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143- Could supermarkets pressure consumers to buy vegan products?
106 Plays1 month ago
A recent study has shown that including carbon-footprint data next to supermarket products makes people significantly more likely to choose plant-based equivalents of meat, cheese and milk. Will this happen in reality, and how could other existing e-commerce tools be used to benefit animals? In this episode, Julie, Mark & Anthony examine this, as well as nine other stories from the vegan & animal rights space from the last week or so.
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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.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9e1jv5ewqo#:~:text=A%20member%20of%20the%20South,Magistrates%20Court%20on%203%20December.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c897e1jgypdo
https://www.peta.org/blog/support-research-modernization-now/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0yrd3jlgro
https://www.league.org.uk/news-and-resources/news/calls-for-devon-fox-hunt-to-stay-away-after-hounds-invade-a-conservation-project/
https://vegconomist.com/marketing-and-media/flora-gordon-ramsay-skip-the-cow-campaign/
https://www.huntsabs.org.uk/poison-traps-and-shooting-organised-crime-on-the-grouse-moors/
https://www.farminguk.com/news/concerns-raised-over-continued-fall-in-scottish-dairy-herd-numbers_66019.html
https://www.farminguk.com/news/west-midlands-person-contracts-bird-flu-on-farm_66010.html
https://vegconomist.com/studies-and-numbers/digital-nudges-in-online-grocery-shopping-promote-plant-based-choices-research-finds/.
Thursday's episode will be based upon this brilliant 75 minute audio series: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m00268yv
Do check it out before the show!
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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!
Mark, Julie & Ant
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Enough of the Falafel'
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Welcome to your one-stop shop for this week's vegan and animal rights news. I'm Anthony, and joining me for this episode are Mark and Julie, but that is enough of the falafel. It is time for vegan week.
00:00:22
Speaker
protein. Take your lab grown meat elsewhere without doing that in the state of Florida. What about your protein and what about your iron levels? So they call the media and say, hi, sorry. They're arguing like, oh poor woe is me. Oh no. Hang on a minute, you always pick
00:00:49
Speaker
long as you didn't get the wee brilliant with the horns you'll be all alright. Does veganism give him superpowers?
00:00:57
Speaker
No I cannot fly around the city. I don't have laser vision. and Hi everyone, this is Mark. Welcome to this week's Enough of the Flaffle. Thank you for being here. Hello everybody, Julie here. But that's enough of the falafel, let's hear what's been good on in the news this week. For more details on the upcoming news stories including links to our original source material, check out our show notes for this episode available on your podcast player.
Legal Issues in Hunting Practices
00:01:32
Speaker
Okay, we're going to start off this week's show with a bit of local bias here. This one comes from about half an hour away from my front door, and it is the news that a member of the South Shropshire Hunt, who admitted interfering with a badger set, has been fined. It's only £845, but hey, it's got onto the BBC and a few local newspapers too. It's David Conde, 61 from Condova. That seems an interesting coincidence, Mr. Conde from Condova, anyway.
00:02:00
Speaker
um He'd pleaded guilty to the offence at hearing at Telford Magistrates Court last month. He's been ordered to pay a victim's surcharge of £338 and costs of £85. These amounts just ah insulting when you say them out loud. Two co-defendants from the same Hunt group, William Hand and Toby Holly, both pleaded not guilty at a previous hearing and they're due to go on trial at the same court in June.
00:02:26
Speaker
So in terms of the the offence this comes to us from the Hunt Sabs website covert camera footage captured in January 2024 clearly showed Hunt Terrierman David Cahn blocking an active badger set with his spade and after he blocked the set the hounds were put in the woodland and Huntsman Daniel Cherriman who's previously been convicted of illegal fox hunting is seen on another hidden camera at the artificial fox earth. He looked down at the pipe entrances clearly showing that he knew it was there and what it was for
00:02:58
Speaker
he then used his horn to call the hounds over the artificial earth but Mark they've not got away with it. No they haven't and this is more of the same ever since I've been involved in this movement there has been evidence gathered of hunts when they were legal and now they're illegal doing this and many other things that are dodgy at best and very illegal at worst so it's ah wonderful that the the ongoing easiness and cheapness of spying on people essentially is is able to ah sort of and enables the animal rights movement to hide tiny little cameras for long periods of time outdoors to catch these guys blocking earths ah making artificial earths feeding foxes and leaving food out for them in order to hunt them later giving light to the idea that they're there to control the numbers of foxes they actually increase the numbers of foxes if if there isn't enough foxes for them to hunt in a given area
00:03:57
Speaker
like they introduced the fox to Australia ah for instance simply in order to hunt it a couple of hundred years back so as I say it's it's more of the same for friendly friendly listeners out there who are a bit confused as to what all this artificial earth things and all that is about so what they're doing the the ah hunt by blocking up a badger set it it it provides one less place so for a terrified fox to hide in So it it keeps the hop at the fox above ground for longer, therefore prolonging the the chase and the hunt. So it's it's illegal to do that. The badger is a protected species and the badger set is protected by law. But the poultry fountains that are handed out aren't really a deterrent to these guys at all.
00:04:43
Speaker
The only thing that you can hope for is if and when they're caught again, they may face at some point a small amount of time inside. yeah But it's a bit of a way to down down
Reporting Wildlife Crime and Media's Role
00:04:55
Speaker
the road really. What the new Labour government should be doing is looking at all these offences and making them a lot ah making the um menu of punishments available to the judge and magistrates a lot broader and including mandatory prison time, I would have thought.
00:05:11
Speaker
Question please, my lad. Go on, go on. Who was the victim who got £338? pos Who was the victim in this? and Was it the badger whose home was impeded for a particular amount of time? What is a badger going to do with £338 quid, I wonder? Who's the victim? Who got the victim surcharge, please? Yeah, not that you mentioned that, yeah.
00:05:38
Speaker
I really tried to dig around in this one because the the BBC reported very little. yeah The Shropshire Star reported very little as well and interestingly turned comments off on their page. Normally these sort of tabloid local newspapers, the way that they get their ad revenue is by having loads of comments and people are drawn to it and stuff like that, but they turned it off. um It's really hard to find detail like most of the detail we've had.
00:06:06
Speaker
has been from the hunt sabs. It's just a very affluent badger kind of swaggering around, you know, oh, yeah, I had a bit of disturbance at my house, but do you know what, you know, hey, drinks are on me, boys. It's pathetic, isn't it, that the lengths that these people will go for this sick hobby, that they're going around just saying, oh, no, you're you're not allowed to escape there. We won't let you go down that hole. It's like, oh, come on, like, get the, you know, but guess a beauty offset or take up synchronized swimming or something like what?
00:06:36
Speaker
What a sad little way to spend your time. But yeah, like like you say, Mark, you got to hope that these things be timed up because I would have thought that amount of money, you could just spread that amongst next year's subs for for joining that local hunt. Like if you spread that between all the neighbors of the hunt, it's nothing.
00:06:54
Speaker
Really? i I would imagine that the hunt that they're connected to would probably pay all of that fine for them. um it It does bring to mind a similar case of of people. There was a guy caught going out with equipment to go hair coursing a couple of months back in the UK. And again, he was ah he was brought in front of the courts and given a tiny fine of a couple of hundred pounds, but he also had to pay £18,000 to the RSPCA's lawyer team.
00:07:22
Speaker
because if you lose a case like this then it's you that pays the ah opposition's lawyer cost so they clearly went for the most expensive lawyer that they could, the RSPCA, and slapped that bill on him so that those was £18,000 on top of the couple of hundred pounds that he was fined so there is some justice if if you have if you have if you have if you have a bit of luck with you but yeah these are fines are pathetic and they aren't even going to be paid by the individual concerned yes it's a joke really indeed well to talking of a joke our next story also comes from the bbc and i believe this is possibly going to make
00:07:58
Speaker
certain listeners blood boil with the
Ethics of Deer Culling in Scotland
00:08:01
Speaker
irony of it. So the report comes from the BBC saying that gamekeepers say they have been spared the mental torment of shooting pregnant red deer at times when they are close to giving birth. Just take a moment to digest that.
00:08:15
Speaker
So this is the Scottish government who had proposed extending the open season on female deer as part of measures to control deer numbers and protect wood and peatlands from overgrazing. I mean, this is full of euphemisms, really. it's it's We're talking about just shooting innocent deer here. But anyway, that had been proposed. But the hero of the tale, Jim Fairley, the Agriculture millist Minister, has now said that the change will not be implemented The Scottish Gamekeepers Association, which opposed the proposal, said gamekeepers would have been sickened by the prospect of killing a heavily pregnant hind and its large unborn calf. Imagine if there was some alternative. Anyway, annual culls across all the species have involved between 100,000 to 200,000 animals. Jim Fairley said, in coming to this decision, I have taken careful note of the potential distress caused to
00:09:13
Speaker
many stalkers, no mention of the deer here, that the the did distress calls to many stalkers by being required routinely to shoot heavily pregnant female deer and I have decided against any wider change to the timing of the female close season. Chairman Alex Horuk added, deer managers have a difficult job to do and they are not uncaring people. There is only one person that I want to in the whole world to comment on this story and that is you Julie. Take it away. Pass the ball to me. Well, if it were true, not calling anybody a liar, but if it were true,
00:09:51
Speaker
that in witnessing the death of a pregnant deer who's heavily pregnant um would really, you know, cause so much mental distress in gamekeepers, what they're saying effectively is that they can do their job as is with no compassion, no effect on their mental health, they are killing indiscriminately, you know, without any worry about it. But what they're concerned about is that something about killing a pregnant animal is going to invoke in them some kind of feeling of regret, of guilt, of compassion, and that is enough to affect their mental health. How do they think that other normal people feel on a day-to-day basis knowing that innocent animals are getting killed all over the place? I think that it's partly to do with the fact that
00:10:43
Speaker
When a deer is shot, as soon as it's shot, it has to be something called Gralacht in Scotland. I think it's called field dressing in England. So in order that, because this sentient being has now become a lump of meat, soon to become some venison, they cannot risk having the internal organs and the digestive system, for want of a better expression, contaminating the so-called meat. So the animal has to be growled where it lies, which involves slitting it with a knife.
00:11:19
Speaker
and tying off its footpipe and tying off effectively getting the poo back into its tummy and then that rectum tied off. Lots of sort of things have to happen in the field as is. Sorry Ann, you're drinking there. I'm glad you're not eating. So there's a lot of innards need to be sort of fiddled about with.
00:11:43
Speaker
And I suppose the last thing they want to then deal with is fiddling about with a big thing, big fawn basically, that will be dying. They don't actually need to knife it or shoot it or anything because it will die outside of its mum, a horrible death of suffocation actually. But you know, they don't want all that because they're not allowed to leave the innards lying about. They have got to tidy everything away. So it's not this thing about, you know, somebody goes and shoots a load of deer going deer culling and they just rot away like if they died naturally. Everything's picked up and monetised and turned into venison and the bits are tidied up and in fact their heads are cut off and their hoofs are cut off once the gallerkin bits done, you know.
00:12:33
Speaker
So yeah, there's a lot of that going on and I think that pregnant deer just cause more work for them. I'm being cynical but that's what I'm saying about it. There are a lot of weird things about deer culling that don't add up, you know, and whenever any of the people involved say things about animal welfare, you can bet your bottom dollar that there's a good chance that what they mean is profit, convenience or whatever.
00:13:01
Speaker
you know, this thing about deer damaging this, that and the other, they happen to be animals that can be eaten and get a lot of, you can get a lot of money for their meat. If they weren't edible, I think, you know, there wouldn't be so much interest in killing them. The Scottish government has recently put up between five and six million pounds for funding for the culling of deer, for damage that the deer is doing that they say comes to a cost of three million. Do the sums there. Yes, it's costing the taxpayer a lot of money per deer to have them killed and we'd rather they were not, but there you go. Can I ask here right, so would the national predator of an animal like a deer in summer like Scotland have been wolves?
00:13:52
Speaker
I believe so are links perhaps. And are there ah is there a talk of them being being being being reintroduced to Scotland and at some point or am I getting that mixed up? No, there's always talk about that. There is always talk about that. But no action as such yet, no.
00:14:10
Speaker
I don't think there's any roaming around that I know of. There might be some in enclosed spaces. I do not know the answer to that. But, you know, once human beings in their infinite lack of wisdom start messing around and bringing things back, there's always a danger that ah all is rosy in the garden for long enough and then oh suddenly oh do you know what there's too many links or we don't like that colour we like those ones or you know and then there starts a big culling campaign or they're bringing a funny disease in we didn't have before or you know I think you just have to sometimes
00:14:46
Speaker
go with the flow that you have created and make the best of it. But I think there's a danger in continuing the paradigm of anthropocentrism and we know best and we'll have this number of animals here and cut this down and do this and that. Bit dangerous thinking. i so so I spent a bunch of time at Fastlane Peace Camp. Julie, i I presume you've heard of that outside. Yes.
00:15:09
Speaker
and ah at night times in the caravans it's it's sort of the peace camp and for any listeners out there it's a bit like Greenham Common but it's mixed and and it's still there. and It's still there now in fact I think it's been there for about 40 years and it's across the way from the Trident nuclear submarine operation run by the British government and army and it's a protest camp and everyone there stays in teepees and caravans and such. And at nighttime there'd be these wild, savage sounding animals making this mad noise out somewhere in the moors. And we were told that there that that that there used to be a zoo somewhere in the area yeah and a close down and and a lot of the animals escaped, including these wolves and all these mad animals. And it was them that was making the sound.
00:15:55
Speaker
But I don't know if that was the Scottish activists just taking the piss out of us because we didn't know any better or if there was some food to that. But there are some wild sounding animals out in those foothills of the highlands there. Yeah, I don't know what they are. Well, we I mean, we don't want to upset their local gamekeepers and you know they they might be quite sensitive to the idea that theyre ah there are you know sensitive animals out there.
00:16:17
Speaker
i I was just wondering, Jim Fairley, maybe we should send him some some footage from the dairy industry, you know, because he seems to be very switched on to like, no, people would be really upset by, you know, pregnant animals being exploited, hurt, killed, one hundred you know, maybe he needs to learn about the dairy industry, could be a secret weapon.
00:16:39
Speaker
And it might be just coincidence, but I wonder if maybe the venison you get from female deer who's just on the point of about to give birth just to kind of before the spring grass is really in, whether that's maybe not, you know, best.
00:16:54
Speaker
yeah yeah There's all of that. We shall see. Yeah. Venison is worth seven million a year in Scotland. It all adds up. It all adds up. Well, from ah from one slightly ironic sounding story to almost the most ridiculous story of the week, although with with Donald Trump blaming air traffic control problems to too much diversity, I don't think anything can quite top
Unique Legal Consequences for Animal Welfare Violations
00:17:21
Speaker
that.
00:17:21
Speaker
But a close second, a Pakistani YouTube star has been ordered to create 12 animal welfare videos as punishment for illegally owning a lion cub. Obviously, not not a joking matter, the owning of a lion cub. Raja Bhatt, who has 5.6 million subscribers, was pictured with a cub after he was given it at his wedding last month by the owner of another YouTube channel. Clearly, Pakistani YouTube stars are very affluent people.
00:17:50
Speaker
under a community service order mister but has been ordered to produce a five minute video per month for a year to educate his audience very novel the cub has been moved to Lahore Safari Zoo by authorities so um no great story for that that particular line unfortunately In a statement, Mr. Burt said he regretted accepting the cub and acknowledged that keeping wild animals in such circumstances is inappropriate. His rehabilitation has started already. As a social media influencer, I should create positive content. I was not authorised to keep the lion cub and by doing so I set a wrong example. He's definitely got a lion tail between his legs there, hasn't he? Very downbeat downtrodden.
00:18:34
Speaker
A court has also ordered the wildlife department to help Mr Burt produce his educational content. Tariq Januar, director of la fort Lahore Safari Zoo, told local media that lions cannot be domesticated and keeping them was both cruel to the animal and the danger to humans.
00:18:54
Speaker
mark i don't think we can dispute the fact that like people shouldn't have lion cubs what what do you think to this um this uh this order though this community service order like is is that like a really progressive thing like turn this into a positive or is it a bit tokenistic? Yes, I think the ah sentence was very appropriate given the circumstance. He's probably well off if he's going along to weddings where pet lions are being passed around as presents. So I think finding him could have been irrelevant really and not made any impact. Getting him to speak to his extensive audience
00:19:28
Speaker
probably is going to have a lot more of an impact and in a place like Pakistan where animal welfare regulations may be quite slack, um I think this this could be a creative use of this time. Yeah, it would it be interesting to see the content. I mean, I have i have to say, I ah don't know what kind of content he normally creates but I'd be really interested to see because he's already talking like with his tail between his legs but i'm slightly concerned but if it's when it says the the wildlife department will be helping in produce producers educational content if that is the wildlife department at the local zoo i'm not quite sure like what that content's gonna be i don't know we'll wait and see i guess it'll be all out on youtube yeah yeah well we you know we'll we'll have at least one news story per month coming from the Pakistani social media space. So yeah, watch this space. Right, moving on to something a bit closer to home.
Confrontation Over Land and Endangered Species
00:20:23
Speaker
The Devon-based conservationist, author and farmer, Derek Gao, has hit out at the Lammaton Hunt after its hounds invaded his land, which is home to a project for rare and endangered native species. This comes from the League Against Cruel Sports website. follows an incident on Saturday January the 11th on his 400 acre farm near Launston in which Derek found five hunt hounds running amok in what he believes could have been a suspected illegal fox hunt. The dogs were found next to avaries
00:20:56
Speaker
containing sensitive turtle doves apparently which are being bred for release in southwest england where they are virtually extinct apparently he said the incident was a absolute disgrace exposing the whole facade of trail hunting the hunted either lost control of their dogs or they were hunting a fox he has now written to the hunts to inform them that any further trespass on his land by them or their dogs will be met by an injunction to prohibit such unlawful behavior and just ah little call to action for anyone who is ah suspecting or experiencing similar the public in the UK you can report wildlife crime to the league against cruel sports animal crime watch service the number is 0300 444 1234 the link will be in the show notes as will be the email address which is crime watch at league.org.uk they've also got a whatsapp number
00:21:49
Speaker
that you can message 0755 2788247. What do you reckon, Julia? ah I was a bit distracted by conservationist, author, and farmer. That threw me a little bit, but otherwise it seems like someone's standing up against the hunt, which I think is a good thing.
00:22:05
Speaker
Yeah, Derek Gough. Derek Gough. He is a very likeable mountain of a man. He is the rock star of rewilding. His moral compass is all over the shop when it comes to animals, I would say. But he's very interesting. I really like him. I'm his friend on Facebook.
00:22:28
Speaker
and I'm proud of it. But i I think for a start the hunt were taking an enormous risk at all. They were very silly. They mustn't have known whose land they were near because for them to be anywhere near Derek Gough's land is if anybody's going to have a sabre-toothed tiger prowling around it's him. He's got all kinds of things on there. He used to have a conventional farm. He and changed over from that I think 2018 or something like that
00:22:59
Speaker
and replaced the animals with all kinds of wild things and things that were, you know, but he went back as far as he could to ancient breeds of this that and the other. So he's got all kinds on there and yeah, the hunt where they're always very daft anyway but they'd either gone after a fox or they had done their so-called trail hunting very close to his land but He's been on Facebook since saying, you know, they said they'd apologized there. He says it's, you know, pardon the pun, a pack of lies. They didn't apologize to him. They lied about that. And he didn't see anybody laying any false trails for trail hunting either. So, yeah, they're just at it again. Read the room, hunt people. Nobody likes you anymore. Just go, all of you. But I'm sure there are lots of local hobbies in in Devon that they could take up instead. So, you know, paddle's quite popular these days, isn't it? That sort of tennis equivalent. There'll be all sorts going on. It's a progressive place, Devon.
00:24:07
Speaker
I know there's things where you can dress up in funny clothes and pertains. A lot of times. Indeed. Indeed. Well, we've already mentioned a call to action there with regards to the league against cruel
Modernizing Animal Testing Practices
00:24:22
Speaker
sports. And if you're an American listener, there is a call to action. And then next story, obviously there is a new administration taken home at the White House. And Peter say the time is now.
00:24:33
Speaker
to replace experiments on animals with far more effective animal-free methods to assist the new administration in its goal of cutting waste and safeguarding human health. Peter's scientists have released Research Modernization Now, what they call a bold, inventive strategy to end failed experiments on animals and transition to cutting-edge human-relevant science. So Research Modernization Now is an update to Peter's groundbreaking research modernization deal um They say it's the only comprehensive common sense strategy for carefully replacing experiments on animals with organs on chips, advanced computer modeling techniques, artificial intelligence and other the methods that use human cells, tissues and data. um Now as part of the press release for this, they they actually outline
00:25:24
Speaker
The evidence of the failure of animal experiments based on decades of studies and they say the failure rates of animal experiments in specific disease areas are ludicrously high they quote numbers of ninety nine point six percent for Alzheimer's disease ninety six point six percent for cancer,
00:25:43
Speaker
100% for HIV vaccine, stroke and sepsis, which are numbers I've not come across before and I'm not um not sure what what they're based on. i mean Mark, what was your understanding on on that? Is it saying basically for for every test that's done that it it only kind of counts as a success if you've sort of found the solution, does it? I'm not too sure. I must commend Peter on their optimism, considering that the guy that's in the White House and and his team around him seem as animal friendly as, you know, your local butcher, you know. So I think they're they're enormously optimistic about what they might achieve working with this administration.
00:26:25
Speaker
and But in terms of the they reports that 99.6% of Alzheimer's disease, drugs tested on animals turn up at like a failure on things. um I'm not too sure where they're getting that information from. It is very striking numbers and basically condemns animal experimentation as being sorts of like witchcraft or something like this in in its efficacy in its efficacy of treating the human condition. It just goes to show, I guess, that using non- abusing-human animals to test drugs that are meant for humans is sort of a ah dead end really in the first place. and So they are very effective numbers.
00:27:05
Speaker
I've always felt that the way to tackle the vivisection issue is by going at it on a scientific basis because most people are quite content to see animals being experimented on if there's a chance that that that there's a cancer cure in there somewhere. I think if people were aware of how scattergun and ineffective animal experimentation is and how dangerous it can be to extrapolate results from one animal to another animal and the negative impacts that that can have, which can be fatal, then a I don't think video section can be tackled morally with efficiency. I think it needs to be a tackle it on a scientific basis. the the The unscientific nature of it needs to be exposed, I think.
00:27:48
Speaker
And this is one step towards it. As I say, working with someone like Donald Trump, I can't see much much sort of happening from that. But no, but I don't think sort of we have to take their their press release tone seriously. I mean, that they they will very often put press releases out saying, oh, we want to do this. And and they they clearly don't. It's just a way of of getting it in, isn't it? And being topical and things like that. I mean, they ah in terms of what you're saying, Margaret, showing the kind of lack of efficacy,
00:28:17
Speaker
They do give some general statistics as well as those disease specific ones. They say that about 90% of basic research, most of which involves experiments on animals, fails to lead to effective treatments for humans and 95% of new drugs that tests safe and effective in animals then fail in human trials sometimes causing severe side effects such as anaphylaxis or even death. So that they're covering that nicely aren't they? i My opinion is it's is a good press release and any excuse to to get that out is is good isn't it? Good for them. Good for them. Well talking of researching on animals I was thinking
00:28:55
Speaker
that the most wound up Julie could get was this story about deers in Scotland and being pregnant and saying all the gamekeepers will be upset but actually I'm going to carry out an experiment now because I've got a story that involves Gordon Ramsay sitting on a cow swearing whilst holding a
Advertising Ethics in Animal Rights Messaging
00:29:12
Speaker
cake. So I'm going to see if that provokes more of a reaction or not. I'll let you know the results listeners. So plant based butter and spread band Flora have partnered with world renowned celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay for a new iteration of its award winning
00:29:28
Speaker
skip the cow campaign, according to vegeconomist.com, in a 20-second ad that I've definitely watched it. Julie, Mark, have you seen this one yet? I haven't seen it. Yeah, I've seen it. Okay, well, link will be in the show notes for those that haven't. The narrator, Ben Ashenden, asks whether Flora's plant-based butter works well in baking. So-called Susan, the cow who featured in a previous Flora campaign, nods her head, apparently.
00:29:55
Speaker
Cow says yes, goes on the narrator, could seem biased, let's ask an expert, and then the camera pans to Gordon Ramsay, who is sitting on Susan. Is that a serious question? says Ramsay. Just look at this effing cake. Julie, what did you think of this one?
00:30:13
Speaker
I was lost for words the first time I watched it. I watched it a few times over. Don't give him all your clicks. The first... Oh, it's too late now. The first thing that struck me was the product itself is kind of at a funny angle as it's first presented to us.
00:30:33
Speaker
So one corner is resting on top of a white plastic lidded pedestal that to my eye is reminiscent of a toilet. So, you know, I mean, it's kind of, it looks like it's in mid-air kind of being aimed at a toilet. And then there is what looks like a computer-generated cow on there. I mean, let's hope it is.
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah, it does look like it, doesn't it? And then there's this sort of wording about this product hasn't been through a cow as if that is just a funny way of putting it. It's like, well, cows are manky things and this hasn't been through a cow, so it's better. You know, these horrible cows haven't been involved. we've We've left them out of this process. Those dirty, nasty cows. It's not been through a cow, it's better.
00:31:28
Speaker
And it's not talking about any of the morality of how great it is that it hasn't come from, not about being through a cow like a piece of poo, but that it hasn't been produced by an abused animal for her baby calf who's been ripped away from her and killed or further abused, you know.
00:31:49
Speaker
I mean so for context, if I can quickly interject, like that their previous or a previous ad campaign that they did around about 12 months ago was using the word weird a lot and we we mentioned this in our discussion of the Vagagory campaign that was using the word weird and they they sort of called it like butter but without the weird cow bit or we skip the weird cow bit. So I think, i think ah assuming they're continuing the same narrative rather than oh it's dirty it's blah blah I think they're sort of saying oh it's weird which initially I was a fan of I have to say I quite like that but they've lost a few points for me on this one just the fact these sat on it I don't really like
00:32:35
Speaker
Oh, I hate that. I was coming to that. I've not even got to that bit of my critique yet. But I always, with the animal industry, I always in my head, if I'm weighing up why it's really grating on me, i and if I'm trying to translate that to someone who isn't feeling it, I will always say, replace this with humans and children. Do you know what I mean? So abuses abuse is abuse.
00:33:03
Speaker
So, you know, if children were being abused as part of some kind of industry and then somebody was finding a better way to produce the items that these children were being abused to produce, it would still be utterly heinous to make reference to some aspect of that but totally miss out the whole moral argument. It's the kind of moral equivalent of, you know, when you damn something with faint praise and you just miss the point, this is what this is doing. It's just, it's insulting to the whole kind of ethical debate that people have around the dairy industry. Just, it I find it a offensive.
00:33:47
Speaker
And I find it offensive that he is sitting on the not even the back on the bum of that cow, you know, in a sort of dominant position like that. And it's almost like they're trying not to sell this product. They're not showing it. It's in a package. They're not showing it doing what it does. When you I don't even have a telly, but i've as a child I saw adverts for spready things and you could see them getting spread on bread and toast and close-ups of things all shiny and gleaming and all the rest of it. It's, you know, it was just sitting there at a funny angle in a package and Gordon Ramsay isn't smiling. He's kind of like
00:34:37
Speaker
he's almost, he's just avoiding the question and then, you know, he could equally be saying, look at this cake, it's horrible or it's disastrous or something like, what kind of question is that? You know, say when you're in a tricky situation, maybe in a relationship and somebody's confronting you, you don't want to answer it, that's what you come back with. Oh, what kind of question is that? You know, where have you been or, you know,
00:35:00
Speaker
You've got something to cover up. That's what you're going to come by. How dare you ask that question? What kind of question is that? So, yeah, I think it's horrible. If people buy this product, good on them, but it won't be on the back of this advertising campaign, I don't think, unless I am just totally out of touch with consumers and all the rest of it, I don't think that advert would be persuading anybody I can think of. but Good for Florida for making plant based items. That's all I can say. Yeah. People will buy it because because they've seen Gordon Ramsay with it. You know, that that I think that's as simplistic as some people's some people's brains are consciously or otherwise. You know, ah ah I'm not really being damning of people. I think that's just a psychological thing, isn't it? I thought what was interesting was that in the press release that you read,
00:35:54
Speaker
He does say flattering things about the product, which is good. You'd you'd think, well, what you know why not say that in the advert? But I guess if it's only a 20 second slot, they they've got to make ah a stylistic decision.
00:36:05
Speaker
But then, interestingly, the things he says, oh, it works great with scrambled eggs. And he's just like, no, no, no, no, no, no. So with Ramsay, then, I assume he's done some sort of a like about turn on on his stance towards veganism and stuff like that. I haven't followed the guy. I find all these guys to be really obnoxious and self-opinionated and really hard to listen to. But the the ah the last I remember is someone like Gordon Ramsay.
00:36:33
Speaker
very much against the whole plant-based eating vegan thing because it wasn't manly or some sort of macho sort of reason like this. So has he sort of to turn ah done about face on this now recently? No, he hasn't. He definitely hasn't. He's been asked this question. I think it's just if he finds singular products that work quite well for the kind of stuff he produces and works and somebody gives him a shed load of money Yes, he'll promote them. I was going to say, I think it's the latter, isn't it? I think it's just a case of not burning any bridges. I think he had a sort of stereotypical gammon response when discovering that there were vegans in the world. But now it's like, oh, do you know what? If I'm not quite as obnoxious, I might be able to make some money because
00:37:21
Speaker
rightly or wrongly, plant-based food providers will be like, ah, if we can get Gordon Ramsay to saying this is ah this is a good thing. In a similar way to, I i seem to remember, it was Chris Packham saying, oh Jeremy Clarkson, you should try veganuary. It's kind of like almost a badge of honor. it's It's like, wow, look, even this really obnoxious person is trying it. And it's like, no, no, no, if they're really obnoxious, just leave them out the conversation. You know, don't give them me your attention.
00:37:48
Speaker
He's not stepping outside of the obnoxiousness too far in this advert either because he's not smiling or... Do you know what I mean? That's his brand though, isn't it? That's his brand. Yeah, totally. In a bit of an hour. Anyway, well, believe it or not, believe it or not, there are three more stories this week that we feel even more strongly about than the last six, so they are coming up right now.
00:38:16
Speaker
Right, Mark, why don't you kick us off?
Environmental Impact of Grouse Shooting
00:38:18
Speaker
What is your pick of the week this time? Okay, so my pick of the week is from the mighty Hunst Habituars Association and their report on grouse shooting and all the all the criminal activity and the ecological vandalism that grouse shooting the grouse shooting industry requires to maintain itself ah just just for listeners who may not be aware of what grouse shooting is and where it takes place and such so grouse shooting is the shooting of grouse by really rich tossers generally who pay up to 10 grand a head
00:38:53
Speaker
to go off and spend one night in an old castle or some sort of big house and then get driven out to these very bleak Emily Bronte type moors where nothing really grows past your your ankles. Everything's very windswept and very open. And it's kept that way artificially so that these rich tossers can go out and shoot these birds out of the sky more easily than if there was trees or bushes or hedgerows in the way. I think I'm right in saying, sorry to interrupt Mark, I think it was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite form of hunting, wasn't it? i I seem to remember. If you want a picture like the ultimate rich tosser. Yeah, yeah it is it is very much the the purview of pet of people with with a luck with a lot of money for for various reasons.
00:39:39
Speaker
and I've never actually sabotaged one of these ah hunts, but I understand that the people who do take an enormous risk by placing themselves in between the hunter and the quarry by um standing up and and making a show of themselves as soon as the hunt is on, so that legally these these guys, these these are hunters cannot proceed with the hunt because there's people in the way. But of course, if you're dealing with a very irate huntsman who is armed and you're standing in his way,
00:40:08
Speaker
there's ah There's always the likelihood of getting shot. It's never happened, thankfully, but the risk is always there. So anyway, grouse shooting, it involves setting fire to massive tracts of land, to often on peak bog land, releasing tons of carbon into the sky, devastating all the flora and fauna on that land, except for the grouse who were kept apart and well-fed and kept in cages until they the hunt is on.
00:40:36
Speaker
It starts on the 12th of August every year, the glorious 12th and that is always sad. It's actually a huge industry and up to something like 13% of the the land mass of Scotland is given over to grouse shooting. So a huge millions of acres of land across the UK are kept in an artificial retarded state essentially by gamekeepers who eliminate anything except for the grouse that they then want to shoot. so all the animals that might predate on grouse are hunted and poisoned ah out of existence and the and the growth is is kept artificially low so it's a real act of massive vandalism simply to provide really rich torsers with something to shoot and it's it's a total disgrace it is unbelievable that that is still going on
00:41:27
Speaker
and it shows how well connected these people are because if anyone else from a different social class try to impose their idea of fun on such a large tract of land and destroyed it in the process, they would be imprisoned I would imagine. But because these people are so well off and so well connected, they get away with it.
00:41:46
Speaker
And as long as they keep paying their massive amounts of money to do it, then it's it's ah it's a thriving industry and people want to keep it that way. But it is a complete disgrace. so And thankfully, that they the Hans Sabotages Association are one of the many organizations that are tackling this issue head on. And as well as sabotaging the grouse shooting, they're also encouraging the government to try and close the loopholes that allow grouse shooting to continue.
00:42:12
Speaker
So yeah, that is my pick of the week. Yeah, I really like the i really like the article but because I think what it's it's done well is it's it's shining a light on things and educating people on things that aren't aren the sort of front and center when people think about hunting, I think in in the UK at the moment it tends to be foxes that they're that they're thinking of so there's an element of of understanding of of that but the the the whole thing of of how many other animals are affected by this because they're they're basically just getting in the way or they're they're affecting these perfect conditions for shooting that's horrific and I think you never know who's going to be swayed by what information you know it might be that shooting birds out of the sky is so normalized
00:42:58
Speaker
that actually that's not going to seem horrific to somebody but the fact that like huge swathes of animals that that that's their home and they just get poisoned or or sent elsewhere or whatever that could be the thing that that sways somebody to think actually this this is horrific yes with um with the so-called sport of grouse shooting there are former animals killed as collateral damage so-called than the quarry itself. So the ah amount of grass killed every year pales in comparison to the amount of animals that are shoved aside every year in order to make way for the shooting of the grass. So yeah I totally agree and I think the ecological vandalism on the broader scale that that grass shooting involves is just as appalling if not more so than the actual
00:43:45
Speaker
just simply shooting birds for fun idea. Well, Julie, your pick for the week is also Scottish based. it's It's like a whole Scottish special that we've got
Challenges in the Scottish Dairy Sector
00:43:55
Speaker
this week. Do you want to give us some more information?
00:43:57
Speaker
So yeah, this is a story about my most hated industry. I try not to hate on too many things but the dairy industry is one thing I just can't avoid. So this is the news that in Scotland the dairy sector has raised concerns over the continued decline in herd numbers with the latest figures showing a fall of 23% over the last decade.
00:44:23
Speaker
The Scottish Dairy Cattle Association has revealed a net decrease of 30 dairy herds during 24, bringing the total number of milking herds to 764. NFU Scotland, that's the National Farmers Union,
00:44:40
Speaker
have said the decline was disappointing and blaming it on rising input costs and labour shortages. They're saying that the number of dairy cows decreased by 257. Yeah, so figures. Just the whole thing is dropping a bit and what they're saying in response is the thing that is the most worrying about this because I'm pleased that the numbers are going down. That's a good thing.
00:45:08
Speaker
But Bruce Mackie, the chair of the NFU Scotland's Milk Committee, is saying that although this is disappointing, one of the responses to this and one of the reasons that herds are smaller is that they are not carrying the carbon cost. Put it into carbon terms to get everyone on your side of unproductive animals. So what they're effectively saying is They are killing off what they see as unpredictive unproductive cows quicker and they are couching that in terms of, oh well, we are saving, you know, our our carbon footprint is smaller because we're being very efficient in killing these poor animals earlier. So the minute they are not, you know, ah at full production, they all get killed.
00:45:59
Speaker
slaughtered, of course, so that's what they're saying. But the other thing that they're saying that I think is really horrible and worrying is that they are actually getting more milk now from fewer cows.
00:46:15
Speaker
So, a kind of grass-fed cow, predominantly grass-fed cow, pair each time you... and And this is nowadays when they've been bred and given high protein, this and that, you know, and they're still... You've got huge big others. Those ones, they would produce 5,000 litres of milk pair each time you had got them pregnant, made them produce a calf and taken that calf away.
00:46:42
Speaker
But the cows that are outside and just fed and grain the whole time, which is really not good for them and they never see the freaking light of day, they are producing 12,000 litres of milk just from that one cow per each time that they are It's just mind boggling. It's just awful. And you have to ask yourself, how are they managing to do that? It would seem when you see dairy cows, how thin they are, how massive their others are, you wouldn't think they could squish any more milk out of them if you tried, but they seem to be managing.
00:47:19
Speaker
It's got to the stage where when a dairy cow is spent and they are sent to the abattoir for processing that a lot of them are dead by the time they get there because they just don't even, they're so weak they don't even survive the journey.
00:47:36
Speaker
and they're so packed and they're still standing up but that when they go to unload them, they're just, you know, falling. Just hideous. The milk industry is awful. The dairy industry, I should say. The demand for cow milk isn't just declining in Scotland, isn't just declining in the UK. It's a worldwide thing. Generation Z is ditching dairy, apparently.
00:48:02
Speaker
and good on you. See if there's any wee Gen Z people listening. Good on you. You're sensible. You're healthy and kind and sensible. Thank you for that. Milk shaming is a thing and so it should be. And other things that you would have instead if you feel the need to replace that in your life are so, so good. So good. I had a liter of oat milk today just as a drink and it was so nice.
00:48:34
Speaker
I can just picture you in your sheep field just just just glugging that litre of oat milk, yeah. Well I was energised afterwards, you couldn't get that after a litre of cow milk, you'd be coagulating!
00:48:49
Speaker
I'm wondering Julie, because in in your in your sheep episodes you've told us how you will go around fastidiously picking up the poo from the field so they're not going to tread in it. and into Every day and life out. Okay, so if you were to keep some of those I think you could team up with Bruce Mackie because he seems to be quite good at polishing turds And there could be some sort of craft project that you could do between you because because saying, oh, the number of cows has is decreased by 23% over the last decade. But it's really good because, you know, it means we're not carrying the carbon cost and things like that. So, oh, come on, Bruce, come on, smell the coffee.
00:49:32
Speaker
Like, it's over mate, get out what you can, diversify. Well, because everybody's becoming quite carbon aware and carbon nervous these days. You just, you can get brownie points if you put any argument about that, you know. Yeah. Well, if if he wants to really decrease the the carbon footprint of the dairy industry, there's one surefire way, isn't there? That's to turn it off.
00:49:58
Speaker
Oat milk is actually relatively easy to make. I was in an oat milk factory on Friday. That's where I got my liter of oat milk from. And it's relatively inexpensive and simple to make. And boy, oh my goodness, is it good. There you go.
00:50:16
Speaker
Yeah, isn't it? I used to have something called, I bought it from a vegan festival, it was called a chuffer mixer, and it's basically just a really fine mesh sieve, and you would blend whatever you wanted to turn into a plant milk with water and you'd date if you wanted it sweetened or whatever, and then you'd bash it through this sieve. But there's all automated plant built milk machines that you can have at home now, then they self-clean, it's living in the future.
00:50:45
Speaker
I make it at home but I, as you will be able to predict of because everything is a lazy slut version with me, I make lazy slut oat milk at home and I thought that was good but I think it does. This stuff was, you know, out of the machine and into a glass bottle, you know, and it was a world away from my lazy slut oat milk which is I'm imagining your lazy slut oat milk just basically being cold porridge, was just like some oats in cold water. Nah, that'll do, that'll do. It's a bit lumpy. It's a bit rustic, yeah. But then, you know, sometimes you just want to go a bit hardcore. It's all good.
00:51:24
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, for my pick of the week I'm going to do a local news
Pandemic Risks from Animal Agriculture
00:51:29
Speaker
sandwich. I started off with something in South Shropshire and I'm now going to bring the news that a person in the West Midlands has contracted the H5N1 strain of bird flu that UK Health Security Agency has today confirmed. Now, I just want to say as a as a preface to this,
00:51:49
Speaker
I'm not reporting this because I think it's more significant that humans are being affected with bird flu than animals or anything like that. There's been loads and loads of animals already lost their lives to this virus but actually ah it just really annoyed me that the the simplicity with which we could just stop this and that the the lack of action that we're we're making is just maddening. So, just a bit more context on the story. and The person acquired the infection on a farm. Funny that, isn't it? they they didn't you know You can't just get this by going for a walk in the countryside and, oh, a robin flies by and you've got bird flu. You've got to be working in real close proximity to lots of dead birds.
00:52:33
Speaker
They had close and prolonged contact with a large number of infected birds, the UK HSA said. The agency added that it had been tracing all of it individuals who had been in contact with a person who was said to be doing well. I don't believe that for a second. If you had ever you contracted bird flu, even if you had no symptoms, you're telling me you're not at all worried.
00:52:54
Speaker
load of old rubbish. Anyway, this comes just days after the government ordered an avian influenza prevention zone to cover the whole of England following rising bird flu cases in poultry. However, if you scroll to the end of the yeah of the article, the UK chief veterinary officer has said whilst avian influenza was highly contentious in birds, the human case was a very rare event and you know it's it's nothing to be worried about and and it's fine, we've got robust systems in place um The risk of avian flu to the general public remains very low despite the case. It's a load of old nonsense. Bird-to-human transition of avian influenza is rare at the moment.
00:53:36
Speaker
It's occurred a small number of times in the UK for now, but what I would say is I've had Covid, I've never gone anywhere near a pangolin or a bat or anything like that. it you like we don't We don't all need to contract this virus directly from birds. like All it needs to do is mutate. I don't i don't like to fear manga. Fear is not something I really like to having my life very much, but like it it ought to be in our memories that not so long ago, animal agriculture, well, one argument of it it seems to be that the dominant one that a lot of prominent scientists are saying, animal agriculture, done in a certain way, a long, long way away from us in the UK recording this, but got into humans, mutated, and then affected the lives of basically everyone on the planet.
00:54:28
Speaker
as well as lots of animals too. So the the fact that this is, you know, if you click onto the link of of this one in in the show notes, there's a lot of, all people are reminded not to touch sick or dead birds. It's important they follow defra advice, but don't worry, it was very rare. And we've stockpiled as part of our preparedness plans, the H5 vaccine, which protects against avian influenza. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. There's one surefire way to make sure this doesn't happen as far as I'm concerned, be interested to hear Julian Mark what what you think, and listeners too of course, but actually it seems to be that the only humans who are getting this and risking it mutating in humans are people working
00:55:11
Speaker
in farms and actually if we just stopped abusing animals, if we stopped incarcerating them, this wouldn't be an issue for humans. Unfortunately it would still be an issue for for for wildlife and and birds themselves.
00:55:26
Speaker
and that it seems to me. and But what about the, a I can't remember what they're called now, the overprivileged tossers, I think they were, but what about the people shooting grouse and pheasants and picking them up after? Are they not risking something? I really hope so. I really hope so.
00:55:44
Speaker
not like yeah those ben And the royal family, they'll just drop dead and it's it's it's confined to them. Wouldn't that be great? A class of avian flu. And where I'm speaking from in ah New Zealand at the peak of the Covid panic here, I suppose there was a two week occupation of the grounds outside of the House of Parliament in Wellington. sort of A big camp was sort of set up. There was travelling convoys came came from from all around the country and descended on a big park right outside the the Parliament building here. and and They were there for two weeks with with all sorts of banners about Covid and Covid conspiracy stuff. It was a very right wing
00:56:26
Speaker
sort of ah or oriented protests It was basically a reaction against the Labour government's introduction of restrictions on movement and wearing masks and so on. And it was a reaction to that. And it was high profile. There was nothing else in the news for two weeks until the riot police came in.
00:56:44
Speaker
and move them very gently, I must say, away. They were the most gentle riot police. At the start, the they didn't even have shields or helmets. They were there was putting their hands up in front of them and moving forward, hoping that the crowd would move back. They were so gentle.
00:57:00
Speaker
ah But the point is is that at no point in the two weeks did anyone express any any concern. None of the protesters expressed any concern about the ah probability of this happening again because of of the factory farming system. That was completely not in the debate whatsoever. It wasn't a question raised by anyone.
00:57:19
Speaker
and what there wasn't any comments made in it by anyone involved in this and it was highly depressing to know that we're that stupid that we were prepared to ignore something that is so obvious and scientifically factually backed up that another pandemic is inevitable unless we change our food production system but no one wanted to know that because knowing that involves you having to do something about it and no one wanted to take any personal responsibility of their part in it they wanted to point the finger at the government's restrictions on their movements but they didn't want to have any impact on their choices of food and it's just going to happen again and no one seems to be taking it seriously enough to be challenging the factory farm system but that's where it comes from and it will come from there again. I have to say like reading reading through this like the the kind of way that they're saying oh you've got to be really careful but also don't worry and things like that. I had to go back and look at archived news
00:58:18
Speaker
articles from early 2020 to remind myself how were we responding to this when this was happening and obviously the timescales were slightly different depending on where in the world you were living during during the COVID pandemic at the start of it. But actually what I was reading was that there were chief medical offices and the in the yeah UK at the end of February saying, this is not gonna be a pandemic. This is not gonna be affecting people. Like the numbers of cases are really low. Like the risk is really low, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. with it Within like three weeks, people weren't allowed to leave the house unless they sort of, you know, were just going for a short walk or or things like that. like that
00:58:58
Speaker
it's it's unbelievable that not within just living memory like within like recent living memory like it's it's just a ah few hundred days ago almost yeah that that this happened before and I mean and I know some people might say might not believe that the animal agriculture had anything to do with covid but this is called avian influenza it's pretty clear where this comes from you know And it's it's not just a few blackbirds, you've got a cough. you know that that This is from specifically industrialised animal agriculture. like That's how this is happening. if it if it If it results in a pandemic, then, oh gosh, we we deserve it. ah big Because it's staring us in the face.
00:59:41
Speaker
yeah really sad but and anyway yeah humans are wonderful things as well and maybe maybe something miraculous will happen and we'll ah we'll all wake up at some point but uh strong opinions have been expressed on this show and if you too have strong opinions we like hearing from them we like hearing mild opinions too you can send us a very mild
Influencing Consumer Habits with Carbon Labeling
01:00:01
Speaker
vanilla beige sort of email too we love receiving all your messages here is how to get in touch To get in touch with us, just send us an email at enough of the falafel at gmail dot.com. We see ourselves as a collective, our listenership stretches all around the world and everyone's opinions, questions, feedback and ideas are what helps shape the show. Go on, send us a message today, enough of the falafel at gmail dot.com
01:00:32
Speaker
Okay, we are gonna bish bash bosh through this last one. It is a study, some research from Purdue University and the University of Kentucky. And it is suggesting that online grocery shopping platforms could effectively encourage customers to choose plant-based foods by implementing strategies such as carbon footprint labeling and product categorization. So this has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
01:01:01
Speaker
The study included ah nearly 2,500 US residents who selected items from categories such as meat, milk, yogurt, and cheese. So when we're talking plant-based options, we're not talking about chickpeas or barley or courgettes. These are specifically alternative products that have been produced to be similar to their animal product counterparts. Of the 8,320 products, ultimately added to participants' carts.
01:01:32
Speaker
5,200 were plant-based options. That is well over half, which is very surprising. The findings revealed that labelling products with carbon footprint information was particularly effective at influencing consumer behaviour. Participants were more likely to choose plant-based alternatives when environmental impact was clearly displayed however the study found that combining this with product categorization so basically grouping the plant-based products together had an even stronger effect I guess like having a free from aisle but I guess it would be sort of saying this is a low carbon aisle if it was a real supermarket or section on the website
01:02:13
Speaker
The researchers noted that the average price of plant-based product was slightly higher at $3.65 compared to $3.13 for animal-based counterparts. However, you can get round that by just buying chickpeas and barley and vegetables. Anyway, sorry, I'm still ranting. Interestingly, nearly 16% of the participants chose no plant-based product at all, which I don't know. What do you two think? like I would have thought there would be more than 16% of participants who refuse to buy a plant milk or a vegan meat or something like that. I thought that was quite good that 84% of the participants is at least one plant. I thought it was really, really good bit of news.
01:02:56
Speaker
It gave me an idea. If you are shopping online, you know how if you're wanting to watch a YouTube video, sometimes you've got to watch an advert first before you can get to the video you want to see. I didn't know you knew about YouTube, Julie.
01:03:11
Speaker
wouldn't it be good if before you were able to click and put a piece of meat into your basket or a dairy product, you had to get past a little explanation of how these things are produced and where they come from and how the animal died that you're about to put in your shopping basket. Just a quick thing, do you know what I mean? Just so that you know what you're buying. And it could be like, you you know, if you're like getting out of like an Amazon Prime membership or or something like that and you've kind of got to click yes I definitely want to cancel you have to like press it like 15 times and each time they'll say are you sure because blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and they'll try and highlight the wrong option it could be like that couldn't it are you sure you want to add this class one carcinogen are you sure because you know this animal was slaughtered at just a five percent of its natural lifespan
01:04:00
Speaker
Julie you're on to something there. Definitely the de there does need to be some kind of, it's not like a firewall but it's some kind of targeted educational, because people want to know the provenance of their food and we're always being told that, you know, tell the children about where food and certain things come from, well, tell them. Tell them the truth and show them. But yeah, before you can put that thing in your basket, here's a little, you know, information reel for you to watch. And then you can put it in your basket if you still want to. That's totally fine, you know? Well, it's not totally fine, but you know, it would be allowed. But that was my first idea on this. And this thing about, I'm glad that it looked like the price wasn't a disincentive. I had a conversation with somebody just the other day
01:04:45
Speaker
about alternatives, if you want to frame them in that way, to products from the dairy industry. And their answer was, yeah, but the stuff I buy is cheaper. And I said, see, when food is really cheap like that, somebody somewhere is paying a really high freaking price in some way.
01:05:07
Speaker
It's either somebody's getting exploited, a human, an animal is getting exploited, or you are paying a very high price because this isn't going to be good for you. But, you know, sometimes it's not always about the money. I know what it's like to be totally skinned, by the way, but just cheap food, you have to really watch yourself, I think. So that I'm pleased that the price wasn't seeming to come into the whole scenario with this and piece of research.
01:05:35
Speaker
I think it's interesting the way the supermarket industry is looking for the easiest way to sell food in this case is plant-based food. I don't know what the situation is like in the UK, I haven't been there for a number of years now, but in my local supermarkets they there's four big supermarkets owned by two big conglomerates and all of them have a plant-based fridge now.
01:05:59
Speaker
so there'll be the the meat and dairy section and then apart from that is the plant-based section and it's very obvious it's highlighted plant-based there's no trying to disguise it or use euphemisms or whatever it's very obvious and then in other supermarkets what you'll see there is there'll be a plant-based section and interspersed amongst the meat and dairy section will be plant-based alternatives to the meat and dairy products, but sit placed side by side with lots of animal flesh. So they're clearly going for both bases. And there is ah research to suggest that both can be effective, that a lot of people who don't want to be um singled out as a vegan would prefer to pick up their plant-based produce
01:06:45
Speaker
from the meat and dairy section to make it seem more normal to them rather than them having to go to the freaky plant-based food hippie end of the supermarket to to get their food then. And what if they met someone as they were as they were wandering around the supermarket and like a friend of theirs and they were seen looking at plant-based products on the plant-based shelf and the embarrassment there and all that. So there there is a lot of factors that these trying to, they're they're trying to understand the psychology behind consumerism by these sort of studies. It is interesting that it's happening. It shows that we we've come an awful long way in a very short period of time, really. And it's the supermarkets trying to find their feet and trying to capitalize as much on this as they can. So it's just one more bit of research on that sort of field, I think, but it's interesting.
01:07:32
Speaker
i think it's interesting that in this country a few years ago in the uk a few years ago if you were not a small business so more than 250 employees um if you were producing food you needed to state how many calories were in the food that you were you were selling whether you were a restaurant at supermarket whatever and clearly like the government had decided oh our um are generally speaking our health is is so poor we need to enforce this. um I wonder how bad the environmental situation will need to be before carbon footprint needs to be
01:08:10
Speaker
qualified and and actually specifically laid out. My worry otherwise is that it would you'll just get away with saying, oh, this is low carbon beef. And it would just it would just be like free range and it would just be, that that that's nonsense. There's no such thing as a low carbon beef product. Like it is the highest carbon thing out there, um short of a lump of coal. um So, you know, it it needs, to my mind, it needs to be quantified in numbers.
01:08:40
Speaker
ah to to mean anything otherwise people are just going to be molly coddled and say oh yes don't worry don't worry you're you're choosing a really good option there in my opinion anyway anyway if you're still with us now 75 minutes into this ranting we reckon you might possibly like what we're doing and if that is the case then we have a little favor to ask If you've enjoyed today's show, we'd love it if you could take just a few seconds to share it with someone else who you think might enjoy it too. We don't have a marketing team or a budget to spend on advertising, so your referrals are the best way of spreading the free enough of the falafel joy further still. And if you haven't already, we'd be really grateful if you could leave us a rating on your podcast player. That will also help the show pop up when people search for vegan or animal rights content online. Thanks for your help.
01:09:37
Speaker
And thanks everyone for listening. The next episode of enough of The Falafel will be out on Thursday, the featuring Anthony, Julie and Dominic, and they will be discussing the short BBC sound series Raising Hair. Yeah, it's a brilliant series, that one. If you get a chance to listen to it before that episode, I'd really recommend it. It's only 75 minutes long.
01:10:00
Speaker
the whole series and I'll put a link in the show notes for this episode. So you've got a couple days to listen to that before that episode comes out on Thursday. Anyway, that is enough of the falafel for this episode. Thank you, Julie. Thank you, Mark, for your contributions. Thank you, everyone, for listening. I've been looking at our stats. There's more than ever of you listening at the moment. The last couple of weeks are highest listener numbers ever. So thank you, all of you, for tuning in. I've been Anthony. You've been listening to Vegan Week from the Enough of the Falafel Collective.
01:10:34
Speaker
This has been an Enough of the Falafel production. We hear 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 zapsclap.com 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.
01:11:15
Speaker
This episode may have come to an end but did you know we've got a whole archive containing all our shows dating back to September 2023? That is right Dominic, there's over a hundred episodes on there featuring our brilliant range of different guests, people's stories of going vegan, philosophical debates, moral quandaries and of course around a dozen news items from around the world each week so check back on your podcast player to hear previous episodes and remember to get an alert for each new episode simply click like or follow and also subscribe to the show thanks for your ongoing support wherever you listen to us from