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230- You can't call him a Beatle if he doesn't have a thorax or an abdomen...
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The EU debate around plant-based products and semantics welcomes Paul McCartney this week. The former Beatle hasn't necessarily given any new insights, but will his celebrity help law-makers more likely to see common-sense?
As well as this story, Mark, Shane & Anthony discuss eight other bits of news from the vegan & animal rights space over the last seven days across the world.
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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/cqlk2d3elp9o
https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10633792
https://www.farminguk.com/news/mass-cull-of-400-000-sheep-and-goats-as-pox-outbreak-sweeps-greece_67661.html
https://euroweeklynews.com/2025/12/09/animal-rights-groups-unite-against-bullfighting/
https://www.veganfoodandliving.com/news/ricky-gervais-donates-2-5-million-pounds-to-animal-charities/
https://www.brusselstimes.com/1873408/animal-rights-group-gaia-urges-lobster-free-festive-season-in-belgium
aldf.org/article/cdc-seeks-to-end-program-using-monkeys-in-research
https://www.cambsnews.co.uk/news/government-move-could-criminalise-protests-against-animal-testing-warns-camp-beagle/40326
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/736578?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAYnJpZBEwUkVYalpCWlhHb1pJVHVpVXNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR46cZ-Z35mgWsK0AlSaJ5Do9Jb4SIuqrEPRzvHH9-Dt22_7NWm6Z6GGIWBkWg_aem_M1VRpdjsE5qGQo1P2pLnzw&brid=Q5z_6nLp4FCg_e13OpK06w
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/paul-mccartney-eu-ban-vegetarian-sausages-burgers/
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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, Shane & Ant
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Transcript
Introduction to Vegan Week Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everyone, if you are looking for vegan or animal rights news, you need look no further, you're in exactly the right place. I'm Anthony, I'm joined by Shane and Mark, but that is enough of the falafel, it is time for Vegan Week.
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. Brrrr! protein take your lab grown meat elsewhere we're not doing that in the state of florida 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 oh no hang on a minute you always pick the
00:00:43
Speaker
social injustice has connection 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 alright. Does veganism give him superpowers? No I cannot fly around the city. I don't have laser vision. and Hello everyone you're listening to Mark. Welcome to this week's edition of Vegan Talk. Thank you for being here. This is Shane, and i thanks everyone for being here. If you're a new listener, you should know that this is our weekly news show where we discuss vegan and animal rights news from the last week or so.
00:01:21
Speaker
But that's enough of the falafel. Let's hear what's been going on this week.
BBC Expose on Turkey Farm
00:01:27
Speaker
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.
00:01:40
Speaker
Okay, well, as we record in the middle of December, many of our listeners are from parts of the world where turkeys are particularly targeted animals for exploitation, specifically to be put on people's dinner plates. And so, in a sense, this is the best time of the year for the following expose. to appear because it's very much on people's minds. It's an expose that has appeared on the BBC's website as well as many other places. There is a group who have done some undercover footage at a turkey farm breeding, quote, premium birds, which are then sold at Christmas in, quote, high-end stores and butchers, including Harrods. Many listeners may know of Harrods, a very upmarket shop in London. England, the company that is doing this exploitation is called Hock and Hull Turkeys. They're in Lincolnshire, which is sort of halfway up the UK and towards the east of the country. They've been suspended from a food standards assurance scheme amid allegations of poor biosecurity and animal welfare
Undercover Footage at Hock and Hull Turkeys
00:02:51
Speaker
standards. This facility supplies young birds to farms and and sells them for up to £170 Horrible stuff. In reaction to this expose, Hock and Hull turkeys have suspended workers whilst an investigation takes place. At least that's what they're telling people. The footage comes from July and August of this year. The environmental campaign group Green Britain Foundation, which i believe has been founded by Dale Vince, or he's certainly amongst their ranks now. Many listeners may have heard of him. Really quite upsetting things going on. There was a worker walking into a pen full of live turkeys who then urinated. Lots of things where they're they're not doing the appropriate things in terms of changing their footwear when they're walking between sheds, not using foot dips, as well as sort of gross misconduct in terms of animal handling, I suppose you'd call it. So throwing and quote, mishandling birds. Shane, often we see things like this and the animal exploiters will say, oh, this is shocking. This is not this is not what we expect. But it's still, even though they're probably not going to
00:04:07
Speaker
do a great deal internally, it's still getting the footage of what a normal animal ag farm looks like, which is is a big shock to a lot of people, I think, isn't it? Well, I think it is. I think that what they're reporting in this article isn't any surprise to anybody who pays attention to animal rights or veganism. And I think it's basically the same old story and that it's always the low level people that get in trouble, that are you know laid off or or fired or or whatever. And it's the upper echelons or the administrators who pretend that they have absolutely absolutely no idea of what's been happening. And they're just shocked that this is happening in their facility. And I mean, honestly, it's their facility. They should be held responsible. They should know what's happening. And if it's not right, if biosecurity measures aren't being followed, if abuse is happening, then they should be held responsible. But honestly, I don't think that this is ever going to change.
00:05:06
Speaker
This, this system is never going to change until the people who have the money and the influence
Accountability Issues in Animal Agriculture
00:05:10
Speaker
are held accountable for what's going on. Cause you're, you're just going to hold somebody who's making, you know, minimum wage accountable. That doesn't change anything. And I thought that what you said about Harrods was also interesting because i feel like the BBC made a big deal of talking about how Harrods is charging so much for these turkeys and,
00:05:29
Speaker
there's like this implication that it's somehow worse to throw birds or violate biosecurity measures if rich people are going to buy the turkeys. But I think that just proves the point that no matter how good or upscale, and I'd say good in quotation marks, upscale the supplier is, that we just cannot trust animal agriculture to treat animals well, or to care about the health of consumers or the environment. Yeah, you're you're absolutely right. And I mean, they're In this article, they ah there is a quote saying, the vast majority of staff care deeply for the animals in their care. I mean, that's not only nonsense, but
00:06:06
Speaker
that That wouldn't actually be a prerequisite of getting a job there, would it? Actually, you are, it's very, and it's not clerical, but it's um it's a process, isn't it, that you're involved in if you're unlucky enough to be working in a situation like that. No one's needing to show that they care deeply about the bird. So to to state that is clearly hyperbolic and just just a lie, isn't it? No, it's just marketing. It's just a talking point that you know somebody with a PR degree told them, let's let's say this and you know make us sound better. But that's not the truth. And I mean, of course, you follow up with people who have left these kind of industries. They often have you know PTSD. It's very traumatizing to work in these sorts of industries. Yeah, absolutely. And every time we buy the products of those industries, we are effectively saying, Somebody needs to work in that environment. And I think that's certainly an angle that we could use a lot more in the animal rights movement is saying, look at what you're asking somebody to do. Look at what you're telling an industry they need to do.
00:07:08
Speaker
pay people to do. Horrid stuff, but well done the Green Britain Foundation for capturing the footage and for sharing it more widely. Now onto our next
Protests Against Bullfighting in Malacca
00:07:17
Speaker
story. I've i've raced here from a demo outside a Greyhound racing track near where I live in Wolverhampton, but it's obviously not just people in the UK who are taking direct protesting action. We've all got dirty little secrets in our corners of the world, bits of animal exploitation for, quote, sport that needs exposing. And that is what has been happening in Malacca in the last week or so. A big coalition of different organisations gathered outside an arena on Sunday, December the 7th to call for an end to bullfighting. There's a brilliant picture. If you take a look in the show notes for the link, it's our second story of the week. You'll see it there.
00:08:02
Speaker
Very visual, very striking. There's ah a bullfighter kneeling in his regalia. It's not an actual bullfighter. It's someone dressed as one. Kneeling in their regalia with looks like a sack over their head um and lots of people wearing bull masks in the background carrying a banner that reads, Malauka without torture ban bullfighting. Like I say, huge different range of organizations represented. So there's PETA, the Franz Weber Foundation, Malauka against bullfighting, Progreso en Verde, and Satya Animal. it's It's interesting, Mark, you've had a look at this one, just reading the percentage of people that are against this in Malauka, more than 80% of people are against it, yet it persists. it's um For fans of democracy, it's it's not great, as as well as obviously people who value animal rights. Yeah, so so Spain is one of those countries a bit like Ireland, and the UK, I would imagine, in fact, I would say most countries where it's it's made up of some very different demographics of people that come from different places historically and culturally and
00:09:09
Speaker
are sort of contained within the border of of of the Spanish nation, but they're actually very different. So the people in the Balearic Islands, my wife's sister used to live in the Balearic Islands for years, for a decade or so. So I was over and back there a fair bit when I was living in England and i had friends in Barcelona. And so I'm quite familiar with Spain and the differences between, say, the people...
00:09:32
Speaker
from the central region of Spain, say Madrid, the center of power, and and the people up in Barcelona or out in the Balearic Islands, they're very different people. So so bullfighting is a sort it's it's a bit like the fox hunting of Britain, right? So it was sort of developed around the same time. It's been going on for millennia, but in its current form, it was developed in the 18th century. maybe the 17th century, around the same time as fox hunting kim came came came to be. And it was it was it was done by the ruling class, again, to sort of intimidate you people around them, to let them know who was boss, to sort of perfect their horse riding skills and their fighting skills. Initially, it was a gang of men and horses with spears who would hunt down ah bull the same as as as the English gentry would would hunt down a fox and then spear the poor beast to to death. And then it developed into this matador thing. And it's it's the living, right? It's the it one of the purest examples of human dominion in the Christian form of the...
00:10:37
Speaker
the word to sort of play out in front of you. i sort of watched a couple of videos of this last night and it was a it was a fairly well balanced documentary about the history of this um so so-called sport. And we're saying it's sort of it's a support describe it as beauty meeting art and violence meets culture. And it's a celebration of death, actually, and exposing your body to the you know to the ravages of the bull's horns and doing this in the end of art and how noble
Cultural Significance of Bullfighting in Spain
00:11:06
Speaker
is this. And I mean, it's, it was it's it's as I say, it's a living expression of of human supremacy over non-human animals. It's it's where power but meets arrogance, the the sort of cartoonish hyper-masculinity of the matador.
00:11:21
Speaker
was sort of laughable if it wasn't in such a macabre sort of environment. But ah yeah, so it's it's it's not a surprise to me that people in the Balearic Islands are really opposed to this pastime that they would associate with the ruling class from of a very distant authoritarian regime. It wasn't that long ago when Spain was a ah fascist dictatorship. It was one of the few successful ones in Europe there in Portugal. they They never got overthrown. They just died. So Spain always has been ah
00:11:52
Speaker
a country of extremes. It's a rich man's sport. It would be associated culturally and politically with, I suppose, the enemy for a lot of people, especially older people that live in the Balearic Islands and up in Barcelona and in the Basque region and so on and so on. the The whole country is ah is a patchwork of different cultures, very relevant.
00:12:13
Speaker
of very different cultures. it's interesting It's interesting to me that bulls are given such a prominent part in so many different cultures, not only in Spain and Portugal, in Ireland as well, bulls were used as money before cash was around. When the Normans invaded, after they had invaded England, they they used the stampede of panicking bulls and directed them towards the oncoming Irish army and smashed the Irish army even though they were vastly outnumbered and set the tone for the next 800 years of occupation. Bulls and bovine were used as an excuse for the ruling class to rid Ireland and Scotland of millions of people so that they could use the land to pasteurize bulls and cows. So
00:12:57
Speaker
these animals have had a very close proximity to the history of of the human species. It's interesting that bullfighting takes place at all. it's It's not a coincidence that it's a bull that the guy is going up against. It is very much the same as fox hunting. It is despicable as fox hunting and it it it provokes the same sort of arrogance in in people as well. it's it's It's all about the show and the spectacle.
00:13:20
Speaker
so It won't be long until it's it's banned as well, but it'll take a while because it is so entrenched in the powerful class in the centre of Spain. And it's not our only story about bullfighting and opposition to it gaining momentum this week. We have mentioned on one previous episode episode of vegan week the fact that bullfighting that is traditionally associated with countries of spanish association as well as just spain but also in korea there is a type of bullfighting that is traditionally bulls fighting each other there's not ah a human involved in the middle against it, although very often the bulls don't want to fight each other. In fact, this article cites, I think it's something like, correct me if I'm wrong, Shane, but I think it's something like 40% of the bull fights, the but the bulls didn't want to fight. So the humans are then basically having to pull them along to get them to fight one another, which, I mean, can you make it any more tragic? Well, in in my mind, that that almost does. So we were reporting on that and the fact that there was some opposition rumbling around. This is now taking on a bit more prominence in that in the National Assembly in South Korea, there is a proposed bill that would abolish traditional bullfighting altogether. It's a waiting review, this bill, which understandably is setting off an intense clash between those who see the sport as an act of animal cruelty, as I'm sure everyone listening to this show was, and those who are defending it as a, quote, irreplaceable cultural legacy. It's an interesting piece, I thought, this one, Shane, because it it really is giving both sides of it. It's not a animal rights publication we've taken this from, is it? It's the Korean Herald. So they are talking about you know, the history of it and the the legacy, which is tapping into what you were saying, Mark. But it's great that this is kind of reaching the the doors of Parliament, whether or not it gets pushed through. The fact that they're talking about it does seem to be progress and a ah dint in the armour of this, quote, sport. Well, i I agree. And I think that this is a common argument that anybody who abuses animals for so-called religious or traditional reasons make is that, well, we can't stop doing this because this is our tradition. And so I'm glad that finally somebody, there's a lawmaker who's introduced the act to abolish the traditional bullfighting act, which makes it legal to fight bulls. Even though humans aren't
00:16:02
Speaker
fighting the bulls in this case, the article did say that 60% of properly completed matches resulted in injuries to the bulls, and that those who were fight, then they were like, whipped, they had harsh training practices, and the injured bulls who were but the bulls who were injured, then they didn't really get treatment. They were usually slaughtered within the month. Then the article, what I thought, another thing I thought was interesting was that the article then seems to go, or the writer then seems to go back and talk about how, but if bulls don't fight, if they, what we find is that if the bulls aren't involved in fighting, then 71% of them would be slaughtered. But I would say, well, the the bulls are going to be slaughtered either way. So I don't think it makes it okay to make them fight just because they're they'd be slaughtered anyway. Maybe we just don't slaughter bulls. Yeah, it's complete non-argument that, isn't it? It's like, no, come on, you should be grateful. for you' get You're getting to fight here. if Some of your mates are being killed. At least you get to have fight first. Well, they're being killed without having to fight first. So I don't know who's the lucky one. This is also, interestingly enough, this is a publicly funded um activity. So the taxpayers are paying for this. And they were, the article mentioned one arena where they were consistently running deficits. So, I mean, they're,
00:17:18
Speaker
Apparently, this is kind of expensive and it's something that is is having to be paid for by the people. The one positive thing I took from this article was that it does seem like Korea is following the path of countries like Mexico and Spain, where you are starting to see bans for bullfighting come into play. And, you know, hopefully this passes. ah I don't know. They only mentioned one. assembly member who was so behind this. i don't know if there are others who were behind it as well or or what the support for it is. it's It's a hopeful sign. Yeah, it's it's absolutely that. And I mean, it's very hard to compare these things to other similar movements and practices. But I The numbers in terms of approval, I would suggest, would say that Spain is more opposed to bullfighting than Korea.
Tradition vs. Animal Cruelty
00:18:05
Speaker
We've got here statistics of 70% of respondents in Korea said they had no intention of watching bullfighting. 57% opposed to allocating public funds to such events. So I'd imagine those numbers would be higher in Spain, but it's great that it's getting talked about and in such a public way. ah Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people. Can't argue with that.
00:18:30
Speaker
zait You can't. I imagine Mark's got that on a coaster or something or a t-shirt in in his house. Now we've started off, listeners, with three not particularly positive stories, though there's always positives to take.
00:18:42
Speaker
from these things, but you're definitely due something that is unequivocally positive. So we present to you two and a half million pounds donated to animal charities. Again, we reported on this about to be happening a few months ago. Ricky Gervais, stand-up comedian as well as writer, film director, et cetera, et cetera, said that he was going to be donating the profits from his latest standup tour. He has a history of doing this. So he ah donated 1.9 million pounds food ticket sales for his Armageddon tour. and But his latest tour, Mortality, resulted in him donating just under two and a half million pounds from this tour. He announced that on December 9th and it's going to support 22 animal charities. So the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals, PDSA, International Animal Rescue, Celia Hammond Animal Trust and Animal Asia each receive There is Nalzad, the charity providing animal welfare services in Afghanistan and Ukraine. They've been allocated 132,000 and an additional 17 organisations are going to get a sweet 100 grand each.
00:20:05
Speaker
Mark, it's ah it's a great scheme that animal rights and pro-animal charities are ah getting here because basically it's some sort of comedy tax that Ricky Gervais seems to be doing because he's sort of hiking the price of his tickets because they're so in demand and giving this lovely great surplus to organisations that will be very much benefiting from it. Exactly, and yeah, I think what he's doing, as you say, is he's, he's you know, that that's sort of competitive pricing thing. So the the more demand there is for a ticket for an event, the
00:20:40
Speaker
higher the price goes for that ticket. It's sort of this this AI automated sort of response thing. So the extra money that he makes on above and beyond the the price of a standard ticket from a standard source is is that is the money that he sets aside for all these all these various animal rights and animal welfare initiatives. It's a hell of a Christmas present. I can think of a lot of charities that would it would be a game changer for them to receive 100,000 of your pounds, which is 200,000 New Zealand dollars. It would keep a campaign going with paid staff you know for a year or two that, you know? So it's it's amazing. ah With Ricky Gervais, he's always expressed concern about animal welfare ever since I've been listening to him, which is a long, long time.
Ricky Gervais' Donations to Animal Charities
00:21:28
Speaker
It took him a while to get around to the vegetarian, then vegan thing, i must say, but he's there now. And in previous generations,
00:21:36
Speaker
there wouldn't have been the demand or expectation for him to become a vegan, I think. And it's a sign of times when someone, an average a man like like him in terms of his relationship with non-human animals, feels compelled to put his money where his mouth is and publicly state that he is vegan.
00:21:54
Speaker
because it makes sense and it would be ridiculous for not to be vegan if he's doing this other stuff for animals. And that's and a cultural expectation that is on people now like it never has been before. And if this guy had been a comedian and back in the 1950s, the 1970s, or times before that, he wouldn't be a vegan or a vegetarian. And I think you're absolutely right, Mark, that the the kind of everyday love for animals that has been clear in his personality since he he became Well known at the sort of turn of the century. They are the feelings and sentiments, I think, of most people. Yes. Most people call themselves animal lovers. um
00:22:33
Speaker
But the joining up of the dots takes a while. And so it's a really good sign of the times that actually that. That normal love for animals that most people will feel in some way, shape or form does lead people to to veganism. Ultimately, that ah can
Capripox Virus Outbreak in Greece
00:22:49
Speaker
give us some hope. that's That's good. Plunging back down to reality, I'm afraid, with our next story. This is from Farming UK. This is talking about an outbreak of sheep and goats. Pox. oh There's all sorts of different words for this. Capri pox virus. um is another one. It's rampaging through Greece. It's a particularly unpleasant condition in that you can have it if you're a sheep or a goat and it not be particularly apparent to the humans that are, quote, caring or looking after you or, quote, own you. It's not apparent until much further down the line in many cases And that is part of the reason why there is effectively a policy that if
00:23:36
Speaker
just one animal in a herd is shown to have this virus, then the whole herd gets culled, which is obviously completely tragic. And obviously Farming UK reporting this from, ah oh goodness, look at look at the losses. They they also cite worry about the feta cheese industry, which is not not our concern, clearly. But Shane, ah had you ever heard of this before? I've not come across this particular virus before, though maybe similar ones to it. No, I've never heard of Caprapox virus before, but it sounds like a lot of other zoonotic diseases that spread through close contact between animals. And and nearly half a million sheep and goats have been killed from from this outbreak.
00:24:25
Speaker
Horrid stuff, isn't it? I mean, it's very similar to what we're seeing happen with bird flu around the world. And i think this kind of thing is just gonna keep happening if we keep crowding animals together in unnatural conditions. And even though this article is talking a lot about the thousands of animals that are dead or having to be killed because of this, it's really, the concern is really not about the death of the animals, you know, because they're killing a whole flock if they just find one case. It's really about money. And it's about the farmers who are losing money and um the concern for future feta production
00:25:00
Speaker
And so they talk about how the compensation is up to 220 pounds per called animal, but that's not the true scale of their losses, especially for small and medium enterprises that depend on flock numbers for future income. So, you know, even though I don't know what what compensation they're getting, but it it is always about the money. And I think until we stop eating animals and we stop eating feta, we stop cramming animals together, we're not... Until then, we're going to keep seeing these zoonotic diseases and they're a danger to the animals. They're also a danger to people because they can spread. This one, in this case, this one hasn't been spreading to people, but other ones do spread to people and it can be deadly to us as well. we We shouldn't expect anything different from Farming UK, but I do hate it in these stories about zoonotic diseases that have resulted in, in this case, nearly half a million animals in many cases, just being indiscriminately killed, where they will say, oh, it's this virus doesn't want to go into human bodies, though, like humans are fine. You just think that seems like such an irrelevant thing to mention. Of course, we're humans reading it. And of course, it's a human who's writing it. But like, my goodness, like, think of the loss, think of the loss of life. Like that's, that's the last thing. Yeah, that that matters really. yeah and And actually, I think this is a
00:26:19
Speaker
a really good example of we often get asked the question by those who aren't vegan yet oh well if you know if if we didn't have animals we weren't breeding them to be used in animal agriculture well they they die out or what have you well You would have wild sheep, you would have wild goats, and actually, yes, viruses might pass through them um like that. you You correctly point out, Shane, that cramming them together it massively increases the chance that that would happen. But there are still you know viruses and and illnesses that would happen. But what wouldn't happen is you wouldn't be culling the whole flock. The whole flock wouldn't die in something like this. Yes, a lot of them might.
00:27:04
Speaker
that maybe there might even be some instances where the whole flock would get it and the whole flock would die. But it is humans who are killing the whole flock here as ah as a preventative measure. So it it just shows how how bad we are at actually looking after these animals and how much harm we cause.
Campaign for Lobster-Free Festive Season
00:27:20
Speaker
Really horrible stuff, but i yeah, important to to feature these things because the more we can be educated on on what animal ag and animal exploitation looks like, the better we can advocate, I think anyway.
00:27:32
Speaker
And another group of people who are advocating on behalf of animals is a group called Gaia. I think that's how you pronounce it. G-A-I-A. And they are urging folk to have a lobster-free festive season in Belgium. You might be thinking, well, I would have thought that the festive season would be naturally lobster-free, wouldn't it? Well, no. Belgium is one of the biggest, if not the biggest per capita consumer of lobsters. I think they're the fifth largest consumer of lobsters in the world. And Belgium is a very small country in Europe by it by general standards. But this group, Gaia, they are spreading lots of education, ah showing what happens to these animals. I think a lot of listeners will know of
00:28:22
Speaker
how traditionally they are cooked they're boiled alive effectively so i have been sharing you know the the sentience behind that and the fact that most most animals will will feel that and experience that for a few minutes and they're making different calls of obviously the the demand we'd like to see would be saying well nobody consume lobster but they they are making what we might call more pragmatic demands in terms of calling for a ban on killing lobsters without stunning, mastery use of devices which stun the lobsters in a fraction of a second, um and prohibiting on selling live lobsters. Mark, I had no idea that this was a thing.
00:29:06
Speaker
And I'm jolly pleased that there's folk who are rallying against it to try and stop it being a thing. Yeah, i must say i was surprised to hear that Belgium was such a large consumer for of lobsters and that Christmas was a period for them consuming lobsters. I've automatically assumed it's turkeys the world over on my Eurocentric. sort of mindset but yeah so i i was surprised to hear that it was it was an issue in belgium it it does flip when i see people wanting to eat or eating um animals like lobsters or octopus or squid it answers my question if if aliens came down to earth would some people try and eat them and the answer is yes when you see the meaning like tucking into a squid or something these are really intelligent creatures i'm talking about crustaceans generally squid in particularly they they're on a crustacean but in marine life is is really overlooked in terms of its intelligence and its capability and its ancestry there were marine life was around a lot longer than land life was around and what what what happens to lobsters they can get away with it the way they
00:30:10
Speaker
wouldn't get away with it if they're doing this to say chickens or god forbid you know beagle dogs or something like this they boil them alive and they poke out their eyes and they truss them up with within strings so they the clothes can't move it's it's an awful existence it's an awful way to die and that that's um reflected in the fact that they're they're running this advert gaia to to kind of promote their cause featuring a dog.
00:30:36
Speaker
it It doesn't seem, I mean, I can't say I've seen the advert, but it's described in this article. And it they're featuring the advert on a dog that ultimately finds himself hanging over a boiling pot like ah like a lobster would. So that's kind of reflected the in their approach, I suppose, isn't it? that That people seem to think it's okay for a lobster, but they wouldn't for a dog. Yeah, I think and it's it's the vocalisation a huge ah aspect of this. If marine life could scream, every time you stuck your head ah underneath the water, you'd you'd be deafened what is going on. There's so much of it down there. and but But yeah, the fact that they look so apart from us, they don't vocalise any sounds.
00:31:19
Speaker
So it seems to be fair game just on on those characteristics alone. There is a video footage of the one and as far as I know only recorded live lobster liberation, which took place in 2015.
00:31:34
Speaker
in Dublin city by the Alliance for Animal Rights. Some activists from there and a few other groups, the National Animal Rights Alliance, I think. And they they they recorded themselves going into a restaurant and pulling out a banner.
00:31:48
Speaker
And then whilst the other activists went over to the live lobster fish tank sort of thing, put their hands in and they took out a few lobsters, put them into other tanks, broke brought them out and released them into the sea in Dublin harbour. And it's all on video on YouTube. So if you put in Lobster Liberation Dublin 2015, it'll come up.
00:32:08
Speaker
So I hope that a guy get a bit of purchase in this. It seems to be a culturally embedded thing about about eating lobsters. And it might be a more difficult campaign to pull off than if you were trying to get people to get upset about, say, ah baby baby seals being clubbed or something like this.
00:32:25
Speaker
But hopefully the extreme cruelty involved in this process will be enough to shock people into... cookco Because the poor things, they're trying escape the pot as they're being boiled alive. It's an awful way to die. It's probably one of the worst ways you could could i die, you know, drowning or boiling alive, you know? Yeah. And, and I mean, again, Gaia in this press release that... ah Again, we're not taking it from an animal rights publication. This is in the Brussels Times.
00:32:51
Speaker
There's a lot of education in this piece. They're talking about the the horrible suffering that they experienced prior to that death. that That death is quite notorious. It's reasonably well known, I think. But in terms of the conditions that they suffer in, often for up to nine months before they're they're killed, that they can be kept alive.
00:33:12
Speaker
sort of captive for a very long time. All stuff that I didn't know before, but that I've learned from from reading this article. And there'll be lots of folk who are not vegan who are reading this news too. So well done, Gaia, for that work and their ongoing campaign against that horrid industry.
00:33:28
Speaker
We're going to take a quick break now. When we get back, we're going to hear Mark and Shane's picks for the week. They are both focusing on campaigns against animal testing. But first, here's Richard with some soothing guitar in the background.
00:33:41
Speaker
As well as producing these audio-based shows, our podcast hosts at Zencaster also provide the written transcript for each show. This is AI generated, so it might not always be 100% correct, but nonetheless we hope that this will increase the accessibility of our show.
00:34:01
Speaker
So to access any of these written transcripts, head over to zencaster.com forward slash vegan week. going to spell it all for you. Zencaster is Z-E-N-C-A-S-T-R dot com, then a forward slash, and then the word vegan, V-E-G-A-N, then a hyphen, and then week.
00:34:24
Speaker
Zencaster.com forward slash vegan hyphen week. and then each transcript is embedded with any of the shows you click on. Okay, Shane, let's start with your pick of the week.
00:34:36
Speaker
It comes from the US. I've been listening to the autobiography of Elton John this week. I've been really enjoying it, and he's done a lot of campaigning for folk who have AIDS. And I'm noticing that in your story, this is relating to about 200 rhesus and pigtailed macaques being used to study HIV as well as other conditions.
00:35:02
Speaker
A horrible thought to for anyone to be deliberately subjected to these diseases. But I think I'm right in saying that this story is quite positive and quite hopeful in terms of that being challenged and possibly being phased out. Can you tell us some
CDC Phases Out Monkey Research
00:35:18
Speaker
more? Yeah, so we've seen quite a bit of good news as far as animal testing in the United States in the last few months.
00:35:25
Speaker
First of all, the Food and Drug Administration, and this is an organization that is charged with making sure that the medicines that we use and the food we eat is safe. They were announced in April that they're going to begin begin phasing out animal testing And they're going to replace it with, quote, more effective human relevant methods. And so we had that news. And now we have been given this news that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is the CDC, and the CDC um is an organization that protects safety. it Basically, you can look on their website and see, oh, well, these are the vaccines that are recommended. If you're traveling to a foreign country, what what immunizations you need to get, um
00:36:10
Speaker
During the coronavirus pandemic, there was a lot of information on there about where cases were rising and so on. And so that's what the CDC is. And they do animal research. And they are now told by the federal government that they need to phase out research on monkeys. And as you said, that's about 200 monkeys. And this is good news because these monkeys, it's going to be phased out by the end of the year.
00:36:35
Speaker
So these monkeys will no longer be experimented on. However, we do not know what is going to happen to the monkeys, if they're going to be sent to a sanctuary or or something like that, or if they're just going to be killed I mean, my assumption is being that this is the federal government is that they will probably just euthanize the animals. The bad thing about this, and I mean, it is ah ah is absolutely 100% a step in the right direction, but this is only applying to the public sector so far, the FDA, the CDC. These are public sector organizations. They're not private. And that's actually where most of the animal research takes place. So we're looking at about 200 animals and then whatever the FDA has, where over 100 million animals are used a year, mostly rats and mice, and they don't have any legal protection. So this is a step in the right direction, but we still, you know, we have a lot of places we need to still work on.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I took a bit of hope from this in that we've we've taken this news story from the Animal Legal Defence Fund's website and they mention that in July 2024, they helped to facilitate the legal legal release of six pigs from an undisclosed research lab to three reputable sanctuaries. Now, obviously, that is a very small number. compared with the 200 monkeys in question and i don't know is it maybe a bit easier to find somewhere for a pig to live than a monkey i don't know i could i could be wrong there but it can be done but it's it's the numbers involved one would think that's part of the issue here And and I think the other thing is just, it it's surprising because the the current administration, you just never know what they're going to do. And apparently the person who's basically in charge of this is somebody who just graduated from college, doesn't really have a whole lot of like experience with any in this, but obviously believes that animal testing isn't really that effective. And so, I mean, well'll I'll take good news where I can get it yeah Yeah, absolutely. And obviously most of our most of our efforts in the animal rights movement are protecting future animals from being abused. And obviously where we can, we we protect those who are currently alive. But sir sometimes the priority perhaps is is given to to future ones in that there's, depending on how long the planet is around for, there's there's far more animals that could be exploited in the future than are currently
UK's Animal Testing Sites as Key Infrastructure
00:39:08
Speaker
alive now. But let's let's hope it doesn't have to be an either or situation for these for these monkeys.
00:39:14
Speaker
Thank you for that one, Shane. Now, Mark, you're also talking about animal experimentation and those who are opposing it, but I would say this is not as rosy a picture in that we're we're seeing in the UK the government could be making a move that could criminalise protests against animal testing, such as Camp Beagle that we've spoken about before in East Anglia, that the effectively Correct me if I'm wrong, Mark, but they're making this sort of facility being put on ah a list along with a few other things that basically you're not allowed to protest, you're not allowed to do anything against. It's sort of seen as sacrosanct, whereas up until now...
00:39:57
Speaker
It's been fair game to protest against like, you know, like anything else, but it's they're looking at changing the classification, aren't they? So what the UK government, the Labour government, but this Labour government have proven week by week, they seem to be more Tory than the Tory party. It's unbelievable. particularly considering their leader used to be a human rights lawyer that helped for free the Mac libel too for a while.
00:40:19
Speaker
The 180 degree change couldn't be more severe with this guy. All right. So what's going on here is that the highly successful Camp Beagle campaign, which is 24 seven little camping site set up outside um about 100 yards down the road from MBR Beagle breeding facility where Beagle dogs are bred to be sold to the vivisection industry.
00:40:42
Speaker
for experimentation. It's been going on for years. They keep changing their name. They keep getting bought out by different companies because they are under so much pressure. They have been for years. It's led in part by a guy called John Curtin, who is a renowned and very highly regarded ex-Annunen Liberation Front activists who spent many years in prison, including for breaking into the place he's currently camped outside about 20, 30 years ago. So what this state are trying to do is re reclassify MBR acres as a part of the, I wrote this down somewhere, key national infrastructure makeup. So
00:41:20
Speaker
That would mean it's it's placed alongside um nuclear power facilities, energy generating facilities, army barracks, places like this, places of considerable importance to the infrastructure of the state. And and if if this if this business, because it is just a business, is is classified as ah part of the key national infrastructure network,
00:41:42
Speaker
then it basically ah grants the police and the military police extensive powers to do a lot more to people like the protesters at Camp Beagle than they have been able to do up to now. So it would it would turn the the legal system around this facility and people protesting against it into what essentially you would associate with the the Soviet Union's secret police, Stasi type of empowerment, right? Where they can basically do anything if they suspect...
00:42:12
Speaker
strongly enough that there's something going on that will affect the running of a facility in this case a business and it's so it's worded so vaguely it can be it just applied to just about anything okay now I spend time ah back in my punk rock youth, back in the 1990s and early 2000s, on and off at a place called Fast Lane Peace Camp, which is ah similar to Camp Beagle, but it's been around since the early 1980s. It's still there now. But it's turned into essentially a strip of a village on one side of a two-lane road that runs past Fast Lane
00:42:50
Speaker
submarine nuclear missile base, which is the UK military's nuclear facility. It's a city-sized military base. It's at the end of a lock. It's at the foot of the Highlands. It's absolutely in an absolutely beautiful setting. But it's like aliens have come down and set up city in this piece of pristine nature where submarines go in and out that have nuclear tipped ballistic missiles on them. I think there's three or four submarines there. One or two are always out roaming around the world somewhere, ready to strike, and two were in are in repair or at rest. So we used to, and it's still going on as i say, but i used to take part in a lot of actions that were directed against the base by blocking the road, breaking into the base, getting onto the submarines. It's getting loads and loads of of press and attention around the issue. and a bit like Greenham Common, Ant. I don't know if you remember back then, but it it it it was it was mixed. It wasn't just and females. As I say, it still exists. It's it's a wonderful camp. But that too is suffers under the... um
00:43:51
Speaker
the ah special significance for the police. It's considered to be a key infrastructure. So anything that we did from getting up in the morning to making breakfast to breaking into the camp was technically illegal because we were doing it within a certain radius. The police could have come in at any time and arrested us on really spurious charges and held us for as long as they wanted to, essentially. They rarely ever did because it would be really bad PR and it wouldn't be of benefit to them. but the sense of pressure from the police you were basically dealing with a militarized police force even though they were the local bobbies from glasgow what's interesting about this i think is that whilst we could debate here whether a nuclear weapons facility should or shouldn't exist and or should or shouldn't be part of key national infrastructure the fact is that the current government hasn't put out ah an anti-nuclear war head stance. But actually, as recently as a few weeks ago, they've said that they want to be phasing out animal testing, massively reducing the amount of animal testing that's going on. Like Shane says, it's happening in in the US. is happening in the UK as well as many other countries. So on the one hand, they're saying that, but then they're taking, like you say, this private business who does animal testing and saying that this is so crucial, we're putting it on par with the road system, the rail system, oil and gas, electricity generation. It's that essential that you can't touch it. And it I mean, like you say, Mark, that this current Labour government in the UK is is u-turn city and is is not what people thought it would be in the slightest but that's a really baffling contradiction isn't it from something they've said less than a month ago yeah yeah it it is a really weird right so so each time they revise and update the public order acts or whatever particular name they're given to similar bills at the time it's in response almost the last 20 or 30 years it's been in response to grassroots animal rights organizations becoming more and more prolific and powerful.
00:45:53
Speaker
And the last time this happened was about 25 years ago, when at the peak of the Huntington, ah Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty Movement was really kicking kicking off. And there had been about foreclosures of different institutions that the animal rights movement had set its focus on.
00:46:09
Speaker
And some took a few years, some some some merely a few months, but they all closed down one after the other, despite massive police pressure. And then came the Shack campaign.
00:46:20
Speaker
And that would have won if the government hadn't bought out did this the company about four times over and then introduced these new laws. I think it was called the the Public Order Act then as well, but it but a different act. to smash the air movement by imposing, again, sort of ah an extensive police harassment and state imprisonment sort campaign against the movements. And some of the key people were put into a prison for for for years around that. So this is a response to a resurgence grassroots animal rights movement that is taking on specific companies and having enormous effect. And the the last thing that any state wants, any a capitalist state wants, is to...
00:46:58
Speaker
give people the impression that they can choose which companies ought to exist and shouldn't. And they want to take that power away. And they do that by lawfare as as a war, by introducing new bills and acts to smash that movement. And I think that's what's happening now. It is a contradiction in terms of their their stance on on on ah animal welfare and experimentation. But it's not a contradiction in terms of their stance around the free market. And it should be the free market that decides and not the Joe public, you know. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Well, the good news is that lots of folk are rallying against this. I will say, again, not a vegan publication we've taken this from, but I think it's generally written in a tone that's favourable to the NBR, Acres, protesters. um And indeed, ah you know, even if you can't get along with... to the site i i thought your description of it as a campsite mark was generous it's a it's a verge uh next to a road where people happen to be camping there's certainly not many facilities of yes it's not listed on the caravan club site of approved locations um but even if you can't get there international listeners there is a link in the show notes where you can sign camp beagle's latest petition so we'd encourage you to do so because it won't take you long So those are our first eight stories of the week. Mark and Shane and myself have given our opinions, but you should know that we want to hear what you think too. It could be about the stories we've covered today. It could be about the opinions that we've given on them, or indeed you might have noticed something out there that you think we might be interested in covering. So we'd love for you to send us an email. Here's how to get in touch.
00:48:37
Speaker
To get in touch with us, just send us an email at enoughofthefalafel at gmail.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.
00:48:56
Speaker
Go on, send us a message today. Enoughofthefalafel at gmail.com We've got time for just one story left in this week's news show. I mentioned i was I've been listening to Elton John's autobiography and there's lots of talk of lots of Beatles doing lots of naughty things, putting naughty things up their nose. um and But Paul McCartney has found time to do other things with his life and as as many people ah may know, along with at various romantic partners, has released lots of burgers and sausages and other things that don't contain meat. So it's not much surprise to hear that he's eventually weighed into the EU bit of strife with regards to whether you can call something a sausage or not, or a burger or not, or even an egg white I read in this article from Far Out magazine, .co.uk. Apparently egg whites are included in the list of things that you're not going to be able to call egg whites ah if they come from chickpeas. So yes, for those who haven't been following this story, firstly, welcome to the show because we've been covering it quite a lot. So you must be quite a recent listener. But it was a French MEP who was behind the amendment. And it it has been victorious, although it is worth noting, listeners, that this is not law yet. It needs to be given the green light by the European Commission, namely the the fact that what seems to be going through is you're not going to be able to call certain foods, sausages, burgers, etc., unless they come from animal parts, which we've discussed at length.
Paul McCartney on Plant-Based Food Labeling
00:50:35
Speaker
But yes, Paul McCartney has made several statements and is getting behind the campaign against this. He has said to stipulate that burgers and sausages are plant-based, vegetarian or vegan should be enough for sensible people to understand what they are eating. This also encourages attitudes which are essential to our health and that of the planet. He also sent a letter on Peter's behalf to COP30, the global climate summit which was held in Brazil, urging them against serving meat, saying, Serving meat at a climate summit is like handing out cigarettes as a cancer prevention conference. Shane, I mean, it's it's interesting that we're, you know, we're we're talking about Paul McCartney, but um do do you think celebrity voice is going to to make any difference to this? It feels like it might just be left with the the bureaucrats in in EU land. Is this going to make a difference, do you think? and No. i mean, i'm happy I'm happy Paul McCartney is speaking out. I know who Paul McCartney is.
00:51:41
Speaker
i don't know how many people under the age of 40 would know who he is or really care. so I mean, that that's great that anybody, in Ricky Gervais or Paul McCartney, are speaking out. I think what he says interesting.
00:51:54
Speaker
very astute. He says that, you know, that if it's labeled plant-based, vegetarian, or vegan, then sensible people sensible people understand what they're eating. Because I feel like governments often make these kinds of laws because they want to pretend it's about consumers and about protecting consumers so that you don't accidentally buy something that's not meat at the store. But ah really, it's just about protecting agriculture and big agriculture. Alternatively, it could be showing that maybe meat alternatives are hurting the bottom line because if if it what if if having alternatives out there wasn't causing an impact, then they probably wouldn't care enough to to do these things. So i I don't know. I just don't like how it's couched in like, oh, we're just trying to help the consumer when really it's just they're trying to help big agriculture. Yeah, that's certainly how I take it. I think it's disingenuous to say that people getting confused. In fact, I'm pretty sure at some point when we've been covering this story, there has been data that has shown that people are not confused at all. And that was that was even from a non-vegan source, I think, that that had done this survey to see whether people were confused or not. Mark, I wonder whether you think that um follow if this does go through the EU, whether we should be lobbying them further with such...
00:53:11
Speaker
that different names should be coming up, not just for peanut butter and Easter eggs and coconut milk, but actually artificial Christmas trees. I mean, should they be called Christmas trees? Because, you know, they're made to look like Christmas trees, um but they're not, are they? Why would you call it a tree? It needs a different name, doesn't it? It could be called a tree-like product. Or the emily way. the the milky way in the sky like ah what are we going to call the milky way that something something different now not actually made out of milk that's very true wonder if yeah i wonder if uh paul mccartney is getting involved because back in the day if if ah people used to go along and see his band and expect to see a bunch of insects with sort of mop top haircuts on stage or something like that i wonder if it If it's a triggering point for him. Right, so this clearly, as as yeah you and Shana both said, this is all about protecting animal agriculture. It reflects their political power in society. It also reflects how how little how how little argument they have left.
00:54:14
Speaker
This is all they have, the semantics. and it if And if they think that this is is is this is going to in any way impact the global rise of veganism, It won't.
00:54:25
Speaker
m yeah They've never produced a person like a single example of an actual citizen who has said, I went along to my local shop to buy pig burgers and I ended up buying these plant-based burgers by accident and I'm so outraged. They've never produced one example of that.
00:54:43
Speaker
They've just supposed it could happen. And on the basis of that, they're trying to change the But if that happened, then the person could just return the product to the store and get their money back. It's yeah it's not hard. yes So I don't understand who's being hurt here. Yeah, and it would happen to them once and never again. Exactly. Right? It's not a mistake. Just sort of like to repeat over and over again. So it really is an issue out of nowhere. It's it's a ah you know a problem looking for a solution sort of thing. And it's sort of laughable. they They do this again and again. I think it won't get through because I think there's at least one more stage, if not two more stages of unanimous backing
00:55:23
Speaker
to be passed into law. So and the EU is is a very slow, cumbersome beast. it's It's been tried before with very limited success. Usually it gets knocked back. I think that's what's going to happen this time. But they will be back there. But they will be back again in a year or two's time trying the exact same thing, because they have nothing else to go on. Well, I mean, loathe as I am to paraphrase ah Margaret Thatcher but she made a very wise comment um along the lines of you know if someone's making a personal attack about you it it means they've ran out of political things to say and I think the same can be said here it's like well look look at what things you've ran out of ways to say um you you can't use those arguments. Yeah, except in the case of Margaret Thatcher generally, I think you you could both attack her personally and politically and be justified both. Yes, indeed. It would certainly wouldn't be discouraged by this podcast. Right. Well, that's the end of our news stories. And ah aside from being informed, we we hope we've also given you some interesting food for thought in terms of, yes, plant-based alternatives to the Milky Way, Christmas trees and and the like. So if you have had a nice time listening to Mark, Shane and myself, there's a couple of little favours that we're going to ask of you if you've got a moment.
00:56:45
Speaker
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.
00:57:10
Speaker
That will also help the show pop up when people search for vegan or animal rights content online. Thanks for your help.
00:57:21
Speaker
And thank you everyone for listening. the next Enough of the Falafel episode will be and vegan talk and it will be available from Thursday, the 18th of December. will be with me, Mark, Julie and Anthony. And the topic will be what guidelines should vegan and animal rights films follow to be at their most effective? Anyway, that's enough of the falafel for this episode. Thanks to Anthony and Mark for your contributions. And thanks to everyone for listening. This is Shane, and you've been listening to Vegan Week from the Enough of the Falafel Collective.
00:57:58
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.
00:58:09
Speaker
We use music and special effects by zapsplap.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.
00:58:39
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...
00:59:00
Speaker
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