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154- Was my food tested on animals? Who bloody knows?!
91 Plays15 days ago
Yes, there's another potential link to animal abuse in the things you buy! Just when you thought you'd done all your checks...turns out that the xanthan gum you'd triple-checked the ingredients list for...was fed to some innocent mice until they could take no more.
FFS...
In this episode, Julie & Ant explore how & why some foods are tested on animals, some of the ways to find out whether your food has been put through this (needless) hooopla, and indeed how to avoid it...as best as you can.
As ever, we love hearing your views on the topics under discussion (or anything else!) so do drop us your thoughts via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com
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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 Talk podcast, we aim to develop listeners' (& our own) thoughts around key issues affecting veganism & the animal rights movement; giving our opinions, whilst staying balanced; remaining true to our vegan ethics, whilst constantly seeking to grow & develop.
Each week we home in on one topic in particular and pick it apart in more detail. If you have a suggestion for a future show, do get in touch via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com.
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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!
Julie & Anthony
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Transcript
Vegan Food & Animal Testing Riddle
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everybody, here's a riddle for you. When is vegan food not vegan? When it's been tested on animals. I'm Anthony and for this episode I'm also joined by Julie.
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! Take your flat grown meat elsewhere. We're not doing that in the state of Florida.
00:00:28
Speaker
about your protein and what about your iron levels? Should I call the media and say, hi, sorry. They're arguing like, oh, poor woe is me. Hang on a minute. You always pick the...
00:00:43
Speaker
of social injustice has connection with another. That's just what people think vegans eat anyway. As long as you didn't get the wee brunions with the horns, you'll be all right. Does veganism give him superpowers?
00:00:58
Speaker
I cannot fly around the city. I don't have laser vision. Hello everybody, Julie here. Welcome to this episode of Vegan Talk.
00:01:10
Speaker
Thank you very much for joining us.
Introduction to Animal Testing in Food Industry
00:01:12
Speaker
We are going to be talking about animal testing within the food industry today. Absolutely. I think it's fair to say it's one of those things that when you first become vegan...
00:01:26
Speaker
It's probably not on your radar. And indeed, you you might have been vegan for 20, 30, 40 years and not realise that some food is tested on vegan. We're going to get into it.
00:01:37
Speaker
I think it's generally fair to say that, um you know, the broccoli lobby is not ah ah commissioning ah tests on animals and and and things like that. is more specific products that have been created, like, say, a vegan burger or something like that.
00:01:56
Speaker
But we'll get into it. there are There are some exceptions and we're going be talking about it. And indeed, sort of mine and Julie's perspectives on this in terms of what well like where would we draw the line and um and what different issues there are to think about. So, Julie, could you get the ball rolling for us?
00:02:15
Speaker
Why is it... that tests have been conducted on animals for food?
Reasons for Animal Testing in Food
00:02:23
Speaker
My understanding is that when a food is seen as being a novel food, I'm not, don't ask me what the legal definition of that, but anything that is seen to be a novel food,
00:02:39
Speaker
There isn't a legal requirement in the UK certainly for that to be tested on animals but there is a perception that there may be some risk involved and what companies who produce these foods are aware of is that competitor companies will come forward and discredit their public their product by deeming it to be unsafe and untested So before they can do that, they need to get in there quick and say, this has been tested so we know it's all right.
00:03:16
Speaker
That's one branch of it. That's one reason that is given. And the other reason that is given in some instances is, again that testing isn't mandatory, it's not you know needed by or whatever but for some foods that want to claim particular health benefit they need to have shown that research and studies have been done.
00:03:44
Speaker
So for example if a food is claimed to lower your cholesterol levels or something like that you can't just say that well because it's got this compound component in it that tradition shows has um you know reduced people's cut yeah you've got to come up with the science you've got to show the evidence base and there doesn't you know and unfortunately you know you can't do that on humans because of our anthropocentric world it's fine to do on animals and potentially
00:04:16
Speaker
you know cause harm to them in the process so yeah it's about proving the safety of new foodstuffs and which there are a lot of in the kind of vegan space or trying to be vegan or the half vegan space when you're talking about replacement products for milk and dairy and a meat and things like that there are novel foods in that category and also where there are foods that are seen to be more than just something you would eat to fill yourself up but that have a sort of medicinal effect for want of a better word then you do need to back up those claims with some evidence that's my understanding
00:04:58
Speaker
Yeah.
Objections to Animal Testing
00:04:59
Speaker
And in terms of like the the testing that is done, in in terms of well what why are we objected to this as vegans, um I won't provide an exhaustive list, but I mean, obviously animals that are tested on it but predominantly is rats and and mice, though not exclusively.
00:05:17
Speaker
um obviously for tests to be conducted on them they need to be incarcerated they will not live a free right free range happy enriched social life so that's that's the would be the kind of number one objection that i would have to it at at the end of experimentation generally speaking an Animals on are seen as completely disposable.
00:05:40
Speaker
So you might have um a rat that, you know, all it does is it's bred into existence to have some some new food product tested upon it.
00:05:51
Speaker
It has that done and maybe maybe it just eats it or maybe it has some of it rubbed on its belly or whatever. But at the end of that, um unless you've got a particularly...
00:06:02
Speaker
selectively compassionate researcher who says, oh, do you know what, I'll take you home or or whatever, those animals are going to be killed. like and Animals that have been experimented on are not then let out into the wild or anything like that.
00:06:15
Speaker
So that's the number two objection, I would say. um And the third one, which is possibly the most sinister, is that very often, the second category of testing that you were talking about, Julie, there, where it's sort of You say you've got a probiotic yogurt and you're saying, well, actually, people who've got this condition, if they have this yogurt, it really helps them.
00:06:36
Speaker
Rather than just feed that yogurt to human beings who have that condition, i.e. the consumers that you're trying to market the product to, very often these conditions are induced in rats or mice or whatever,
00:06:50
Speaker
other unfortunate animals are being tested on. The condition is induced in them first, so suffering is is created, needlessly created for them, and then the product is tested on them.
00:07:02
Speaker
So although generally speaking, much of the testing itself might just be feeding something or it might be topical sort of skin rubbing of of something that the fact is that sometimes these conditions are um induced. Is there anything else um that you think I've missed there, Julie? Well, I would say that virtually none of the testing is just feeding it to the animal, really, because you know they feed the substance to the point of poisoning an animal
00:07:34
Speaker
And they kill them afterwards because what they want to do is have a look at the effect on their internal organs. That's why they kill them, not just because there's surplus to requirements, but in yeah, they they're they're having a look inside.
00:07:48
Speaker
So yeah, that you know it's not kind of like people might imagine giving you know different flavours of cat food to little cats. you know Oh, which one did they like the best?
00:08:00
Speaker
They are doing... horrible, horrible toxicology studies and force feeding animals and then killing them and seeing what has happened to their internal organs.
00:08:15
Speaker
and Yeah, and you're right, giving them illnesses as well. Yeah, it's done to the point of extreme, isn't it? I remember reading something about, um there was many years ago now, there was controversy about the artificial sweetener aspartame that's used in, say, Diet Coke, for example, anything where you're wanting to sweeten without using sugar. And they were saying, oh gosh, well, there would there was a link to this illness or whatever, but that was after an inordinate amount sugar.
00:08:43
Speaker
was was fed to the the animals that it was being tested on. It was sort of the equivalent of of a human being drinking like 20 litres of Diet Coke a day. it was it was It was more than you ever would, but the producers wanted to see, well, what is the limit?
00:08:58
Speaker
What is the point at which this has a fatality or ah you know a significant injury. But suffice to say, for a whole variety of reasons, it's not something that any kind of compassionate human being would want to be behind.
Ethics of Impossible Burger Testing
00:09:14
Speaker
So in terms of where we've seen examples of this, Julie, mean, I i remember um the Impossible Burger when that came out sort of, I don't know, six or seven years ago in the US, I think it was.
00:09:26
Speaker
There was controversy around, I think it was Soylent was the sort of novel food product that was being added to the burger and the heme iron in that is what made the burger so juicy and made it replicate meat so effectively.
00:09:41
Speaker
um And that was tested on 180 odd rats, I think, which, as as we've said, ended up being killed. ah They didn't consent to it. Not a good thing to do.
00:09:52
Speaker
The justification used by the the CEO of Impossible Foods and and indeed lots of people who who said, well, I would still, you know, I identify as vegan, but I would still consume this is that actually we're in a non-vegan world.
00:10:09
Speaker
And there are people who are going to continue consuming animal products until there is an equivalent product out there for them to do. And of course, we're not happy that these animals have been...
00:10:24
Speaker
tested on and killed, actually in the general scheme of things, a whole lot more, ah many, many multiples of 180 rats. But in terms of cows, are going to be saved by this.
00:10:39
Speaker
And so actually, in the non-vegan world that we're in, this is the best, the quickest way that we can save animals. What would your personal response be to that argument? like did Does that have any legs, any mileage? Well, not for me, it doesn't as a vegan, because I'm against all animal testing.
00:10:58
Speaker
So I wouldn't eat an Impossible Burger because it's being tested on animals. It's not a vegan burger to me. So that's the first thing. I'm not going in a numbers game here. I'm not saying as a vegan that it's okay to exploit some animals for the good of some unknown number of animals that might possibly be saved further on down the line.
00:11:22
Speaker
Because there may be tons of products that are extensively researched and lots of animals are killed in that research that bomb when they hit the market.
00:11:35
Speaker
So they haven't stopped anybody choosing cow-based burger and eating that instead. It might be a naive view. but typically I would have thought that, you know, a vegan burger is eaten by someone who's vegan.
00:11:51
Speaker
So they weren't going to be eating the cow thing anyway, really. So I don't know, you can't quantify it, but to my mind, It's not okay and there are other things that people can manufacture and sell and that people can buy and eat that don't need that testing and haven't had that testing that, you know, can be used instead. So I...
00:12:19
Speaker
i'm ah Personally I wouldn't purchase these things and I don't have any any guarantee that they're saving future animals at all so I don't really go for this sort of utilitarianism argument that some people go for.
00:12:36
Speaker
Yeah, and and and i I would agree with you. I mean, the difficulty, as was brilliantly, I thought, summarised by a National Geographic article um that was written in 2015, the difficulty is, as this headline says, want to know if your food was tested on animals?
00:12:53
Speaker
Good luck. um Because there's there's not, um you know, we've got our vegan logo, we've got our cruelty-free bunny, we've got we've got all these labels that...
00:13:03
Speaker
generally help us. Obviously, if if if you've watched Seaspiracy and you've you've seen the sort of, oh, this is a dolphin-friendly product or whatever, but some of them are a load of old rubbish.
00:13:14
Speaker
But the point is we don't have a universal product In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a food product that says on it, this was not tested on animals.
Challenges in Identifying Tested Products
00:13:25
Speaker
So it's quite difficult to find out, isn't it? Did did you see the... It's really difficult because i think it's the Impossible Burger being an example. Is that the one where the person approached the Vegan Society because it was approved by the Vegan Society and then it was found out that it had been tested on animals so the person...
00:13:46
Speaker
Then Dave Shishkoff, who wrote one of the articles that I read, he approached the Vegan Society and said, this has been tested on animals, but you've got it on your website as being, you know, a a proper vegan alternative to be eating and all the rest of it.
00:14:01
Speaker
And they were just like, whatever. And they didn't take it off their website. They didn't think that that was any reason to retract their approval of it. It still maintained their vegan society approved status, even though they had been told absolutely uncategorically that has been tested on animals and that's not vegan. If it was a cosmetic that had been tested on animals, it wouldn't be on your website. So why is it there as a foodstuff?
00:14:29
Speaker
And... I don't know what lame excuse they gave, but they just stayed with their stance that it was staying on their website as, you know, they were just defining it as it didn't contain any animals or animal secretions, therefore it was vegan.
00:14:47
Speaker
And they were ignoring the testing side of things. So totally discrediting themselves and it made this writer Dave Shishkoff go completely off the Vegan Society, which is a real shame because they've done the same to me as people might remember from another ah episode.
00:15:04
Speaker
a So yeah, you can't even trust their Vegan Society approved status, which is really disappointing because you're right, where do we go next? Apart from just don't go for anything with novel food status. Yeah.
00:15:18
Speaker
Well, yeah, which, which you know, ah maybe a lot of us listening, you know, if you do tend to eat whole foods or you're cooking yourself, like perhaps you're not using pre-packaged things that have been made by clever companies that have managed to mimic the taste of dairy or or whatever. But actually that's that's quite a quite a step for a lot of people. And it's and it's possible.
00:15:41
Speaker
And it is possible, you know. It really is. And that is the surefire way to do it, isn't it? Because although... although tests will have been done on, I mean, i gave the example of broccoli earlier, there will have been animal tests involving broccoli, for example.
00:15:58
Speaker
Like there will have been. However, I don't know that that's been funded, solicited, and arguably you could say that the the producers of broccoli aren't even benefiting from it. I mean, I suppose if there's been a there's been a countless studies tested on animals where where broccoli has been shown to be a superfood, then then yes, I suppose those people are profiting from from the heightened reputation of broccoli. But so long as those things aren't being paid for by those industries, ah for me, I don't think that falls under the same thing.
00:16:33
Speaker
PETA have come up with a tool, which in theory is really great. So there'll be a a link in the show notes for you to have a look at it. um They have a ah sort of landing page called Eat Without Experiments, focused entirely on this subject of food that has been tested on animals.
00:16:50
Speaker
And they've got a big old list. um There are 2,068 entries on this list of of companies or products. And the idea is you can type in the product and it will tell you whether it has been tested on animals or indeed type in the company.
00:17:08
Speaker
The difficulty I'm finding is i've not I've not been able to search a single product and find a yes or no. I don't know whether it's purely a US-based one or whether I'm typing things in wrong or whether there's some sort of glitch in the system, but it's really not working for me. There's a similar database that I use to change the subject slightly. If you go onto your app store for your um smartphone or ah tablet,
00:17:36
Speaker
um and type in either the food empowerment project or the chocolate list. And they have a list of providers that sell products with chocolate in, and they will say whether the company has said categorically, we will not use child labor to get our chocolate.
00:17:54
Speaker
And then there are companies that unfortunately are not saying that statement. So you can clearly read between the lines that they are using children to to to harvest um cocoa.
00:18:06
Speaker
for them. That is an example of an app that works pretty well but for my money, i don't know whether you've looked at it Julie, but this PETA one I couldn't get it to yield anything for me so it doesn't really answer much in terms of well what do we do about this?
00:18:23
Speaker
um i I suppose like back in the day you would write to or you would email or you would phone up a company wouldn't you and you say I'm interested in your product is could you tell me if it is is tested on animals? So that's a an action that we can do. And again, in good luck with that because I've done that before and sometimes got some really wishy-washy responses or non-responses to that question as well.
00:18:49
Speaker
it's It's one of those where you might, with a bit of research, find out the answers. I guess most people, they might be completely frivolous with what products they're buying. You know you walk down the free-fail mile, oh, I'm going to buy this today, I'm going to buy this.
00:19:03
Speaker
But a lot of us, we will buy the same products again and again. So... You know, if a Linda McCartney sausage is is part of your weekly shop, then it only takes one bit of research to find out, well, has that been tested on animals? No, it hasn't. Great. Okay, I'll carry on.
00:19:20
Speaker
Yes, it has. Oh, damn it. Okay, let's find an alternative. You've only got to find one alternative sausage that hasn't been tested on animals, and then that can become part of your weekly shop,
Vegan Substitutes and Transitioning
00:19:31
Speaker
can't it? So, in a sense, it's maybe sending us back 15 years, back to the...
00:19:37
Speaker
more difficult days of of veganism, certainly in the UK anyway. But there are ways, there are ways around it, aren't there, I suppose. Yeah, it's interesting that in the article I read, the product that sort of is the article opens with is a reference to just egg, you know, the egg replacement,
00:19:57
Speaker
which is apparently really taken off just now in terms of sales among non-vegans as well as vegans because obviously there's an egg shortage in the US, problems with avian flu and things like that. And that has been tested on animals, unfortunately.
00:20:14
Speaker
Do you know, the good news is that it's really easy to make an egg. If you really need to go down the whole egg business at all, you can easily replace eggs in any recipe. You don't need that product, really.
00:20:30
Speaker
But it's a good example of something that people just thought was across the board a great thing. Yay, vegan, just egg, tested on animals. Yeah, absolutely.
00:20:40
Speaker
I mean, to to come back, to to a question I asked you earlier, Julie. you I feel like you were speaking for yourself when you were saying, well, no, I i wouldn't have the Impossible Burger, for example, because I know that it's tested on animals.
00:20:56
Speaker
And so therefore that's that's not okay for me. Do you think there is an argument that, but let's say there's a study that's been conducted that says it's all well and good saying, well, there's loads of whole foods out there. You could make your own burgers, blah, blah, blah.
00:21:12
Speaker
But the study shows that people who are currently carnist, they are consuming animal products routinely, that 20% of them come over to ah plant-based way of eating and ultimately a vegan lifestyle by following a a whole foods approach whereas 60 of them will do so if they have like-for-like products like an impossible burger like a linda mccartney sausage is there an argument that that is what is best for animals and and and of course we would
00:21:50
Speaker
want that to one that transition period to be as short as possible and of course it's important to share the information well this is tested on animals so you know really you don't want to you don't want to consume that from an ethical vegan standpoint, and no one's being forced to do so. But if that were shown to be the way, because that's that's the argument that these these companies will make, isn't it? Is that something, i don't want to say that we'd get behind, because I don't think i don't think either of us
00:22:21
Speaker
would well so I'll speak for myself, I wouldn't feel comfortable getting behind that message. However, if it was empirically shown that there was a massive difference between people's uptake in in trying plant-based eating and sticking with it, with these kind of products.
00:22:41
Speaker
I might not promote it, but I might possibly be tempted to just sit back and be like, oh gosh, fine. If that gets you quicker, like perhaps that's not the hell I'm going to die on. I don't know.
00:22:54
Speaker
Well, I think I would separate the things out. So I would still be supporting all campaigning against all animal testing and keeping that separate. Because if that didn't exist, then they wouldn't be testing these things. There would no place to do it, no compulsion, no pressure on anyone to do any testing on animals. So you keep that separate and you you keep your own...
00:23:19
Speaker
consuming out of it as well I mean I personally don't want to eat anything that is trying to pretend to be an animal's dead body in the first place but you know some people might need that so I just would separate it out so I would be saying and I will at every opportunity join with any campaigns that are against all animal testing, including for foodstuffs.
00:23:44
Speaker
So that's done. And I will not be purchasing these things myself, as far as I am knowing that they are, you know, whatever. But in terms of carnists transitioning over, they will be doing all kinds of things as they transition. know mean? They'll be buying into...
00:24:02
Speaker
Sort of the stuff they're already eating and then little bits of stuff that's vegan and stuff that isn't quite and all the rest of it on the way possibly. And yeah, that's their thing. That's their problem. I'm neither condemning or supporting. Well, I'm supporting, I suppose,
00:24:20
Speaker
the the fact that they are seeing the need to change that's fine but yeah along the way they will possibly continue to indulge in the products that they are used to and you know they might have to do it gradually and all the rest of it but I wouldn't be saying oh yeah that's fine to them directly but it is perhaps a kind of inescapable fact in some people's cases but i wouldn't mean that i would buy them those things or say that it's okay but um that i think yeah so handy if these things are there for the people who really really need them if that is what's going to move them forward yeah
00:25:04
Speaker
Yeah, and and it's it's ah it's a about progressing through that
Historical Testing of Ingredients
00:25:08
Speaker
journey, isn't it? You don't have to support someone's specific strategy. you can You can support the destination that they're aiming for and and hope that they get there as as quickly as possible, I suppose.
00:25:22
Speaker
um but It's an interesting one. I a um was listening to a podcast on this subject and um the the speaker was talking about...
00:25:34
Speaker
ingredients like so xanthan gum for example is a thickener it's it's often used in gluten-free stuff because it it helps to bind things um together amongst other things and that has been tested on animals in that it at one point you know if you're completely eating whole foods you're not you're not touching xanthan gum But it's kind of made its way into ah into our pantries, I suppose. And you can now just buy it in any old supermarket, just in in a tube.
00:26:02
Speaker
And I wondered, do you have a stance on that, Julie, in terms of like, would you would you say, well, that historically has been tested on animals, so I'm not going to go for that. i but Personally, I don't think I...
00:26:18
Speaker
wood because I feel like it's a product that it's not that there's there's not just one company making that yeah I know well the cutoff is traditionally 20 years isn't it that people use in terms of whether you define it as tested on animals or and I don't know. I mean, I didn't know that about xanthan gum. I don't know that there's anything I eat that would have that in it.
00:26:42
Speaker
But if I were to see that on an ingredients list now, now that I know that, I think I would be giving a bit of a mess. But and I must admit, I am one of those oddities of people that nowadays I don't think there's much I can think of in my kitchen right now that has an ingredients list even.
00:27:01
Speaker
or even like more than two things if it has got an ingredients list but i can't think of anything in there that's complicated to that extent it's all pretty simple stuff really so yeah xanthan gum i can't i yeah i i'll avoid it i think now i know that's yeah yeah i think that my my personal take on these things was would be I would I try to follow back the chain of what impact does it have me buying using routinely eating this this thing um I'm just thinking of tinned foods for example i i I bet there will have been some animal testing done on oh let's test chickpeas that have been tinned um and you know maybe there's a very small percentage of preservative put in there
00:27:50
Speaker
versus ones that you keep in a jar or dried ones so or whatever i bet it has been what impact does it have me doing that is it is it encouraging more tests to be done am i soliciting or basically saying this is okay i think this is okay in the same way that like i don't know even if i was wearing a faux fur scarf or something I would kind of arguably be saying to people walking down the street who don't know the difference, this look is okay. you know and And I don't know that if it's an ingredient that historically way back when was tested on animals, I don't know that me consuming it now is making any difference.
00:28:34
Speaker
Whereas company like know the the Impossible Burger that's being produced, that's a very specific thing. And I can say, do you know what? Not only do I not want that in in my system, I'm not going to feel comfortable thinking that, oh, isn't it great, this new technology that's been developed that's and these new understandings that have allowed this product to come onto the market and for me to enjoy it.
00:28:59
Speaker
I'm not going to feel comfortable knowing that that also is rested on there the dead 180 odd rats that were part of the the testing so i'm not comfortable about that but also i don't want to send a message to that company that yeah there's a few pounds i support what you're doing so i think there's that element for it too and i think i do ah do really like the definition that the vegan society gives um in terms of as far as practical and possible and actually
00:29:33
Speaker
everyone's on a different journey there and i think I think it's important to be to be realistic with yourself with that you know you you might go oh it's simply not possible for me to turn down birthday cake when it's offered around the office um yeah I might challenge you on that I reckon you could say no um yeah what whereas whereas you know for for some people i mean there are such things as food deserts aren't there and and actually maybe tinned vegetables and and things like that or you know, pre pre-made food and stuff like that, maybe that does have to be part of your reality. So I think there can be a bit of a sliding scale there for for my money anyway.
Encouragement and Research on Veganism
00:30:15
Speaker
I think just for the people out there, please don't be disheartened by this conversation and think, oh my goodness, you know, just when I thought I had the hang of eating in a vegan way, this big complication has just been thrown up to me.
00:30:33
Speaker
I think as long as you research as best you possibly can, you know, don't don't beat yourself up if you've eaten an Impossible Burger. If you didn't know, you didn't know.
00:30:46
Speaker
ye You do know now and it's up to you what you do with that information. But yeah, don't don't be disheartened. I think it is probably... easier than it might seem to navigate your way through without eating these foodstuffs that are tested on animals. It would be good, clearer labeling would be a great thing though, wouldn't it? If these people had to say that and if they were prevented from using the word vegan in their marketing because you know they are not, I mean, that's the thing.
00:31:20
Speaker
if If there was more transparency, then we wouldn't have the difficulties that we are facing. The labelling needs to be better, I think. Yeah.
00:31:31
Speaker
Well, I think the example that you gave from the Vegan Society um and the fact that it's so impossible to to find stuff as to whether it has been tested on animals or not suggests to me that actually this is pretty much still, but it's it's not on the radar. Yeah.
00:31:49
Speaker
of of of most people um and I think actually that suggests that the first step is awareness. i I wonder how many vegans are aware that things like the Impossible Burger have been tested on animals.
00:32:02
Speaker
ive I would suggest that it's a small percentage because I think if everyone knew about it, I think there would be there would be the demand for it to be labelled as such, you know.
00:32:13
Speaker
or that that's just a guess but it's it's really difficult to find out in in spare moments while we've been recording i've been furiously trying to find out like are linda mccartney sausages vegan ah sorry test her animals and so many of the results would just say yeah there's no animal products in them don't worry yeah i and know no that's not what i'm asking you know do you know what want to know is the vegan society with their i know i'm going off on a slight tangent this is about supplements not about um food to necessarily but that supplement that they're so fond of that they produce veg one has that been tested on animals it better blumming not be because i me and my fiance both have one every day
00:32:56
Speaker
yeah But, you know, when you think about it, it's a medicine, but it's produced by the Vegan Society, the the holier than holy, you know, the pinnacle of veganism in the UK and all the rest of it.
Vegan Society's Stance on Testing
00:33:10
Speaker
But, you know, it's something bet they feel it has to have been tested on animals. Well, it says it says here that the Vegan Society ensures that products with the vegan trademark are not tested on animals.
00:33:23
Speaker
But as you say, Julie, this does that apply to food? Does that apply to food? No, Dave Shishka, he he gave them that back in his argument and they were still mealy-mouthed in response, apparently, to his quoting their website to them.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yep. Well, yeah, what I know about that, I mean, I don't take that veg one thing, but um it would be interesting to know if it's because if it has been tested on animals, they are total hypocrites, aren't they?
00:33:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, as has been evident, there are areas in this subject that Julie julia i well, yes, but I was going to say there are areas that Julie and I do not have all the answers for we never have all the answers for anything just spoiler alert it's maybe got xantham gum in it as well no no it has fillers of some description it has sugar in it i can tell you that because i always oh and it has it been through char bones or whatever the heck they don't like this no stop it julie stop it i need my iodine you don't like sugar because it's been something just
00:34:27
Speaker
in of often in america it's it's um been filtered through bone hasn't it i don't i don't think that happens in the uk as standard um but anyway we're we're clearly scraping around with the things we do know and we don't know here and you out there listening might have some information particularly with regards to the veg one supplement or lyndon mccartney sausages as to whether they were tested on animals so if you know that or if you've got anything else you want to tell us we'd love to hear from you here's how to do it To get in touch with us, just send us an email at enoughofthefalafel at gmail.com.
00:35:04
Speaker
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.
00:35:16
Speaker
Go on, send us a message today. enough of the falafel at gmail dot com Oh, nice one. Nice one. I enjoyed that conversation, Julie. Thank you for that one. We work hard here at Enough of the Falafel, like it's this many, many, many hours go into each week's production. And the upshot of that is that very often at the end of our week's work, we've not got that much time left to to tell people about the show. So if if you've enjoyed any of the shows that we've done,
00:35:45
Speaker
either this one or or other ones that are in our archive. They're all there. You can go back all 154 other ones of them. It'd be a great help to us if you could pick your favourite episode or the most recent one and share it with someone who you think would enjoy it too. It helps get the show out there.
00:36:03
Speaker
um If you review us as well, if you haven't already, that increases the visibility too. We know that there's a good, good few hundred of you listening to us every week, which we're absolutely delighted about. And it'd be great if there were even more, if there were people that would want to. So um yeah, there's a little something you can do to help us if you fancy it, but don't worry if not, because you're helping us just by listening, because we love it.
00:36:26
Speaker
Next, Enough of the Flaffle episode is coming out on the 17th of
Next Episode Preview
00:36:30
Speaker
March. It's Vegan Week. It's our usual weekly weekly roundup of the latest vegan and animal rights news. And I can't tell you who's going to be on it because I haven't quite finalised the next couple of months, but we've got nine different contributors stacked up to be part of the shows in March and April. And we're really looking forward to them. So ah whoever it is, you can tell it's going to be a good show.
00:36:52
Speaker
Anyway, that's enough of the falafel for this episode. Thank you, Anthony, for your contributions. Thank you, everyone, for listening.
00:37:03
Speaker
I've been Julie and you've been listening to Vegan Talk from the Enough of the Falafel Collective.
00:37:14
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 zapsflat.com.
00:37:29
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.
00:37:55
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? twenty twenty three That is right, Dominic. There's over 100 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,
00:38:22
Speaker
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.