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270- Hey Ridglan! What if we just...bought the dogs?
132 Plays18 days ago
The latest plot twist in the Ridglan Farms actions is surprisingly corporate...and seems to be resulting in the dogs being released! But how do Anthony, Julie & Shane feel about millions of dollars being given to the 'jailors' of these innocent beings? The trio dissect this story amongst several others from the last 7 days of animal rights & vegan news.
Like what we do? Want to help it sound even better? Join our KoFi gang here: https://ko-fi.com/ENOUGHOFTHEFALAFEL
Thanks to Neil, Shane & Alex for their continued Ko-Fi support!
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Enough of the Falafel is a community of people who love keeping on top of the latest news in the world of veganism & animal rights. With the Vegan Week podcast, we aim to keep listeners (& ourselves) informed & up-to-date with the latest developments that affect vegans & non-human animals; giving insight, whilst staying balanced; remaining true to our vegan ethics, whilst constantly seeking to grow & develop.
Each week we look through news stories from the past 7 days in the world of veganism & animal rights.
If you spot any news stories that might catch our fancy, or have an idea for a discussion topic, get in touch via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com.
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This week's stories:
https://www.northern-times.co.uk/news/we-took-no-pleasure-in-disturbing-golfers-say-animal-right-433600/
https://www.peta.org/media/news-releases/breaking-first-ever-investigation-into-wool-farm-with-ties-to-hm-group-reveals-extreme-cruelty-to-sheep/
https://www.theanimalreader.com/2026/04/25/sloth-world-shut-down-after-31-die-in-florida/
https://www.theanimalreader.com/2026/05/01/greenpeace-interrupts-meeting-of-meat-giant-jbs/
https://vegconomist.com/studies-numbers/global-veganism-data-major-blind-spot-faunalytics-report-finds/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c87q0l5zpj1o
https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/as-walk-for-peace-begins-in-sri-lanka-activists-call-for-animal-rights/
https://www.fox6now.com/news/ridglan-farms-beagles-fate-major-announcement-coming-thursday
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/wisconsin-madison-florida-alabama-b296765html3.
https://www.fwi.co.uk/livestock/poultry/defra-defends-poultry-stats-amid-claims-25m-birds-missing
https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/europe-plant-protein-legumes-fava-bean-demand-health-cost/
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Thanks everyone for listening; give us a rating and drop us a message to say "hi"; it'll make our day!
Shane, Julie & Ant
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Transcript
Introduction to Vegan Week
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everyone, it is vegan and animal rights news time and that means you need to be with us at Enough of the Falafel. we This week is me, Anthony, Julie and Shane. But that's enough of the falafel, it is time for Vegan Week.
Perception of Vegans as Troublemakers
00:00:16
Speaker
So I think vegans go looking for trouble even when they're not looking for trouble. That's not what butter's used for. Brrr!
Florida's Stance on Lab-Grown Meat
00:00:22
Speaker
Protein. Take your lab-grown meat elsewhere. We're not doing that in the state of Florida.
00:00:28
Speaker
Should I call the media and say, hi, sorry. True education. younger generation are getting to know how brutal these practices are. That leaves a lot of pizza delivery companies in problems with their fingers.
00:00:40
Speaker
What is this? What kind of movie is this? It's comedy gold, maybe. Any form of social injustice has...
00:00:49
Speaker
As long as you don't get the wee brunions with the horns you'll be alright. Does veganism give him superpowers?
00:00:58
Speaker
cannot fly around the city. I don't have laser vision.
Welcome to Vegan Week
00:01:02
Speaker
Hey everyone, this is Shane. Welcome to Vegan Week and thank you for listening. Hello everybody, Julie here. This is our new show where we look through the vegan and animal rights news from the last week or so. But that's enough of the falafel. Let's hear what's been going on this week.
00:01:24
Speaker
And remember to read the original news report for all stories covered in the show this week. Just check the show notes in your podcast player and follow the links. Indeed. And that's what I'm going to be doing right now. I'm going to be clicking through several stories. So you might hear my clicking in the background. Apologies in advance, listeners. We're going to do what we did last week. And we're going to start off with four news stories. We're going to just basically give you the headlines. Not going to go into much depth.
00:01:48
Speaker
And then we'll start chewing the plant-based
Protests and Activism in the UK and South Africa
00:01:51
Speaker
fat. Our first story comes from the Northern Times. The headline, We took no pleasure in disturbing golfers, say animal rights protesters. and This is folk from the Humane League UK who entered the building at Royal Dornock Golf Club with megaphones in an attempt to challenge the Pro Tour sponsors Farm Foods over their use of eggs from caged hens.
00:02:17
Speaker
Follow the link in the show notes for that one. Some great pictures of people with megaphones in huge inflatable chicken costumes. Great campaigning there. We've also had some super campaigning from PETA this week. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in New York. They have just released some footage from the first ever PETA Asia investigation.
00:02:37
Speaker
into a Nativa certified wool operation in South Africa, which shows horrible cruelty, showing footage of workers kicking and stomping on frightened sheep, dragging them by their legs, leaving them with gaping wounds after shearing. And this is a farm that sells its wool as, quote, responsibly sourced wool, to the H&M group. So well done, Peter, for exposing
Controversies in Animal Facilities
00:03:02
Speaker
that. couple of stories from the animal reader.
00:03:05
Speaker
Awful story, this one. At least 31 sloths have died in Florida in the US before the opening of a new tourist attraction called Sloth World. The facility has basically been shut down Before even opened, these poor souls were brought over from South America to Orlando, kept in a warehouse, horrible stuff and lost their lives. Disgusting, disgusting behaviour from the humans there.
00:03:30
Speaker
And finally, again from the animal reader, Greenpeace have interrupted a meeting of the meat giant JBS. We've mentioned them a few times on the show over the years. They're the world's largest meat processing company. They had a shareholder meeting in the Netherlands on Thursday.
00:03:48
Speaker
And it wasn't megaphones or inflatable chicken outfits this time. The protesters from bean pick bean piece Greenpeace installed a banner with the slogan, JBS, keep your bloody business out of Africa, as the company is planning expansion in Nigeria. Like Shane said, all the links for those stories in the show notes if you want to read them. in more detail, but we are going to move straight on to some different stories.
Global Veganism Data Limitations
00:04:15
Speaker
Our first Chewy story is from The Vegconomist. Interesting headline here. global veganism data has a major blind spot, new Fornalytics report finds. And basically, they've done this big analysis of plant-based dietary trends.
00:04:34
Speaker
It's found that the vast majority of global veganism data is actually only drawn from a narrow slice of countries. So 58 countries out of the 200 or so in the world. 87% of nationally representative vegan data, veganism data comes from Europe and North America.
00:04:54
Speaker
So those two regions only account for about 16% of the global population. So around 84% of the global population not really being represented properly there. There was also some other key findings, which we'll perhaps get into. I'm going to come to Shane straight away, because actually one of those um extra findings that they summarise, four times more North Americans are identify as vegetarian than those whose diet actually reflects that label based on kind of like what they eat. As somebody who was a North American, Shane, did that come as a surprise?
00:05:31
Speaker
That's actually what what I like tuned into, I think, because I've had that very experience of people telling me they were vegetarian or vegan and then mentioning eating tuna or cheese or something that was not at all vegetarian or vegan. And so I i don't understand what the disconnect is, why they don't know what the word means. So I thought that One of the recommendations of the study was to standardize definitions. And I thought maybe that would be good, although I don't know how many of these people are actually paying attention to definitions put out by any vegan groups. But yeah, I've had that experience for sure. Yeah.
Defining Veganism Clearly
00:06:14
Speaker
well I mean, Julie, what we Europeans have have got the same issue, not quite as extreme, but it says 1.65% of Europeans identify as vegan, but only 1.01 follow a vegan diet. So same thing over here, isn't it? Can I ask what you made of this story as a whole? I think part of the explanation for some of the slightly kind of disjointed, you know, the results that don't match up, if you like, with them people's reported behaviour and value base and things is because veganism isn't just, as we know, about what people eat.
00:06:54
Speaker
It's an attitude, it's a lifestyle, it's a value base. So I think this s survey was trying to measure plant-based dietary trends as they refer to them and they don't equal veganism they never have done they never will do and for some people the term plant-based means sort of substantially plants with a little bit of meat. That's what they mean by that. So this is where the translation's happening. They call that plant-based and then the researchers, I think, are using plant-based and vegan interchangeably. So that's what where it kind of starts to get very blary. So I think much as I can sometimes feel waves of dissent and criticism directed at me for being fussy about definitions and things, I think clarity is really important.
Animal Suffering vs. Small Steps in Veganism
00:07:50
Speaker
I think it's important for two reasons. I think it's important not to bastardise a word that someone who's an animal rights activist came up with in the first place. But more importantly than anything to do with human confusion, studies, market trends, what businesses need to know or any of that data that people need for commercial reasons, more important than anything at all to do with that is the fact.
00:08:18
Speaker
that animal suffering and death and slaughter and murder is at the bottom of non-vegan behaviour. That is more important than any of it. So any of that going on, I am going to oppose.
00:08:33
Speaker
So when people are half this, baby steps that, on the way, maybe, whatever, I am not always good at praising the journey they're making. I'm seeing where they're falling short because I'm feeling for the animals that they are slaying in their wake. So...
00:08:50
Speaker
Yeah, there you go. That's me. I like Funalytics website though. If you dive into that a bit deep, there's some really interesting articles and observations and things on there. And I think the other thing that has impacted on the results in these studies that they're looking at is people being please ah people pleasers and seeing what they think the researcher wants to hear.
Research Overgeneralization
00:09:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And i I think it was last week we were covering a a story or maybe it was the week before and and where it just felt like the questions were being asked. It was, yeah, it what it was last week. It was. The world's data thing. Yeah, basically everyone's saying they're against animal ag and the practices within it. and But the questioning really seemed to be encouraging people to say that. I mean, if we come back to the sort of main chunk of this article and and indeed the headline. At the risk of sounding like a you know a privileged white person from an economically well-developed part of the world, is could could we summarise this article as saying, don't assume that research that comes from your part of the world relates to the rest of the world?
00:10:05
Speaker
Is it as simple as that? but Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think it's pretty much what's always happened scientifically is that it's always like the white male, you know, is kind of like the standard and then everybody else
Need for Diverse Vegan Data
00:10:20
Speaker
has to fit into that. So this is just, you know, white male from the northern hemispheres, you know, or... yeah so so and if that is the case then could we give some friendly critique to vegconomist who, you know, give us lots of stories and, and you know, I think they've got a good good intent at heart.
00:10:39
Speaker
Their headline, global veganism data has a major blind spot. Well, only if you assume that a study that's focused on people from Poland applies to the 1 billion people that live in China. Like, it's but you can't really criticise a study of veganism 800 people in Poland. I think I only say Poland because a lot of these studies do seem to disproportionately take place in Poland or or places like that. Those researchers are not saying this research therefore shows that the two plus billion people that live in India and China should do this. The research is not saying that, is it? Is is this really a problem?
00:11:18
Speaker
No, I think anybody with any intelligence looking at a piece of research will always look at the context of it and the sort of reach of it and the, you know, for themselves, they will they will see whether it's applicable or whether it might be translated to other areas but people can only do their research where they're doing it you know I mean there's only there are only so many resources they have at their disposal and people they can credibly recruit etc so yeah absolutely but but a good piece of research describes the limits of the population under study and they're careful to not to over generalize and all the rest of it But yeah, culture cultural imperialism, veganism is not exempt from that. It exists slavery everywhere, doesn't it? and And it would be fascinating to have data from what we can sometimes call the majority world that's not actually being represented in in most studies, ah according to this. You know, I'd be i'd be fascinated to hear about people's behaviours, attitudes,
00:12:28
Speaker
and things like that in, you know, places like, you know, mentioned India and China thus far in this conversation to to have real data on that would be fascinating. So, were yeah.
New UK Law on Tenants and Pets
00:12:39
Speaker
Okay. So let's go from global data. ah Goodness me. How, how, um how scientific and quantitative to something that's maybe playing a bit more on emotions and is close to home for for me and Julie certainly. And a change in the law from the BBC on the 1st of May, animal shelters welcome renters' right to have pets. And that is the Renters' Right Act that bans no-fault evictions. That's, I think, probably been the main headline in the UK saying, you know, if it's not your fault, then then you don't have to be evicted sort of thing. However, there is this part that is relating to animals, and non-human animals. Animal shelters say a new law giving tenants in England the right to request a pet that landlords cannot unreasonably refuse could mean fewer animals need to be put up for adoption. So basically, if you're renting a property, you can say, I'd like to have a pet and... and
00:13:45
Speaker
the landlord can't just say, no, I don't feel like it. Presumably they could give a reasonable reason why you couldn't have a companion animal in the house with you. Whatever the ins and outs of the law, ah the Cats Protection Chief Veterinary Officer Alison Richards from Bridport in Dorset says, we estimate around three cats per day at our sites across the UK are coming into care because of housing issues.
00:14:12
Speaker
And anecdotally, we hear lots of these things. The animal charity Blue Cross said the number of dogs coming into its centres has increased by 120% and the number of cats by 80% in the past four years. Although it's despite but the fact that's cited in the article, that's not necessarily related to rental issues.
00:14:31
Speaker
What do we think about this one then? i mean, it On the face of it, we could say, well that's good. fewer Fewer animals being forced to to leave families.
00:14:43
Speaker
could it Could it open the doors for less conscientious decisions about adopting animals, perhaps? Well, um I know I've mentioned before that I used to work for an animal rescue, and I can say that that housing is is absolutely a huge issue because, first of all, i don't i don't know how it is in the UK. I'm sure it's similar. There are restrictions Like apartments will have restrictions on which types of animals they allow. So they might not allow, for example, pit bull breeds. And so then we'd have somebody who'd come in and want to adopt a dog who was a mixed breed. We don't really know if it's a pit bull or not, but it might have some pit bull in it. Most shelter dogs, either either the chihuahuas or pit bulls.
00:15:31
Speaker
mixes. And then when we take a look at their apartment and call or look at their ah information on a website, they wouldn't be allowed to have that animal. So then we couldn't approve that adoption. Or we'd have to change the paperwork because, I mean, if it's a mix, you don't you don't know what it is. And we also had a lot of animals that would come back because people would move or um they might lose their housing and have to move in with family. And then the family would say, you can't have an animal here or whatever. So this was a reason for animals being returned to the shelter and also for animals coming in and also for animals not being adopted. So I think this is is ah great, but I wonder where it says about the reasonable refusal, because if they're saying, they might just say ah that it's reasonable to refuse because
00:16:26
Speaker
a cat could scratch the carpet or a dog might paw at the door. And so then there could be damage done. I mean, there's almost certainly going to be some minor damage done if you have a companion animal. I mean, if you have a child, there's probably going to be some minor damage done, which is why most people or most landlords charge a deposit for that.
00:16:48
Speaker
So I do wonder about that. And I saw that the remedy, if you were refused, was you had to like take them to court or something. And I mean, I don't know that many people that are going to take the landlord to court because they want to adopt a kitten from a shelter. so there are a lot of questions I still have.
00:17:06
Speaker
There is this ombudsman scheme, apparently, for the people who are refused, but that's not going to be up and running until about 2028.
Impact of Pet-Friendly Laws on Housing
00:17:14
Speaker
So that's not a lot of help to people in 2026, is it? The slight concern is that this piece of legislation has reputedly already caused a lot of landlords, apparently, in England, that you know the country that it relates to,
00:17:30
Speaker
to to want to get out of being a landlord and to selling and up their properties so it's going to shrink the rental market even further which is already quite small I hear. My slight concern with this is that I think it's nice to be optimistic about the impact of this on animal adoptions and all the rest of it.
00:17:54
Speaker
But the reality is that, and there was a programme on Moneybox on Radio 4, just listening to that yesterday, in fact, when people are looking for somewhere to rent, there is huge competition. It's not just, oh, well, I found somewhere I like, I'll apply. I've got the all the deposit and all the financing police. That's it, I've got it.
00:18:16
Speaker
does not work like that. There will be an awful lot of other people who are ready to move in, ready with their deposit and all the rest of it and it's down to the owners of that property to choose who they think they want as a tenant. And, you know, they will easily say, oh, well, you know, here's somebody with no children and no animals. That's a safer bet or whatever.
00:18:39
Speaker
So it still might prove a barrier to somebody having housing and that might cause them to feel that, if they really have a deadline to meet and they've got to move out their existing property they might have to give up the animal in their life so and yeah it might not have the the the impact that some of the animal charities are saying but it it might help a bit so there we go I think that's a good point, Julie, because um a few years ago, we had to ah move out of our house for a few months. And I have forecasts and a dog. So finding a place that would lease to us for a few months with five animals was really hard. And um I mean, we had to stay somewhere that wasn't really my top pick, because that was the only person who let us stay there with five animals. Yeah, stuff happens in life, doesn't it? And i think any kind of society should be able to to absorb and to come together to help find solutions for for folk who are in
00:19:46
Speaker
unavoidably difficult situations, you know you know, perhaps like the one you're describing there, Shane. And also i wonder if, I mean, maybe maybe there's a ah campaign that's already been done that I'm not aware of, but I just wonder, whether, you know, cat shelters, dog shelters, any other animal shelter
Promoting Responsible Pet Adoptions
00:20:07
Speaker
that exists. I wonder whether having a real consistent campaign, maybe not funded by them, maybe the government could could could pitch in as well, just around the messaging of before you decide to bring an animal in your life, just think.
00:20:24
Speaker
just stop and think about it. And that there will be lots of folk out there who have animals in in their lives who have done that. And there will be people who who haven't.
00:20:36
Speaker
And i just think it's about you know reducing the risk, really. And if if you've really not thought about it, same as you know a child or or any any lifestyle change or what have you, like really just considering the impact of it,
00:20:50
Speaker
if it's going to affect other people. And I know that's a privileged thing for me to say, but I don't know, that that would have a huge impact too, wouldn't it? Or maybe that's... Yeah, no, I totally agree. It's a huge commitment and it's a lot to put on an animal. You're, you know, taking it into your house is a massive responsibility.
00:21:10
Speaker
You need to as far as you possibly can know that you've got a suitable environment where you are in the first place but also you've got some kind of security as far as you know going into that animal's lifespan i think. I don't think that's unreasonable to ask.
00:21:27
Speaker
I think one of the reasons that the art the shelters were citing that they'd had so many animals returned in the last four years is is because of COVID, because there was so much adoption during that period. And then as people started returning to work in 2021, 2022, they realized, oh, don't time for this they realized oh i don't have time for this animal or I don't want to expend the time or whatever and the animals got returned. So I think that's actually probably a more likely reason for that that number, not necessarily housing. And and it's it's easy to do, isn't it? I mean, I didn't adopt an animal in COVID, but like the businesses I was running started doing really well. And I assumed that that would that trend would continue forever, which of course it didn't. well
00:22:18
Speaker
Once lockdown things calmed calm done So, you know, people, We're human, aren't we? And and we can make mistakes. and ah And thank goodness for family and friends and animal shelters to to be there when life takes ah you know an unexpected turn. that's That's what they should be there for, isn't it? If nothing else.
00:22:35
Speaker
Okay, so our next story, and which is going to be our last one before we ask Shane and Julie to tell us their picks for the week, is put a spotlight on something I didn't know had been happening, but apparently it's been a big deal and been going on since October of last
Aloka the Stray Dog in Walk for Peace
00:22:49
Speaker
year. This is the Walk for Peace, which was organized by 24 Buddhist monks who are affiliated with a meditation center in Texas in the United States under the guidance of a Vietnamese monk whose name I'm not going to try and pronounce, but they've been going around the US on this Walk for the Peace. They've been
00:23:09
Speaker
Inspired by the teachings of Buddha and his 45 year walk, the journey aims to spread awareness of loving kindness and compassion in a world increasingly shaped by conflict. I think we can all get behind the sentiment of that. What a what a noble thing to do. The reason we're we're focusing on it in the show today is because a previously stray dog from India who has been named by humans Aloka has become involved in this walk. So Aloka began following the monks despite being injured in a road accident and was eventually adopted by the monks. Now, I'm going to ask Shane and Julie if they...
00:23:53
Speaker
understood this bit here because my understanding is the walk up until recently has been going around the US, but this is talking about a stray dog from India? Yeah, i think I think that there's some something incorrect in that article because obviously this started in Texas. I knew people who went to see the monks walking. And my understanding was that this dog started following them as they were walking. And I was trying to think, is this a different dog? But then there's a whole lot in the article about flying the dog to Sri Lanka. So it's got to be that same dog. And that dog wasn't
00:24:29
Speaker
how would that dog get to Texas if he if he had been a stray dog in India? So I don't i don't know what that is about. If maybe there was a stray dog in India and somebody adopted and then the dog got lost here or something, I don't know. But yes, the dog was following them through the United States. At one point, the dog had to leave the trail and go into a i mean, there were a lot of stories. And then they were reunited with the dog. Everybody wanted to see the dog.
00:24:58
Speaker
The dog kind of ended up, I feel like, overshadowing the message of the walk, which was about peace, but then everybody was interested in the dog more than... Look at this giant dog walk. What an interesting story. Look the single dog that is walking with the monks. Yeah.
00:25:14
Speaker
Yeah. So no, I did not understand that. That was confusing to me. Yeah. I mean, the headline of the story is saying, as walk for peace begins in Sri Lanka, because the the walk... Yeah, it's separate at walk.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So they've been walking around the US for a long time. Now they've moved to Sri Lanka. um Activists call for animal rights. So there's a lot of concern for this dog. that It seems like part of the things are legal loopholes and, you know, is allowed to go to Sri Lanka, things like that, but also the dog's health. So it is, um it has been poorly. It has an undergone surgery in January of this year to treat a leg injury linked to her earlier life as a street dog. However, they've been, quote, invited. Local organisers extended an invitation with assurances of taking care of a loka. I assume that's them saying, we're inviting the humans and the dog is is welcome as well, as opposed to inviting the dog and seeing what their response was and you know gaining their consent. it
00:26:17
Speaker
It's an interesting one, this one. I mean, Julie, can I come to you first? like Do you have a gut feeling, that ah a response on this? like is Yes. that Is it okay that this that this dog is sort of front and centre in this walk for peace?
00:26:32
Speaker
No, not in my world, not in my little head. Yeah, go on. You wouldn't be surprised. yeah You know how I'm a dissenter about many things. But why, Julie? You don't just do it for the effect. There's reasons behind it. No, don't. I don't think that this is a nice experience to put a dog through.
00:26:50
Speaker
That's my first thing. There is no capacity for consent at all in any of this. These human beings are including this dog for their own purposes.
00:27:01
Speaker
which for me is an animal rights focused person, doesn't sit well. More than 20 hours of air travel for anybody. I wouldn't want that.
00:27:12
Speaker
I really wouldn't want that. But for an animal who can't make sense of what's happening, we don't have any way of understanding how confused or sick or...
00:27:23
Speaker
ear popping they might be feeling you know I mean they might be in a lot of pain and distress and discomfort and we're not you know we don't know about it we can rationalise we know when that flight's going to be over a dog doesn't know I think that's a horrible thing to put a dog through because there's twenty more than 20 hours of air travel i mean and and all the other stuff after that. you know You're putting it through an absolute ordeal. The other thing I just kind of thought of was, I hope all of those monks are vegan. If they are devoting their lives to promoting peace, compassion, mindfulness and non-violence, as they say, I hope they're not just vegetarian and consuming the products of dairy abuse of cows and calves and things like that, like most Buddhists I know who are vegetarian but not vegan. And did think it was quite funny with them and their walk promoting peace and everything. And then there's the photograph of them getting met at the airport with the wee dog, accompanied by, in the photograph we can only see a two of them, but they might have been more, two special task force soldiers in camouflage, which...
00:28:45
Speaker
It's obviously green and black, but they're in an urban setting, so rather than blending in and being hidden, they're absolutely standing out a mile with big, what looked to me like Kalashnikov rifles, you know, with their peace walk. I just thought, it just tells you everything you need to know about hypocrisy.
Animal Rights Advocacy Through Aloka
00:29:03
Speaker
Yeah, so it's ah it's an odd image, that one, isn't it? it's Really odd. Anyway, so no, that's my take on it. Apologies for anybody who is at odds with any of that.
00:29:15
Speaker
You did ask. Yeah, no, I know. I wanted to know. i mean, so the president of the Rally for Animal Rights and Environment in Sri Lanka has said that the renewed attention generated by Aloka, this dog's visit,
00:29:31
Speaker
presents an opportunity to push for reform in the animal welfare bill in Sri Lanka, including humane and scientific approaches to managing dog populations, protecting wildlife habitats. You can you can see where the well-meaning is is coming in here, can't you, Shane? But there's there's definitely holes in the consistency of this from a moral point of view. So I don't think the monks are necessarily advocating for animal rights. I think that they were walking for their peace.
00:30:05
Speaker
A dog happened to join them. The dog seemed to want to go with them. They took the dog. The dog got them a lot of attention. So they're bringing the dog along to Sri Lanka. Now the people in Sri Lanka are saying, oh, let's use the dog for their animal rights issues. But the article does mention how because people were worried about the dog walking with the monks through areas where there were a lot of stray dogs, then they thought maybe they needed to go ahead of the walk and get rid of the stray dogs. So here you have, we're going to protect one dog and kill all these other stray dogs, which kind of reminded me of, you know, like when ah a cow escapes a truck going to slaughter and that everyone's like, save the cow, but they don't care about all the other cows.
00:30:53
Speaker
And then also this this dog, as Julie was talking about on the flight, they allowed the dog to ride in the cabin, which I think is ah awesome. I don't think they should have dogs treated as baggage, but they made an exception for that. And then they also have an ambulance and veterinarians following the walk to care for the dog. So i'm just ki I don't think that this walk is any more about what it started out to be about.
00:31:17
Speaker
yeah I think Julie's right that this dog should not be taken to Sri Lanka to walk however many miles with these monks. Yeah, it's difficult as well, the fact that you you know the the dogs, that whether they're stray or or or live in homes that are domesticated, like dogs have evolved to become companion animals for for humans if they are if they're separated from a pack of dogs.
Simple Animal Rights Principles
00:31:45
Speaker
I would imagine ah you know if there's a pack of dogs...
00:31:48
Speaker
an individual is not then going to leave and follow loads of humans. However, if a dog doesn't have a pack of animals, it's same species, it is going to be attached to the human. So even if you were trying to make this walk consensual for the dog and like, oh, well, they can stop at any time, they're not going to because they're hardwired to be by those humans side as their companions. So that they are going to maladapt and they are going to put themselves in positions of pain and suffering just to stay with the people with them says he who's never lived with a dog and uh you know it doesn't he hasn't studied these things but that's my that's what i reckon anyway yeah it's a it's a complex area isn't it animal rights and and and compassion and things like that and there's lots lots for us all to learn and I think it's simple. I think animal rights is simple. You know, leave them be, let them live their lives, respect them, live beside them, not in control of them.
00:32:44
Speaker
I think it's super simple. I think it's the other humans that are more complicated. and I, for one, i would really like to burst their bubble on just another quick point.
00:32:55
Speaker
I think it's unhealthy when this sentence about, you know, going from this wee dog has gone from a stray dog on the streets of India to an international symbol walking alongside monks across continents.
00:33:11
Speaker
It's a bit like that way that the escaped wolf became revered and the mascot of the city and all the rest of it. Animals can't win. They're either getting absolutely bludgeoned to death, hidden away in factory farms, leading the most horrific lives and then consumed, or they're getting consumed in another way. They're getting given artificial status and you know expected to perform in weird ways for the public and idolized and there doesn't seem to be much in between but the bit in between is animal rights it's just about we're all on the planet let's get on these creatures are beautiful we're lucky to live beside them
00:33:57
Speaker
yeah we want to understand them and to be close to them at times but we need to respect their wishes and all of that that's the simple bit but yeah this whole idolizing animals and making them mascots and all the rest of it i think it's just as unhealthy in a way as all the other crap that humans do Yeah, it was completely misleading, isn't it? Because they're not aware of that at all. You know, it's it's ridiculous. It's completely human centric, really.
00:34:28
Speaker
Goodness, goodness. what if What a thorny conversation um we we could have if we continued on that one. But we are going to move on. We're going to move on. to Shane and Julie's picks for the week. Shane is going to give us an update. In fact, quite a significant development in the latest Ridgeland Farm Beagle shenanigans.
Ridgeland Farm Beagle Controversy
00:34:50
Speaker
That's the best word I could come up with there. There's been a latest twist. you You couldn't write it, to be honest. And Julie is going to be focusing on slightly more than 2,000 animals that that are the subject of the Ridgeland Farms shenanigans. I'll use the word again. um it Slightly more to the tune of 25 million birds that are apparently, quote, missing.
00:35:15
Speaker
Yes, but before we hear the picks for the week, remember that transcripts are available for every show. Head over to zencaster.com slash vegan-week and And from there, any show that you click on will have a written transcript beneath it. Remember that these transcripts are AI generated, so they definitely won't be 100% accurate.
00:35:47
Speaker
But nonetheless, they make our shows more accessible. So we're delighted that they're available to anyone who's interested in consuming our content in this way.
00:35:59
Speaker
Indeed, indeed. Thank you for the automated transcripts there. Most useful they are too. Right, let's get to these picks of the week then. We've got to start with Ridgeland Farms. We've been reporting on this the last few weeks. And Shane, this is your pick for the week. Things have taken a turn.
00:36:19
Speaker
Yes. So we found out on a Thursday that 1,500 of what I'm understanding are 2,000 of the dogs that have been at the Ridgeland Farms breeding facility are going to be released. There were two organizations that paid a million dollars to Ridgeland for these dogs. One was the Center for Humane Economy, which is headed up by Wayne Pacelli, who, if you recall, he used to run the Humane Society until he was fired because of some of his actions that were um brought to light during the Me Too movement. um So he's ah landed over there. And the other one was Big Dog Rescue.
00:37:00
Speaker
And then these dogs began to be released actually on Friday with the first dogs going to Big Dog Rescue in Florida. And I've seen ah quite a few videos of the dogs playing in grass, being um cared for by um various organizations that are trying to like vet them and and um evaluate them and everything so they can be sent to different places to be rehomed.
00:37:27
Speaker
I have no doubt that this failed action, the failed action in April is the result resulted in this. And um I've read a couple of articles where they're really starting to compare What happened at that failed action? and This is where the activists stormed Ridgeland Farms and they were met by the police with tear grass tear gas, rubber bullets.
00:37:52
Speaker
um Some of them were beaten. They're comparing that to the civil rights movement in the United States. We discussed this on episode 267, which was on open rescue.
00:38:05
Speaker
And we talked about how, well, I talked about anyway, about how when the public sees regular people doing peaceful activism, and then the police are beating those people, mistreating those people, that it often brings attention and support. And I feel like this is kind of what happened because...
00:38:22
Speaker
What happened when the police attacked these peaceful activists made so many people upset that Ridgeland really felt like they had no other choice but to let these dogs go.
00:38:33
Speaker
now there are still 500 dogs, but let some of these dogs go because there was so much pressure. For example, right right before this action happened, they had written to their congressman who represents that area of Wisconsin, and complained to him about what was going on. And he wrote back to them and said, well, I don't think what you're doing is right. You should let those dogs go. And he actually brought it up in and a cabinet hearing with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who is RFK Jr. So this just kept getting more and more attention and the tide turned and they had to release them. And I'll note that
00:39:08
Speaker
Prior to any of these actions in March and in April, there was no plan at all to release the dogs and nobody knew what was going to happen to them. It was assumed they would just euthanize all of them.
00:39:19
Speaker
So this is a great update to the story and and a great thing that's happening. Can I ask, Shane, I mean, it's it's definitely great outcomes for the dogs, isn't it? I imagine if I was ever unlucky enough to be held captive unjustly and someone was offering a million pounds for for mine and you know other other people's um release, then i would be saying, yeah, whatever it takes to get me out of here.
00:39:48
Speaker
and still non-captive Anthony now feels a bit like oh what are we paying them for what we paying them for does does that how does that sit with you I don't like it at all that they pay to them a million dollars I don't I wish that we didn't have to give Ridgeland any money at all and um it's like a hostage situation almost right like where oh okay you know They're going to release the dogs if they get paid a million dollars. But I guess there was they didn't the other the organizations didn't see any other way. Although I wonder if they had.
00:40:21
Speaker
waited. i mean, I would not want any dog to have to stay in there longer than necessary. But if they had waited, if maybe more pressure could have pushed Ridgeland to just giving the dogs away, I don't know. Well, and and as well, like, I mean, we don't know how those organizations have have got that money. Could it be that somebody anonymously or otherwise has said, look, what sorry, I've forgotten the name of the two organizations. a Big Dog Rescue and Center for Humane Economy. Okay, so Big Dog Rescue, I've got a a million dollars. I'm going to give it to you so long as you buy those dogs out of Ridgeland. Maybe that's how the the money has come upon it. So yeah that's very different to a charity or an organization deciding, right, we've been investing this money or we've had it in donations. Here's how we're going to use it um i'm I'm not criticizing people doing so. I think, you know, you can't put a value on a life.
00:41:14
Speaker
And it's funny that they've they've done so. Julie, can I ask you, you were you kind of foreshadowed this last week, I feel. Yeah, I think they're doing it because they were obviously listening to the podcast and they thought, oh no, enough of the falafels on our case now. I think so, and they were like, oh gosh, she's right. That Scottish girl, she's right. Trust her to think about the money. These dogs are going to cost us a blooming fortune to put down on July the 1st. We better get red. Oh, here's a nice charity worker or two with a million dollars. That'll do. Yeah.
00:41:52
Speaker
I read somewhere, this wasn't my story so I've got every excuse for not doing hardly any research, but I did read the story just because I was interested. I heard, i was distressed when I heard that they were getting a million dollars. I thought that's ridiculous, they shouldn't be getting any money whatsoever. And then I was kind of, my fears were slightly assuaged by hearing that the price that was actually paid for the dogs was apparently a fraction of their market value whatever the heck that is so either these dogs are worth an awful lot of money or i'm missing something here because I wouldn't have thought that a dog who wasn't domesticated in the work the way that we know it sense of the word, who wasn't a puppy, who probably was in quite ill health, probably hated people and might have had weird things done to and have health problems as a result, would be, you know, I'd have thought they'd have been a liability financially, not anything with
00:42:59
Speaker
you know, that somebody would pay money for, especially given how many dogs there needing homes. So I was confused by that. So i'm I'm open to correction there. But I would like to think that this won't set a precedent that these awful companies can do dreadful things to animals and then sit and wait for, you know, activists to come by with loads of money to...
00:43:24
Speaker
by the dogs that are of further use to them. you know i mean, it could easily be seen that way. and But I would like to think, I hope that that piece of information that I saw, and I can't remember where I saw it, was right. And that actually, you know, that this wasn't you know a huge amount of money in the scheme of the apparent value of these dogs. No, i think that I think that is right. I think that the dogs to a research facility, they probably will pay quite a bit of money. ah And actually these dogs, a lot of them are puppies. They are quite young because this was a, Ridgeland is a breeding facility. They do some of their own research, but their main thing is that they breed dogs to sell to research. And I don't think most of these dogs have been experimented on yet. And from what I've seen in the videos, the dogs, I mean, there are some that seem pretty fearful, but a lot of them, they're running around, they're coming up looking for attention, affection. So I think these are mostly going to be able to be rehomed. But when you think about the reason that these dogs are being able to be set free and that um everyone was doing these actions, it's because Ridgeland
00:44:39
Speaker
was basically lost its license because of abuses that of dogs during the time they were in that the Ridgelands care. So basically now they're making money, which they may have made anyway if they could sell the dogs quickly enough, I guess.
00:44:55
Speaker
But they're basically now making money off of they that the abuse that they they did because the story came to light. Yeah. I mean, it there are obvious differences to the story we just touched upon with regards to the sloth world in
Comparing Ridgeland Farm and Sloth World
00:45:10
Speaker
Florida. But but there again, you've you've you've got a story where animals are being kept in ah in a way that was inappropriate. Those 31 animals tragically lost their lives. that The thought of someone coming in and buying them just before they died and and kind of basically offsetting this awful venture that some greedy so-and-so has put forward is a bit sickening and like i say it's hard to put a price on you know to to those dogs their freedom is you can't put a price on it can you so goodness me but if you go to the website of the groups that rescued them they are fundraising off of this so i don't know
00:45:49
Speaker
yeah How are your hunting laws over there in the States, Shane? Because I'm just a bit worried about there being a bit of a market for the young, relatively fit beagles.
00:46:01
Speaker
hot Like hunting laws? Yeah, because that's what here in the u k it's beagles, you know, that are big packs of dogs, specifically beagles that are used for hunting. I'm just thinking of somebody coming up, you know, to one of these charities going, oh, I tell you, I'd love to rehome these, all these dogs you've suddenly taken in. no ah i think thats I think there's a pretty strict vetting process ah to be adopted. But also, I don't, I never, i don't think that's a thing here where people get big packs of dogs and hunt. I'll tell you what is a big thing in the States, though, is is Buddhist retreat centers. And actually, you if you divide those 1500 dogs amongst all the Buddhist centers, like there's a heck of a lot of walks for peace there that can have their own mascot.
00:46:49
Speaker
Yeah. Is that a big thing in the States, Buddhist retreat centers? I don't i don't know. no i've ah I ceased to talk sense a few moments ago. i think our humour is missing, Shane, slightly.
00:47:05
Speaker
Thank you for that pick of the week, Shane. Julie, let's move on to yours.
DEFRA's Poultry Data Concerns
00:47:11
Speaker
25 million birds missing. Now, this is this is not... literally missing. This isn't like the missing wolf that we covered last week in Korea.
00:47:20
Speaker
this is This is numbers, isn't it? they've They've been counted inaccurately. DEFRA is arguably hushing things up, aren't they? They are indeed. They really are. So DEFRA, this was reported in Farmers Weekly, by the way, that noble institution.
00:47:39
Speaker
Defra. It's mad, isn't it? How they they just like say, by the way, everyone, by the way, we're um we're doing things in a really shady way. Just thought you all should know. Yeah. DEFRA, the Department for, come on help me out here, Farming and Rural Affairs, whatever. farming Environment as well, that's the E. Oh, I know. Why did I forget they're responsible for the environment? Because they're so conscientious about it all, aren't they? It's the great job that they do of it, I think. Yeah, the rivers are beautiful. and um So they have played down the claims that
00:48:14
Speaker
these The records UK poultry are misleading and accurate. So let's start with the word poultry. It means any domesticated bird raised for meat, eggs or feathers and it includes chickens, turkeys, ducks or geese or guinea fowl or any of these wee animals. And for the purposes of this, we're talking about meat production and they get called broiler chickens.
00:48:45
Speaker
Although, disgustingly, if they are ex-laying hens that are getting used for meat, they're called boilers. Boiler hens. Isn't that yucky? Anyway, back to the story. So, the claims are made of this, you know, hidden chickens in a new report from the wildlife trusts who have...
00:49:12
Speaker
and I don't know when this happened, they went from the Wildlife Trust to the Wildlife Trusts, plural, but they have done. So there you go. It's not a typo or mistaken thing on my part. So they've brought out a report called Counting Chickens, an analysis of UK poultry numbers. And that compares the data for poultry held by DEFRA, another organisation called the Environment Agency and the Animal and Plant Health Agency. and According to this report, at least 25 million birds are missing from the data being used by DEFRA in four English counties. They've spotlighted these ones because they're the ones with the biggest population of poultry. Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Shropshire and Herefordshire.
00:50:04
Speaker
so These have the largest flocks but the issue is UK wide and this report is a follow-up to one that they did last year which was about animal lag in general it was called quantifying the environmental risks from pig and poultry production in the UK so having been alerted to the problem with numbers they then focused in on these counties they got a PhD some PhD really well qualified researcher to really drill down into what was going on in these four counties. So that's what they've done. The stats on poultry numbers are gathered by these three different agencies agencies as quoted. And they all have sort of different ways of counting wee birds and different times a year they do it and different reasons. So it is difficult to have clear and accurate numbers of chickens being raised for meat. But these variations and fluctuations and things, the researchers did all kinds of very complex calculations to take all of that into account. And the numbers are still staggering. You know, these headline figures of 25 million birds missing, you know, not accounted for it in these four counties, scaled up would be 67 million for the whole country. So what does that mean? From an animal welfare point of view and including wildlife in that, the concerns are these. If we don't know the full numbers of poultry in an area, then bad planning could happen. Because this underreporting could result in a devastating increase in water and air pollution because of the amount of manure that's produced by the farms where these animals are living, as we've seen in the Wai Valley. So that's a threat to wildlife. It's a threat to human health as well. So even without looking at the welfare point of view of the wee chickens or the wee poultry birds, you know, at all, That whole environmental impact is massive and it means that when other farms want to start up or to expand, how can they make a good decision? Because they don't have the accurate figures for what's already going on in the area.
00:52:41
Speaker
But it also highlights if they do not know how many little poultry birds are in a particular area, if they don't even know how many there are, are they monitoring their welfare and their wellbeing? They're clearly not doing that. So that's in the animal welfare angle. It's fair to say that DEFRA did make a response and they kind of just played look over here and drew attention to the work of the Environment Agency in tackling pollution.
00:53:16
Speaker
You know, it's like, oh, well, we might underestimate all these birds and the countryside might make it in a huge mess as a result. But we are tackling the pollution as a result.
00:53:28
Speaker
It's kind of cleaning up after the event, I think. So that aside, that's the animal welfare thing I spoke about. And that's the response. Oh, yeah. Just a funny quote to make you laugh from Will Raw, NFU poultry board chairman. who says that the farmers work tirelessly to ensure that our high standards of bird welfare are supported by our commitment to protecting the environment in which we live and work. Well, I wonder how many farmers live right next to the megafort the their own farms.
Criticism of Poultry Welfare Commitments
00:54:05
Speaker
yeah they do My own observations from an animal rights perspective, so this has not come from an article, it's come from my head, so there's a warning up front for everybody.
00:54:19
Speaker
Firstly, the report mentions the high mortality rate of these so-called broiler chickens and that is making the counting difficult and also the fact that there are seven to eight crops of birds a year.
00:54:35
Speaker
So can you imagine? what mean? It's like they're calling them crops like they're plants. You know, they live and die. There's seven or, you know, seven or eight birds born and killed and processed within a year in the same space. So these are wee animals that are killed between 35 and 45 days old, even at best, if you see what I mean. And if farmers are struggling to keep them alive for even that short amount of time, and bear in mind, you only had one job, you're a chicken farmer or whatever you are, You know all about chickens. You've got all this science on your ear side. You've got it all. That's what you do. That's what you're trained to do. And you cannot successfully keep a high number of those little animals alive for that short amount of time.
00:55:31
Speaker
It just shows you how compromised they are physically and how deeply, deeply unhealthy their living conditions must be. The report has also highlighted something for me that I hadn't considered before and that I wish I didn't even think about now, but now it's in my head, it's there and I can't get it out.
00:55:51
Speaker
But these schemes, like the better chicken commitment that we have here in the yeah UK, which animal welfarists support and some people who identify as vegans do too, can cause worse outcomes for little chickens and other birds. And I hadn't really thought that through before so much. But this better chicken commitment that is supposed to give chickens more space isn't necessarily about farmers putting fewer birds in their sheds so they've each got more space. That's what I had gone to in my head. That's what I had pictured when I heard about it.
00:56:33
Speaker
But oh no, what is happening, apparently, a farm can then be granted permission for larger sheds because they've signed up for this scheme. And this scheme, bear in mind, is voluntary.
00:56:48
Speaker
And there are no independent official inspectors for this. The farms themselves, the owners, are expected to appoint their own auditors.
00:57:00
Speaker
So not very much scrutiny going on there. So they can join the scheme. They can do very little about it. They can leave the scheme and great, they've got planning permission. They've got much bigger sheds. They just fill them up with even more chickens than they had before. So that's a win for them. And because the guidance about the space for chickens is their finished weight, what farmers do is overstock their sheds with young birds and then they go through a process called thinning before they're at their finished weight. They're allowed to do that one time for each flock. Like you do with herbs. Yeah, like plants, like gardening. Now, they've put in a regulation about one thinning per flock and that's ah within the Better Chicken commitment. You know, they're still allowed to do that. But if they're not signed up to that, they can thin whenever they want. And that causes distress to the chickens who are remaining.
00:58:05
Speaker
It's a horrible business. it's It's not just, oh, somebody quietly walks among them and picks some of them gently up. It really isn't that. Anyway, that's for another show. I can talk to you about chicken thinning. Anyway, it's very easy for farmers to manipulate their poultry numbers for the DEFRA Agricultural Survey because that only happens once a year and it always happens in June. So all they have to do is do a cull sometime in May and they're fine in terms of the numbers of their birds and all the rest of it.
Reducing Poultry Demand
00:58:39
Speaker
So I think the moral of this story is the only answer to combat the dreadful suffering of chickens and other birds classed as poultry in farms or anywhere really, if they're not in animal sanctuaries,
00:58:58
Speaker
is to work on advocacy that is about reducing demand as in stopping people consuming these at all not cutting down not bigger cages not better purchase not blah blah more enrichment none of that it is just about saying I don't want to be part of this you know I'm going to have something else entirely Julie, I had a question about this story. I i was a little confused because it was in a farming website, right? Like a website for farmers, correct?
00:59:33
Speaker
Like Farmers World or something like that? Yeah, Farmers Weekly. Okay. obligation yeah so they're reporting on dephra not giving accurate numbers.
00:59:46
Speaker
So why would DEFRA give inaccurate numbers? Or I mean, I guess they're saying they didn't, but why would the farmers be reporting on that? Are they not happy that DEFRA gave inaccurate numbers or?
01:00:00
Speaker
Farmers Weekly have a bit of a previous history of being quite good at just telling us what's going on, good or bad. So they are not really putting an opinion either way. They are purely reporting on what this the Wildlife Trust's report is saying.
01:00:19
Speaker
But you'll find with Farmers Weekly, sometimes they will report on animal activist activity or something in a relatively neutral fashion. So I don't think they're taking sides with this at all, but they are kind of in a nothing to hide kind of a way, just reporting, really summarising what the wildlife trusts are saying and what the DEFRA response has been. But they're not particularly aligned with either party. They are just purely reporting. as i'm I'm wondering whether they, it depends how much they know about their readership and and and and things like that and their click through on their website and things, but there is a very big anti-government sentiment where I live in Shropshire, which is a big, you know, was one of the counties that you listed there, Julie. I was, not to overshare, but I was ah using a men's bathroom in a pub today and there was a big thing like saying why the Labour government is awful just someone had printed it and like put it on the wall and this was a you know a rural rural Shropshire town and I wonder whether Farmers Weekly might be saying oh oh look at Defra they're stupid they're idiots they've got the wrong numbers because they know that that a good part of their readership think you know particularly with the what's it called the family farmers tax as it's being called that you know that farmers are ah being not exempt anymore for ah for their very large properties, and for those of them that do have very large estates. So but I wonder whether that might be
01:02:01
Speaker
but You see, DEFRA don't have the wrong numbers, though. That's not my take on it. DEFRA have got the right numbers to do what they need to do. But when a council, this is my naive understanding, I might be wrong, but my understanding is that when a council, somebody applies to a council to say, I want to open a big mega farm,
01:02:23
Speaker
that council has the responsibility to go to the right place to get the right numbers. And that's the bit that's maybe not happening. But they don't really, shouldn't just go to DEFRA because DEFRA aren't doing numbers for that reason. I think that's the point, that there are DEFRA numbers and there are Environment Agency numbers and there's these AFRA numbers as well. But what there isn't is anybody...
01:02:51
Speaker
collecting all of these different sources of information together to make the number that we really need. So they're all collecting different numbers at different times of the year for different reasons but in terms of doing the kind of number crunching that would be talking to you about potential pollution and about numbers of chicken, you know, whatever. That isn't happening. It's just not clear for anybody in the planning department to just go, this place is at saturation point. There's definitely no more getting allowed here or whatever. I think that's what DEF are saying. They're just saying, well, we've only got a certain remit. We do this. The Environment Agency, for example, they only have the numbers of farms that have 40,000 or more.
01:03:43
Speaker
chickens on them or poultry birds on them. So you can't be asking them about other smaller enterprises because they don't know that's not their business. So that's what I mean. They've all got different remits. But what the wildlife trusts are saying is we need somebody independent to actually do the crunching of the numbers so that we have the answers and we have the numbers we need. But in the meantime, planning applications are going through in absence in the absence of that and that's not good planning. And good on good on the Wildlife Trust for doing that. and i I think the reason it's the Wildlife Trust's, Julie, is my understanding, knowing a few people who work within them, is they very much are divided up into their little regions
01:04:27
Speaker
So there's the Shropshire Wildlife Trust, the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust, and they run relatively independent of one another, but do have that umbrella. Yeah, well, they seem to absorb have absorbed some other... i saw I looked on their website because i was intrigued by this pluralness, really. And um i yeah i as I sort of looked into it a bit and they've absorbed some other organisations, I think, or recognise that they work you know in that very plural kind of way in a... in a they them kind of right on way so yeah
01:05:00
Speaker
john um Yeah, yeah. fun Fantastic to of have campaigned for this and and put together this. It's quite a relatively straightforward read, I would say, that the report that they've done will include it in the show notes for you, everybody. And yeah, thank you for that pick for the week, Julie, and for yours too. Shane will include those two stories as well as others in our social media content. I say we, it's Shane who does all the hard work for that. Shane works very hard on those. So you can not only see the stories we've covered in each vegan week, but you can comment on them and you can interact with us in that way, which we absolutely love.
01:05:36
Speaker
We also love an email. I'm sure you all know it off by heart by now, but I'll tell you anyway, it's enoughofthefalafel at gmail.com. We read every single email. We do respond to each of them, sometimes not the day that you sent it or even the week that you sent it. But um ah we do get round to it eventually. And unless you tell us not to, we feature messages from you in our special mailbag shows, which we have got one of coming up this week. So we very much love having all of your voices as part of the show, if you would like it to.
01:06:11
Speaker
One last story to cover, and it's an uplifting one. It is a solution to what Julie was saying there. You know, the solution is to just not eat
Fava Beans as a Solution for Europe's Issues
01:06:21
Speaker
chicken. It's to encourage others to not consume animal products and perhaps what people should be consuming are fava beans. And it seems like a new report is suggesting that instead of one fava bean a day, we should be eating two. I don't think the report is necessarily suggesting that, but the way that the numbers are crunching, to link to our last story, suggests that um actually A big increase in fava bean production would average out as the people of Europe eating two fava beans a day instead of one, which seems to be the current average. So the article starts by saying Europe's food system faces four interconnected crises. Oh goodness, I said I was going to be uplifting, didn't i declining strategic autonomy, rising health burdens, environmental degradation, and low-income farms. Oh, what are we going to do? Well, it goes on to say legumes could fix it all. The Protein Project have charted a roadmap towards a legume renaissance in Europe.
01:07:27
Speaker
Anyone tuning in at this point of the show, this is exactly what you think the vegan podcast is going to be talking about, the European legume renaissance. So they're saying that expanding the production of legumes would generate significant benefits for the continent with fava beans showing particular promise as a catalyst.
01:07:47
Speaker
Did you know they're Europe's oldest cultivated legumes? They can fix soil nitrogen. That's a bold claim. I would have just said improve, but fine, let's go for fix. They can fix it. They can lower the need for chemical inputs, regenerate soil, reduce emissions, restore biodiversity, boost public health as a source of fibrin nutrition and strengthen farmer incomes.
01:08:11
Speaker
I could continue waxing lyrical about fava beans, but let's let's hear what Julie and Shane have to think. Shane, let's come to you first. I didn't realise that 85% of fava beans go to feed animals.
01:08:25
Speaker
that's I mean, that's a straight thing you can do straight away, isn't it? Stop giving them to animals. We'll eat them. They're great. Yeah, sounds like a similar to a lot of, most of the soy also goes to feed animals. And I think we were talking recently in a story about alfalfa or something going to feed animals. So yeah, that would, ah I mean, obviously if we stopped feeding We stopped eating animals, then we could just eat the food directly and there would be less of a hunger crisis.
01:08:53
Speaker
I have to say, honestly, i don't think I've ever had fava beans. i don't I don't think that's a very popular thing over here. What about lima beans? Because they look like lima beans. did That's what I was thinking when I was looking at the pictures. I was thinking they do look like lima beans. And yes, I have had that, although those aren't very popular either. I like them because my mom used to give them to me when i was when we were young. But whenever i serve them, my husband and my daughter are like, oh, what is this? that They think it's kind of weird. It's more common to eat like broccoli, green beans, like things like that.
01:09:25
Speaker
I think Bart Simpson is is to blame because there was and a Simpsons episode where he was saying how disgusting lima beans are. I think he was to blame there. Well, I mean, fava beans are what the Hannibal Lecter eats at the end of The Silence of the Lambs. That's my like connection to them, you know, the nice Chianti. Someone needs to do some good PR for fava beans. Julie, that I think out of anyone, that person could be you. that the the I'm here.
01:09:52
Speaker
The fava bean PR front. I am here for the fava bean. I don't call them that, I call them broad beans because I'm common.
01:10:03
Speaker
But I'm here for them. I am across these. And this thing about fixing nitrogen in the soil, it's a horticultural term, Anthony.
01:10:14
Speaker
Oh! They do something very clever with the soil that fixes nitrogen, as in fixes it in place, you know, contains within the soil. I interpreted solve nitrogen. No, no, no, And makes it available for other little plants coming along. So what you will sometimes see, certainly my way, is broad beans, I'm going to call them that, getting used as a cover crop.
01:10:44
Speaker
So just getting sown and a whole big field of them just there to do that wonderful thing they do to the soil. And they don't get harvested, they just get ploughed into the soil.
01:10:56
Speaker
Or Julie comes along out on a walk or something and she'll have a wee seat in that field, won't she? She'll just sit and pod away, pod, pod, pod and eat them till she's got a cramped stomach. But yeah, so they are a cover crop. I think they're absolutely delicious. I absolutely love them. And what I didn't know till recently is, because I always thought their pods were fascinating. and Their pods are really furry, aren't they? And thick, like little sleeping bags for the wee beans and inside. And I thought, gosh, there must be a use for them. They're like textiles. You know, what on earth can you do with these pods? It seems a shame they take up half the recycling, you know, by the time you've podded a few.
01:11:42
Speaker
this The recycle food recycle bin's full. But if you take the stringy bit off the pod, apparently, and steam it or boil up or do whatever, you can eat them. I've got some growing in my garden. I do get them in my box that I get from time to time. I didn't know that about the pods, but my box is coming on Thursday. And you are damn right. If there's broad beans in there, I'm going to eat those pods. I'll give you a report.
01:12:09
Speaker
and So yes, I think they're amazing. I love them and um I am all over the legume renaissance in Europe. It has my full backing. I'm quite interested in the work of the Protein Project and if anybody's listening from there, I would like you to be fully plant-based, please. Thank you very much. Yeah, there were some more unfortunate recommendations in this ah this legume renaissance that was still saying, oh, well, you know, we we we can still make sure it's being fed to animals. We could feed more fava beans to animals.
01:12:44
Speaker
No, come on, Protein Project. Also, their report is 88 pages long. about that I mean, they're serious about the legume renaissance. we can We can say that for sure. Oh, haven't that report, but do you know what? I'll read that. I'll read about beans for 88 pages. There you go.
01:12:59
Speaker
There you go. Well, we'll do a special vegan talk on it. That's grand. Well, thank you both for commenting on today's stories and for the research that you've put in. Listeners, if you enjoy what we do and you value it, I'm going to tell you about Ko-Fi. We've got some subscribers. We've nearly raised enough for a brand new microphone already. You can join the esteemed company of our Ko-Fi gang just by following the link in the show notes.
01:13:28
Speaker
If you can't, then that's fine. If you don't want to, that's fine. There's other stuff people can do, Shane, isn't there? to to if If they value what we do, they can they can help out in other ways. Absolutely. It's totally free to rate us on your podcast player or tell people about the show and you can share it. Easy peasy. Easy peasy. Thank you everybody for listening. The next Enough of the Falafel episode coming out will be a vegan talk episode and it's going to be available from the 7th of May and it will feature Anthony and Shane and myself and And it's going to be mailbag episode. Anyway, that's enough of the falafel for this episode. Thanks to Anthony and Julie for your contributions. Thanks again, everyone, for listening. I'm Shane, and you've been listening to Vegan Week from the Enough of the Falafel Collective.
01:14:27
Speaker
This has been an Enough of the Falafel production. We're just a normal bunch of everyday vegans putting our voices out there. The show is hosted by Zencaster. We use music and special effects by zapsplap.com.
01:14:42
Speaker
And sometimes, if you're lucky, at the end of an episode, you'll hear a poem by Mr Dominic Berry. Thanks all for listening and see you next time.
01:15:08
Speaker
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01:15:29
Speaker
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01:15:44
Speaker
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