#Veganuary is done and dusted for another year, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it has come and gone for most with nary a thought, despite the fact that it is breathlessly deified by certain parts of the media.
But there is little doubt that the vegan movement is gaining popularity and it is no longer a niche enclave inhabited by the tie-dyed and incensed.
Gone are the days when going vegan automatically meant removing from your diet the majority of delicious foods, then adding a smattering of smugness and a pinch of misery for good measure.
Historically, veganism was not aspirational – it was literally the food aisle where your taste buds went to die.
Well, those days are well and truly in the rear vison mirror – the new wave of veganism is all about branding and insta-famous beautiful people – it apparently has cachet up the ying-yang!
In this regard the figures reveal that there was a 185 per cent increase in vegan products launched in the UK between 2012 and 2016 and new ‘alternative’ proteins are now the fastest-growing segment of the US food industry with overall sales last year reaching USD3.3b.
Now I couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss if you are a vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian or breatharian – that is a matter entirely within your domain, and I would not for one moment try and dissuade someone from their chosen path.
But I do struggle with some of the basic tenets of veganism and some of the recent trends associated with this ideology.
First cab off the rank is the new wave of plant-based meats (putting aside the current imbroglio over whether they can in fact be called ‘meat’).
In this regard, and by way of example, the Beyond Meat website discloses that its plant-based burger contains the following ingredients:
‘Water, Pea Protein Isolate, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Refined Coconut Oil, Cellulose from Bamboo, Methylcellulose, Potato Starch, Natural Flavor, Maltodextrin, Yeast Extract, Salt, Sunflower Oil, Vegetable Glycerin, Dried Yeast, Gum Arabic, Citrus Extract, Ascorbic Acid, Beet Juice Extract, Acetic Acid, Succinic Acid, Modified Food Starch, Annatto.’
Who doesn’t love a side of Annatto with their Methylcellulose!
It seems like a fairly convoluted way to go about enjoying a burger, particularly when there is already a readily available, tasty, natural alternative – beef.
And as Bloomberg Business revealed in December 2018, the kicker is that many of these types of products are less healthy than their conventional counterparts, as they are more calorific than a lean beef patty and contain seven times more sodium.
Secondly, the Veganuary website rolls out the usual pablum: ‘Going vegan is the easiest and most effective way to help our planet. Make a more positive impact than giving up your car.’
If we park for the moment the bloviating unintelligibility and speciousness of this argument, and the fact that repeated studies have shown how flawed the studies are that claim that ruminants are the major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and dig just a little bit deeper.
To keep GHG emissions from livestock in perspective, according to the US EPA, animal agriculture is responsible for slightly less than 4pc of the GHG emissions in the US.
Further, a recent University of California (Davis) study opined that entirely eliminating all animals from US agricultural production systems would decrease GHG emission by only 2.6pc.
By contrast, energy production for electricity and transportation are each responsible for 28pc of US greenhouse gases.
Irrespective, if we accept the Veganuary position for the moment, surely by suggesting that farmed animals are a major contributor to GHG emissions, it follows that to solve this problem these livestock need to be removed from the equation i.e. they need to be culled.
How else do they plan to reduce these emissions without killing/euthanising the animals?
Doesn’t sound very vegan to me.
Finally, my last concern relates to another Veganuary theme, namely ‘Animals are not our property’.
If we ignore the obvious fact that livestock is property from a legal perspective, the Veganuary position would suggest that all farmed (and domesticated) animals effectively be set free and roam of their own free will.
Sounds like nirvana to a vegan I am sure, but anyone with a scintilla of a clue would see that this would create an unprecedented animal welfare disaster, as millions of animals would soon die from starvation without anyone responsible for feeding, watering and caring for them.
Again, doesn’t sound very vegan to me.
From where I stand – and I would warrant that I have a far deeper appreciation and understanding of modern agricultural production methodologies than your average punter on social media – most of the guff spouted about the virtues of veganism is pure bunkum, snake oil and flimflam.
Just like no one is forcing consumers to eat meat, the flip side applies – vegans and activists should stop trying to force their ideology onto the vast majority of the consuming public.
Be a vegan, don’t be a vegan – no one really cares. What consumers do care about is people acting rationally, and not spewing uniformed bilious abuse to consumers and farmers going about their daily lives.
Veganism is a perfectly reasonable option for some folks, but the over-inflated rhetoric, sanctimony and vitriol of many of its adherents is a major turn off for many people.
Some vegans just need to lighten up – the world really isn’t looking for them to be the ‘puritanical police’ – and accept that people are still entitled to their free will and choice of what they put in their stomachs.
– Trent Thorne, agribusiness lawyer
