, which, when I used to eat eggs, was the one I would always buy, because I believed that the name meant that they must treat their hens with compassion. But when you consider what actually happens to egg-laying hens, it’s nothing short of outrageous that a brand can call their eggs ‘happy’. Three farms (all RSPCA assured) that produce eggs for the Happy Egg Company were exposed by an investigation in early 2021, which documented dead and decomposing birds, and birds with bloody wounds and open sores.21 In response, a spokesperson for Noble Foods, who own the Happy Egg brand, said, ‘Nothing is more important to us than the safe and proper care of our hens.’22 This is completely at odds with that fact the hens had been debeaked, had open wounds and were all going to be killed at a slaughterhouse when they were no longer profitable. In reality, an egg-laying farm is arguably the least safe place a chicken could have the misfortune of finding themselves.

This sort of thing is not just happening in the EU. In the USA, a large number of states, including Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado and Louisiana, among others, have also attempted to implement similar bans on plant-based food and cell-cultured meat labelling. Interestingly, seven of the ten biggest cattle farming states appear on that list, which is perhaps not surprising when the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s top policy priority in 2019 was addressing ‘false and deceptive marketing’, and they created a petition calling on the word ‘meat’ to be used only for animals farmed in the traditional manner.26 This is ironic coming from an industry that uses selective breeding, artificial insemination and genetically modified crops, not to mention growth promoters, hormones and antibiotics, to maximise their profits. It’s also worth mentioning that many of these states would classify themselves as having a ‘small government’ approach to politics, a phrase that signifies upholding libertarian values of limited government intervention, especially in terms of public policy and private-sector regulation. Except, of course, the very opposite is true when it comes to their involvement in censoring the plant-based sector. Obviously, one of the primary reasons for this comes down to the relationship that the agricultural sector has with government and there’s no better example of this than the dairy industry.

The USDA is also the government organisation that writes nutritional guidelines in the USA. This is especially concerning as it means that they are not only responsible for the creation of adverts promoting dairy consumption but they also advise people on how much dairy to consume in the first place. Which could possibly explain why the USDA still recommends adults consume three servings of dairy a day, while the Canadian ideal food plate has removed dairy as a food group altogether, and even though it is still listed as a protein source, there are no recommendations for how much to consume or that you even need to consume it at all. To make matters worse, Dairy Management Inc. (DMI), which is funded by the USDA-managed dairy checkoff programme, works with schools and fast-food chains to increase overall dairy consumption. For example, DMI has worked with McDonald’s to increase the size of cheddar cheese slices by more than 30 per cent in some of their items and with Pizza Hut to add 25 per cent more cheese to their pan pizza. They also created a pizza with Domino’s that contained as much as two thirds of a day’s maximum recommended amount of saturated fat.27 So the government department that creates the nutritional guidelines and advises people how to eat healthily also works with the farming industries to promote their products and get more of them sold in fast-food chains and restaurants.

In the UK, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) spent half a million pounds of taxpayers’ money on a promotional campaign for the dairy industry.33 This at a time when charities were struggling to provide food to the most vulnerable people and the NHS was overwhelmed. DEFRA spent more than double what the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) spent on their campaign, even though one of the primary functions of the AHDB is to fund promotional campaigns on behalf of the farmers who pay the levy. Imagine the uproar if the UK government funded advertising campaigns for plant-based products and tried to get people to drink oat milk.

The fact that men hunted was secondary to the fact that hunting ensured communities could survive. If the idea is that eating meat is manly because men used to be hunters, then really the conclusion should be that providing for your community and looking after those around you is what makes you a man. In those terms, the idea that meat-eating is masculine is farcical, as the modern-day consumption of meat negatively impacts those around us, whether by increasing the risk of pandemics or being a significant contributor to the climate crisis.

For example, a study from the University of Hawaii found that men routinely incorporate more red meat into their diet to reassure themselves when they feel their masculinity is under threat.41 And there can be no better demonstration of this than when Fox News host Jesse Watters ate a steak live on television in front of a social psychologist who had come on to discuss the perceived link between eating meat and masculinity.42 In what can only be described as an astounding display of irony, Watters genuinely thought that he was hilariously dismissing her work while actually validating the very point she was making: some men who feel the need to assert their masculinity, or who feel their masculinity is being threatened, will use red meat as a means to make themselves feel more manly.

A Harvard Law School policy fellow stated, ‘If you have virtual consensus on one side and a few people over here, many of whom received funding from the meat industry, that should be reported. It shouldn’t be seen as two equal interlocutors presenting equally valid opposing opinions.’50

One of the roles of a parent is to raise their children with values and morals – to make them a good person. So, from the perspective of a parent, when their child says to them that they are becoming vegan because it’s not morally justifiable to exploit animals, it could be seen as the child implying that they have been raised badly. Of course, that’s not what’s intended, but, subconsciously, the parent could feel like they are being personally criticised by their child’s decision. It is understandable, therefore, why a parent might be defensive or even angry at their child living in a way that they perceive as being an implicit criticism of their parenting and lifestyle. I think it requires a great deal of humility for a parent to then take an active interest in their child’s veganism and engage in a positive manner, and even more so if they then adopt a vegan lifestyle themselves.

Our most joyous days of celebration and ritual are often marked by the mass death of others. We celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving by confining tens of millions of turkeys in windowless barns, where many of them die of organ failure, the ones who survive then being taken to slaughterhouses. We celebrate Easter by killing newborn lambs so we can eat their legs and have a wonderful day of celebration, talking about how the remains of a baby animal are so tender and juicy. We do the same for sporting events as well, with the Super Bowl in the USA being celebrated with the consumption of 1.35 billion chicken wings during the course of the weekend, which means that around 700 million chickens are killed just for a sporting event,1 with a staggering 99.9 per cent of them being raised on a factory farm,2 suffering immensely before being forced into crates and taken to slaughterhouses. It is estimated that this number of wings is enough to circle the Earth three times.3 But most of the people who are consuming these wings are not bad people and would be horrified at the prospect of having to take an active part in this process. When it came to the anniversary party, I thought about my grandparents – the most gentle, kind and loving people – celebrating such a wonderful event by eating the remains of animals who had lived lives of abject suffering. To me, that juxtaposition of celebration, union and love with misery, torture and death was one that I couldn’t rationalise. I decide...