Sunday 3 January 2016

Vegauary: Celebrities on Celery?


I am not certain what to make of the move to use celebrity endorsement to encourage 50,000 people to sign up for a month free of meat, fish and dairy products (http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/03/veganuary-stars-sign-up-animal-free-month). It is certainly the case that we (in the UK) tend to eat too much animal-generated protein (as well as tending to gain too much weight) and could benefit health-wise by increasing the proportion of fruit and vegetables that we consume. It is also true that some of the techniques used to produce animal protein can involve questionable animal welfare (as well as generating lots of methane). Having said this, I don't really favour using celebrities to get people to change their habits (some celebrity life-style habits are much less acceptable than that proposed here). Humans (in their dentition and digestive systems) are, however, clearly omnivores (and many of their pets, carnivores) so complete veganism seems to have potential pit-falls. Also choosing what we get to eat is not a luxury that all people have. Is the message likely to be 'I'm much kinder to animals than thou'? What happens after the month?

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