I’ve just seen something that has left me feeling very upset and shaky

I support a charity called Four Paws which works to improve animal welfare here and abroad. It has for instance succeeded in getting a number of dog slaughter houses in Asia closed and rescued many bears kept for production of bile for traditional ‘medicine’ and animals used for so-called entertainment. It campaigns to stop the Yulin festival as do many others. I also try to avoid buying things produced in China and other countries which do not recognise that there is such a thing as animal welfare but not every country of origin is displayed when buying online. For instance my White Company bone (I shudder) china pasta bowls turned out to have been made in China.

I was a microbiology lecturer and used to bring students to an abattoir as part of meat hygiene course. Neither I nor any students became vegetarian as a result. Visit was optional - I didn't force any to go. I would suggest if you are prepared to eat meat you should be willing to see how it is produced

Just to add to previous post- I'm in Ireland where animals are mostly grass fed and are humanely killed.

I also try and avoid anything made in China, difficult when places like Amazon don’t stipulate where the goods are coming from. Horrified to find my Lateral flow test kit, on opening, made in China. What hypocrisy. Those poor animals , but am afraid things will never change.

Somebody sent me a peta video that was horrific and I still can’t get the image out of my head and this was many years ago. My daughter told me recently that she’d been sent the same video years ago and she, too, has never got the image out of her head. I unfriended someone that put a horrific video on her Facebook page that I couldn’t avoid. At the end of the day none of us support animal cruelty in any way so why subject us to something that will upset us so much.

I can't cope with those videos of cruelty to animals. I know exactly how you feel. I had seen something some years ago and even now it pops into my mind. Just awful.

Yes, once seen never forgotten.

I do believe and hope there will come a time when animals will no longer grace the dinner table. I think children should be made very aware of where meat fish and poultry comes from at primary school level. I would advocate taking them to the abbatoirs. No I would not expose them to the actual slaughter but they should be told the animals they see there will be killed. As for ignorant older people well they should be made to witness the slaughter.

I’ve seen those horrible markets in both China and Vietnam and they really made me feel sick, quite literally. In Vietnam there was actually a dog market, horrible. It is all quite open with ducks squashed into tiny cages with no water, half dead. Nothing I have ever seen in Europe or Australasia compares. We still send live animals over to be slaughtered which is also so bad. I am not a vegetarian though I would not eat meat when in those countries.

I detect lot of not very subtle abuse directed at vegans on this thread - they smell, they have some sort of mental disorder, they always tell you they are vegan, and they exploit developing countries by buying their produce. What unpleasant sweeping generalisations. Implications being - meat eaters never fart, they are never obese or unhealthy, they won’t ever display their meat eating and never buy anything like quinoa or avocado. I think some meat eaters dislike vegans because they make them question things they take for granted. Back to the OP, yes animal cruelty is horrible and we should challenge it whenever we can, even if it makes others uncomfortable.

Peasblossom

The west is not ready to switch to a vegan diet.

The rise in popularity of certain foods in the vegan diet has caused great hardship in other parts of the world.

Kenya has had to ban the export of avocados, which are a staple food there. They are particularly valuable for weaning babies and the export of avocados to the higher paying West has led to infant malnutrition.

Quinoa is a staple food in some South American countries and its export, again to the West, has created starvation in the Andes.

These are just two examples of the thoughtlessness with which we in the West pursue our own agendas. Becoming vegan needs to be researched in terms of what can be eaten without causing suffering to other people.

It’s not an easy fix for our consciences.

"The west" as you put it, is, in relation to diet, the people who live in the west.

If all of them chose to become vegan, then there would be no market for the bad stuff.

A decade ago there were hardly any vegan ready-meals but as demand increased the supermarkets started having lots of vegan ready meals. A similar effect happened with gluten-free foods - they used to be prescription items collected from a pharmacy.

Gluten-free breakfast cereal used to be marketed in very plain packaging as if a medicinal product. Then along came the Go Free range delighting in being gluten-free with added vitamins and with bright cheerful packaging, so the earlier stuff was upgraded in response and vitamins added.

Cultured meat is the way to go perhaps?

How do you know a vegan is a vegan?

They tell you!!!!!!!! ?

So sorry you saw this, I am also haunted by an appallingly cruel video I came across. I couldn't believe it when my daughter bought me Ugg copies on her school trip to China

There is a vast difference between torturing animals to death like they do in that abhorrent town in China, and killing food animals compassionately and locally slaughtering by competent butchers.

Few people can afford to buy animal-welfare meat. One thing you can do is eat the best welfare meat but eat it only only once a week.

There are some terrible sights and horrible news items. I remember my mother exclaiming during wartime news broadcasts "What a terrible world!"

It does no good to ruminate on these . Think about something else.

The other thing that I can’t bear are videos of those poor donkeys or bears or whales that pop up as adverts.

I don’t need to see their suffering to support these charities. It is voyeuristic and unnecessary.

Gingster
*How do you know a vegan is a vegan?
They tell you!!!!!!!! ?*

This is the sort of unsubtle nastiness I was referring to. What’s it supposed to mean? How many people have not told you they were vegan? You don’t know . It’s an old unfunny joke and I’ve heard it in relation to other groups - “How do you know someone is an Oxbridge graduate/ has got grandchildren etc - they tell you”. Just a way of putting people down you don’t like.

I think you may have misunderstood the point I was trying to make Elderlyperson.

It was prompted by people posting about avoiding Chinese products because of the cruelty to animals in China. I wanted to point out that the fast (in agricultural terms) change to more people eating a vegan diet has caused great hardship to people in some parts of the world.

That changing to a vegan or partially vegan diet requires us to give equally careful consideration to the suffering it might be causing.

Personally, I think that as we switch to a more plant based diet we should base it mainly on what can be grown in our own and neighbouring countries, rather than importing from vast distances.

I don’t think we should be assuaging our own consciences in regard to animal suffering by creating human suffering. Our ease of mind paid by others.

Thank you for explaining.

I know you have not said it, but one of the myths about vegan is that it destroys the Brazilian rainforest to grow more soya beans.

In fact the soya for vegan food in Europe is mostly from Europe and Canada.

The soya that is grown in cleared rainforest is fed to animals so that carnivores can eat their bodies.

Yes, that’s why it behoves us to do our research. Though it’s not always easy to get at the truth!

Some farms near me have been growing soya and I’m hopeful it will become one of our common crops.

vegansrock

Gingster
*How do you know a vegan is a vegan?
They tell you!!!!!!!! ?*

This is the sort of unsubtle nastiness I was referring to. What’s it supposed to mean? How many people have not told you they were vegan? You don’t know . It’s an old unfunny joke and I’ve heard it in relation to other groups - “How do you know someone is an Oxbridge graduate/ has got grandchildren etc - they tell you”. Just a way of putting people down you don’t like.

I had only heard that "joke" about vegans.

Perhaps the best response is that which Ken Dodd once said, on stage, to Jimmy Tarbuck over some joke that Jimmy Tarbuck said.

"The old ones are the best ones Jimmy" and laughed.

though perhaps missing out the name "Jimmy".

Let's try that!

Gingster

How do you know a vegan is a vegan?

They tell you!!!!!!!! ?

The old ones are the best ones!

I’m neither vegan nor vegetarian though think I happily could be at least vegetarian/pescatarian - husband enjoys meat and I just eat only a small amount or cook as much fish as I can. Also only buy local meat with a provenance and of course free range eggs. I’d like to do more but not easy when cooking for two. What I do find I’m having problems with these days is leather. I can’t help thinking of its origin and its country of origin (i.e. level of suffering) as opposed to country of manufacture, which is generally not mentioned . Shoes, handbags, leather furniture. Wearing an animal’s skin on my feet seems to me to demean that creature and its death. I try to buy good quality alternatives nowadays if I can but not easy. I know many of you will say I’m deranged and am fully prepared for the comments I will get after sharing this difficulty I have! I’m not a complete nutcase but it’s not something I gave a thought to when younger.

The vegan society approach is that one does one's best to avoid animal products as far as possible and practical in the world as it is.

So, my interpretation. get non-leather shoes if there is a choice, ask for non-leather shoes, but if only leather shoes are available or the cost of non-leather ones has been made ridiculously high don't go barefoot or without food.