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193- Vegan football kits: Is Dale Vince barking up the wrong tree frog?!
106 Plays1 month ago
If you've not seen Forest Green Rovers' latest 'Vegan Certified' football kit, you soon will- it certainly isn't bland. But what makes a football kit vegan, and should we care? As well as this, Julie, Mark & Anthony also look at a dozen or so news stories from the vegan & animal rights space from the last week or so.
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Enough of the Falafel is a community of people who love keeping on top of the latest news in the world of veganism & animal rights. With the Vegan Week podcast, we aim to keep listeners (& ourselves) informed & up-to-date with the latest developments that affect vegans & non-human animals; giving insight, whilst staying balanced; remaining true to our vegan ethics, whilst constantly seeking to grow & develop.
Each week we look through news stories from the past 7 days in the world of veganism & animal rights.
If you spot any news stories that might catch our fancy, or have an idea for a discussion topic, get in touch via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com.
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This week's stories:
https://www.four-paws.org.uk/our-stories/blog-news/big-news-for-calves-stena-line-halts-calf-exports-from-ireland-to-france#:~:text=Ireland%20to%20France-,Big%20news%20for%20small%20calves%3A%20Stena%20line%20halts,exports%20from%20Ireland%20to%20France&text=This%20is%20hugely%20welcomed%20news,%2C%20Ireland%20to%20Cherbourg%2C%20France.
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20250722/Vegan-diets-support-high-level-training-but-risks-of-muscle-loss.aspx
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3318932/activists-protest-against-planned-killings-german-zoos-baboon-enclosure
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2025/07/vion-first-to-face-complaint-via-oecd-animal-welfare-guidelines/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/plant-milk-nutrition-children-cows-uk-government-b2790127.html
https://plantbasednews.org/animals/farmer-claims-slaughterhouse-screaming-edited/
https://www.farminguk.com/news/iceland-pledges-cage-free-by-2027-after-activist-pressure_66937.html
https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/hc-upholds-animal-rights-over-religious-customs-101752693484088.html
https://www.brecon-radnor.co.uk/news/animal-rights-group-peta-unfurl-banner-in-builth-wells-on-first-day-of-royal-welsh-show-814442
https://wamiz.co.uk/news/189500/somerset-golden-retriever-attraction-shut-down-as-owner-banned-animal-cruelty
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/nyregion/central-park-carriage-driver-not-guilty-animal-cruelty.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj61l252yz9o
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Thanks everyone for listening; give us a rating and drop us a message to say "hi"; it'll make our day!
Mark, Julie & Ant
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Theme
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everybody! If you are looking for the latest vegan and animal rights news then you are in the right place. I'm Anthony, joining me for this episode are Julie and Mark, but that is enough of the falafel, it is time for Vegan Week!
Vegan Stereotypes and Humor
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! Take your lab grown meat elsewhere. We're not doing that in the state of Florida. What about your protein and what about your iron levels? Should I call the media and say, hi, sorry.
New Show Introduction: 'Enough of the Falafel'
00:00:33
Speaker
They're arguing like, oh, poor woe is me.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hang on a minute. You always pick the...
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome everyone to another edition Enough of the Flaffle, you're listening to Mark. as you't get the wee bruant with the horns you'll be all right does veganism give him
00:01:01
Speaker
don't have laser vision and welcome everyone to another edition of enough of theafel you're listening to more Hello everybody, this is Julie. For the people who are just joining us for the first time, this is our new show where we look through the 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.
Animal Transport Controversies and Campaigns
00:01:30
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.
00:01:42
Speaker
Well, we do love it when we can follow up on some news that we've reported on previously. And we've not had to wait long for this one for our first story of the week. It comes to us from fourpaws.org.uk.
00:01:54
Speaker
And it is regarding the live transport of calves, baby cows, with Stenner Line, the ferry company you might remember if you listen to our show last week when we were reporting on the news that there are several thousand these poor animals that are transported when they're very very young ah across from Ireland to Europe. We were reporting on a story where veal slaughterhouses were being occupied by activists, very brave work too, and just a few days later we have had the news that says Stenner Line is now halting calf exports from Ireland
00:02:31
Speaker
to France. Obviously hugely welcome news from the animal welfare, animal rights, vegan community who've worked to end the transport of animals from Rosler Island to Cherbourg, France.
00:02:44
Speaker
Lots of pressure being put on. They have now announced that they will withdraw this route. They're calling it a strategic decision. Hmm. I wonder what strategy that would be.
00:02:54
Speaker
um The route has transported over a quarter of a million cattle alone in 2025. with over the article says over 200,000 of those being unweaned calves, which is massively more than the numbers we were recording reporting last week. Perhaps the context is slightly different, but Either way, it seems like good news, Mark, although you read further down the article and you realise that actually Brittany Ferries is still operating this route and so it's not necessarily immediately good news for calves.
00:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, there's a photograph in the in the reports I'm looking at here from the fourpaws.org website and it shows three of the animal rights campaigners pictured standing beside a representative spokesman from Stena shipping. And the Stena shipping guy looks like the expression on his face looks like he would rather be anywhere else than in a room with three animal rights activists giving out to him for being a bastard.
00:03:55
Speaker
Now, Stena had been involved in this trade for decades. And I remember being involved in a campaign around the mid 90s when BSE came to the fore. when farmers thought it was a good idea to feed the pulped, diseased brains of sheep and cows to a vegan animal like a cow and expect nothing bad to happen.
00:04:14
Speaker
And lots of bad things did happen and people died. There was a ban on ah meat coming from the EU to places like the Middle East, which is where a lot of the animals were were being shipped to. at the time.
00:04:27
Speaker
And there was a massive campaign to stop that trade from restarting after the BSE crisis had sort of blown over a bit. And it included some above ground ground campaigning and threats by the Animal Liberation Front and so on.
00:04:41
Speaker
And I do remember a situation where um Compassion World Farming had sent a VHS video, this is ah showing its age, to the owner of Stena shipping and with and and the video contained footage of the cruel treatment of the animals that they were helping ship over to ah Europe.
00:05:00
Speaker
But because it was at parcel and it was covered in stickers, animal rights stickers, they assumed it was a bomb. So they evacuated the building and got everyone out and then they blew up the the videotape and then Compassion World Farming explained what had happened.
00:05:13
Speaker
and sent them out another video tape so uh slena are complete bastards it's clear that it's clear from this this this man of the photograph if he's the representative of their attitude towards animals if they could get away with this they would still be doing this no doubt at all and it's good money for them it's easy money for them until the animal rights lobby get involved and start kicking up a stink and then it becomes a bit less easy and then they back off no doubt if the pressure is is is put off these guys, they will be back into this trade straight away. Brittany Ferries, obviously, as you say, Ant, are now sort of stepping into the gap in the market. So hopefully with bit of pressure from direct action groups like what we saw, we what we reported on last week over in France and Belgium, and more sort of mainstream lobbying groups between the two of them, hopefully they'll be able to squeeze ah Brittany Ferries out of this vile trade
Activism and Corporate Accountability
00:06:04
Speaker
as well.
00:06:04
Speaker
And indeed, we can be part of that too. If you follow the link in the show notes, scroll down towards the bottom of the article, there is a very clear call to action. ah Click on the link, tell Brittany Ferries to stop the cruelty. There's a template emailed there.
00:06:18
Speaker
Very easy to do. And like you say, generally speaking, these capitalist companies, they they just want hassle off their backs. And if they can find other ways to make money that doesn't have tens of thousands of people lobbying them, then then they'll do it. So a nice, easy step that we can all take to try and put the pressure on where it needs to go now. But well done, the campaigners who've managed to convince Stennerlein to stop their horrific part.
00:06:45
Speaker
of this. Moving on to the Netherlands now, and we have got a story that is talking about Dutch meat processing. What a horrible word that is. Company Vion, or Vion, not quite sure how to pronounce it.
00:06:59
Speaker
The headline reads that Vion are the first to face a complaint vi the OECD animal welfare guidelines. Now, these are are guidelines from a 2023 agreement. They were agreed on by the 52 members of the OECD.
00:07:16
Speaker
What is the OECD? organize Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Anthony. Excellent. I knew that. Correct. Well done. You both passed the test there. um So all 52 members of that agreed on these guidelines.
00:07:30
Speaker
They're not legally binding, but multinationals headquartered in a European country are expected to keep them. Vion, like I say, they're a Dutch company, but they do have slaughterhouses in Germany and Belgium as well as the netherlands The complaint is saying that supplies to Vion are not allowing enough space for pigs during transport. And ah the complaint says that this is causing stress and injuries.
00:07:59
Speaker
It goes on to detail that pigs are also breathing in fine dust particles and ammonia, which affect their lungs. According to Wacker Deer, the campaign group, again, apologies if the pronunciation was off there.
00:08:13
Speaker
Julie, obviously from an animal rights point of view, we're looking at that going, well, they're about to be slaughtered. like that's That's the main issue. That said, I mean, can we be cautiously optimistic that these guidelines have been put in place, people are using them?
00:08:29
Speaker
It's not going to stop this massive meat processing company doing what they're doing, but it might make it less profitable. Are there chinks ofs of hope there that we can take? Oh yes there are.
00:08:41
Speaker
i am always a person to identify and make a beeline for any chinks of hope and I do see them in this story. m So Vion could apparently be excluded from trade missions and government subsidies.
00:09:00
Speaker
Yes! So that would be jolly good if that happened. It will hopefully create a pathway for other animal rights organisations from other member countries, of which you said 52 of them, to make similar complaints. So yes, go. And and It also highlights something that I didn't know existed called the World Organization for Animal Health, Terrestrial Animal Health Code.
00:09:34
Speaker
So that was referenced in this article. And if you read this, then absolutely all forms of animal agriculture are contravening its standards and therefore open to people getting together and making a complaint.
00:09:50
Speaker
So yeah, I think this could hopefully open a trickle leading to a floodgate or whatever and it would be really good.
00:10:01
Speaker
Vion is an interesting company in that they also produce they're just out for profit of course like all of them but they also produce plant-based meat substitute products as well and gives us that dilemma about do we buy those from vion to tell them where the demand is you know or do we just boycott them all together because they also are mass slaughterers of animals That's such a tricky one. And they think they're quite right on, obviously.
00:10:35
Speaker
They have in their staff training goggles that they give to staff to let them see what vision is like if you were a cow and what your visual field is like if you were a pig so that the staff will have an understanding of these animals' visual capacity when they're sort of herding them from one place to another.
00:10:58
Speaker
So they're doing a lot humane washing, but yeah, they are... in trouble. I hope they get some and problems from this and I hope it leads to and other organisations getting complaints made against them.
00:11:16
Speaker
Death by a thousand cuts is the phrase that's coming to my mind. You know, we're a relatively small proportion of the population, aren't we? But if there's little legal things like this and a few activists blockading slaughterhouses and this, that and the other, that that I think that's the way that we're going to that bring these industries down, isn't it? Fingers crossed.
Vegan Diets in Sports and Media Bias
00:11:35
Speaker
Thank you, Julie, for that one. Our next story is getting all scientific. An interesting headline, vegan diets support high-level training, but risks of muscle loss. This is a study recently published in Nutrients Journal, exploring how a vegan diet impacted performance in semi-professional football players or soccer, if you're listening in the USA.
00:12:00
Speaker
It originally had 16 participants, however, due to various technicalities, that went down to nine in the vegan group and six in the control group, so really small numbers here.
00:12:13
Speaker
And despite the headline, effectively, everything was the same between the vegan group and... and the non-vegan group. They measured things like VO2 max, which is kind of like yeah the rate at which your body can process oxygen, I suppose, and and various other markers of fitness.
00:12:30
Speaker
And effectively, this this headline where half of it is saying, oh, however, but, I can't see a huge amount of detail pointing to so what that is.
00:12:42
Speaker
And actually, when you look at the conclusion of this study, it's basically saying, athletes are no worse off on a they call it a vegan diet we might call it a plant-based diet nonetheless mark the headline is there and that's going to be what most people read isn't it and ah i don't know about you but i get quite irritated by studies like this where they're they're focusing on okay they're semi-professional athletes but like really really high level athletes and that's not most of us is it you know and most of us are not requiring some part of our income to be derived from our athletic performance so it's kind of a bit irrelevant even if even if this were to be taken at the at the letter yeah at the risk of sounding paranoid and it's easy to to end up thinking that there's an anti-vegan bias in the media so that they always have to report something bad about veganism even if as you say and when you dig down into this article there's nothing there really it's it's it's almost there dead in the water really that there's nothing much to to report other than i mean it starts off the thing saying how good a plant-based diet is for your health and then it goes down into the weed saying but if you if do you might have a bit less and it goes into all these really detailed things that I've never heard of before, VO2 max and all that. Yeah, it's it's if you only read the headlines on on the media about veganism, you would you would come away with the impression that there is something inherently dangerous about going plant-based or vegan. There isn't as long as you do it properly, the same with any other diet.
00:14:17
Speaker
It's a bit similar to the way any time there's, or most times, there's an article about farming in the in the media about something controversial but that that are they're doing. They will often, or almost always mention at the end of the article, how farming employs so many people and provides so much money to to to the economy. They always want to buffer it up with the sort of,
00:14:36
Speaker
positive things about these ah these activities so yeah one gets the impression that uh there is there is a more than a tendency sort of a bias towards um eating meat and and and dairy and dairy consumption and anything that sways from that is dangerous for your health this is a really small really uh focused bit research with with was it nine nine vegans or something uh with which which is nothing the The way to do this is to have massive and participation and really the the the the results to look at are the the meta-analysis of a whole load of these different things.
00:15:17
Speaker
And then you can start coming out with and truisms or or cautions whatever. But did this is yeah this is more of the same. This is sort of an eye-catching title that would lead you to think that there's that that vegans, in this case, have ah weaker muscles.
00:15:33
Speaker
Whereas if you dig down into the article, that isn't what I'm saying at all. So one has to be very careful when you are reading mainstream media reports on all of this because they are heavily biased, whether it's conscious or or unconscious.
00:15:46
Speaker
And it's only when you dig down into the detail that you can come to your own conclusions, I think. Read beyond the headline can be our headline there, which takes us on quite neatly to Julie's next story from The Independent in the UK.
00:16:00
Speaker
Children under five at risk from only consuming plant milk, say experts. Well, let's dig into who those experts are and why they're saying that.
00:16:11
Speaker
Our very own Paul, who's not on the show this week, but he sent us a message commenting on this one. He did a bit of digging and found that the, quote, independent members of the expert panel here were Professor Kiley, who had research paid for by Meat Technology Ireland.
00:16:27
Speaker
ah Also Professor Lovegrove, with funding from the Danish Dairy Research Foundation and the Dutch Dairy Association. ah Paul then stopped his research on. ah looking at these independent experts.
00:16:38
Speaker
But what is it that they're saying? Well, they're saying that no plant-based milk available in the UK is nutritionally equivalent to cow's milk. In what terms are we are we saying that that is the case? Well, they've they've cited concerns about high intake of added sugar in the plant milk. They then went on to concede that actually nutritional concerns are lessened if people go for unsweetened plant milk.
00:17:04
Speaker
Okay, that seems pretty straightforward. And if these drinks are fortified with vitamin A, riboflavin, vitamin B12, calcium and iodine at similar levels to those in cow's milk, and also with vitamin D, which to the best of my knowledge, pretty much all are I think if you go to a budget supermarket and get their very cheapest oat milk, it might not be fortified, but pretty much all major ones are.
00:17:26
Speaker
They also highlighted potential toxicological concerns with milk substitutes in children up to the age of five who follow vegan diet and consume a lot of soya.
00:17:37
Speaker
They're worried about isoflavones. What do we think,
Nutritional Claims and Industry Ties
00:17:42
Speaker
Julie? Obviously, this isn't an animal rights story, but it affects people who might be following a ah lifestyle because of their animal rights or people who might be interested in doing so. There seem to be holes in what's being said.
00:17:57
Speaker
like I mean, I could imagine being a ah parent of a of a vegan child and and being quite concerned by this oh it's another example of well a hugely biased piece of research as Paul has shown us but also a very misleading title as well so just even from a logic point of view because I'm not a nutritionist and I don't need to be to find the holes in the logic here but let's start with no plant milk is nutritionally equivalent to cow's milk fine by me
00:18:35
Speaker
There are substances in cow's milk that thankfully will never appear in plant milk and I wouldn't want them in even if I wasn't somebody who cared about cows.
00:18:46
Speaker
There's stuff in cow's milk. I just, you know, puss cells. Let's take them for an example. Yeah, so that's the first bit. That's fine. Cow's milk, by definition,
00:18:59
Speaker
is not the optimal choice for humans of any age. It's not designed for humans, so that's all fine. My question would be, do children aged one to five years old need any kind of milk at all?
00:19:17
Speaker
Because by that age they're weaned, so There we go. And yes, people will have a higher intake of sugar if they consume anything with added sugar, like flavoured cow milk drinks, for example. You know, the sort of pink coloured milk drinks you get and the chocolatey ones and all that.
00:19:42
Speaker
So that's just that's just a thing. And also the other point about the isoflavones and all the rest of it, Yes, a lot or too much of anything isn't healthy, including soya.
00:19:58
Speaker
So yeah, don't overdo it, folks. that' That's anything. The use of the word substitute in this article implies that something that is necessary, in this case cow's milk, needs to be replaced.
00:20:15
Speaker
It doesn't. It doesn't. We don't need a cow's milk substitute. Cow's milk for humans of any age isn't a given or a necessity. So a substitute or an alternative is not a necessity either.
00:20:30
Speaker
it's It's rather fitting that a few days after ah Mark and Kate and myself reviewed a parody podcast, the Beef and Dairy Network, where one of the episodes is that they joke that if you don't eat yogurt every few days, you will die, dairy-based yogurt.
00:20:48
Speaker
we've we've almost literally got an article saying this. They're saying, well, if you're not having milk, you need to have a milk substitute. And actually these milk substitutes are no good. It's like, no, the the concern is surely for micronutrients. You don't have to get them from a fluid at all. Like the the things that they're saying, oh, well, you're deficient in vitamin a Well,
00:21:09
Speaker
there's more than ways of getting vitamin than from a beige-y whitey colored fluid like that that's that's fine and if isoflavones in in soy is a problem what then have oat milk if you need something creamy or whatever it's um it's very narrow-minded isn't it and uh A poor attempt. its It's not going to shake those of us who are know what we're talking about. So we just need to stay educated, don't we?
00:21:33
Speaker
Thank you for that one, Julie. Right. Now, a similar story to one we had last week in terms of the method of protest, but different species, different location,
Protests and Activism in Germany
00:21:44
Speaker
different company. This comes to us from scmp.com.
00:21:49
Speaker
Activists in Germany chain themselves to zoo enclosure over planned baboon killings. Why would a zoo be wanting to kill multiples of baboons?
00:22:00
Speaker
You ask yourself. Well, apparently it's because of overcrowding. ah Back in 2024, in February, the city-run Nuremberg Tiergarten Zoo announced plans to kill some of its guinea baboons because the croup had become too large for the facility today.
00:22:21
Speaker
This had led to an increase in conflict within the group that led animals getting injured. So what can we do to red reduce animals getting injured? We'll just kill them. That's better than them getting injured, isn't it? Of course.
00:22:34
Speaker
ah The facility says it's been trying for years to reduce the size of the Guinea baboon group and sell off animals. But without success so far, I mean, your heart bleeds, doesn't it?
00:22:45
Speaker
Anyway, let's hear about these protesters because they've done a great thing raising awareness. We would probably not be reporting this Otherwise, five of them chained themselves to the barrier around the monkey enclosure.
00:22:55
Speaker
don't know whether that's technically the right phrase there, the monkey enclosure. It's surely a baboon enclosure. Anyway, um they initially refused to communicate with officers and did not heed instructions by the zoo director to leave or use a protest venue outside the zoo.
00:23:12
Speaker
mean, talk about missing the point. ah Since the action barely disturbed visitors and operations at the zoo, Police and management initially agreed to refrain from using force to remove the protesters. The protester, who had not chained herself to the railing, ended her protest in the afternoon and was detained. The remaining five voluntarily opened their chains.
00:23:34
Speaker
after officers told them they would bring in firefighters to free them and bill them the costs. They now face investigations for trespass and possible offences against the right of assembly.
00:23:47
Speaker
We would hope, Mark, that that was part of their risk-benefit analysis beforehand, the potential bringing of criminal charges and things like that, and that's not making us significantly negative impact in their life moving forward. That aside, universally positive in terms of raising awareness of this horrendous planned action by the zoo.
00:24:08
Speaker
It's living proof that direct action works. If you want to be mentioned in the South China Morning Post, just chain yourself to railing anywhere in Europe. I mean, there was no way that that the South China Morning Post was was going to mention something like this if it hadn't involved some form of direct direct action.
00:24:27
Speaker
When you look at what they did, they just chained themselves to a railing and then freed themselves when they were threatened with a fine, essentially. So it's barely even breaking the law.
00:24:38
Speaker
it's um It's a slight bit of disobedience that goes a bit beyond the usual sort of protest tactics, veers into direct action. And suddenly you have an article in the South China Morning Post, which probably is read by hundreds of thousands of people. So again, if anyone doubts the veracity and efficiency of direct action, just read this article.
00:25:00
Speaker
It is barbaric that a profit making institution like a zoo feels comfortable in talking about ah killing animals that they have profited from for years because they are no longer ah profitable, essentially.
00:25:13
Speaker
and a zoo should be held to account for the animals that they imprison. And if they need to provide sort of a retirement home for the animals, because there's too many of them in this case of baboons, then that should be on them.
00:25:27
Speaker
The option of shooting these animals dead should not even be available or even talked about. It is really disturbing that ah that they feel comfortable talking about shooting species that are so close to us as well. that that there's there's There's no shame here at all.
00:25:42
Speaker
It just goes to show that zoos anywhere around the world are profit making businesses. and anything that threatens their profits and might be executed. so ah don't So don't go to zoos, people. They aren't there to educate us or anything like that. They're there to make money for the shareholders.
00:25:59
Speaker
So yeah, hopefully there will be a happy ending to this story, but let's let's let's wait and see. Yeah, it's I mean, it's it's just more evidence, like you say, as to why you just should not patronize these organizations. They will be probably one of the most PR-heavy environments that you will come across because what they're doing is so sinister but the i mean in effect it's it's quite an effective pr ah job all people are just won over by cute furry animals but i i think generally people's perceptions of zoos is that they're nice places at least the meat industry you know people know animals are being killed don't they whereas i think people really do think that or they want to think that zoos are lovely places but um the things that go on
00:26:46
Speaker
behind the scenes or the things that go on to enable what you see in front of you. It's very sinister indeed. There was a situation back in the 1980s in the UK where um animal rights activists were rescuing animals from the vivisection industry and stumbled across the fact that some of these animals had been sold to the vivisection industry by London Zoo who were clearing house and they were selling animals that to vivisection labs for for experiments on the sly, completely secret. And the vivisection industry was also buying stolen pets from gangs as well to use on ah ah in inside their labs.
00:27:23
Speaker
So again, Zoos are profit-making entities, the same as McDonald's is, and they should be treated as such. Absolutely. Thank you for that one, Mark. Right, one last quick one before we move on to hear Julie and Mark's pick of the week.
00:27:37
Speaker
We've heard about our suspicions that perhaps people conducting research haven't been completely genuine and earnest. Well, here's a story reported on Plant Based News. A farmer is claiming that slaughterhouse screaming is in fact illegal.
00:27:52
Speaker
edited. This is a Welsh farmer Angerad Lloyd. I think I've said that name right. They run a website called Farmers Against Misinformation. Wow. I mean, we could do a whole episode on that. um But they were recently interviewed by so-called vegan YouTuber Plant Giza, real name Jake Ball.
00:28:12
Speaker
At one point during the interview, they were talking about CO2 gassing, which is a method of slaughter used for around 90% of the nearly 11 million pigs killed each year in the UK.
00:28:25
Speaker
Though widely used, this method has been long criticised for being extremely painful, and inhumane. In fact, it was subject of the documentary... Oh, I've forgotten its name, that Joey Carbstrong did and we reviewed it. Ignorant. Ignorant, thank you.
00:28:41
Speaker
and Another point to me there. ah We've got a whole quiz that's based on my poor, poor medium-term memory.
Skepticism and Motivations in Animal Rights
00:28:48
Speaker
Anyway, in response to this conversation topic, Mr Lloyd, the farmer, claimed that the pigs just fell asleep.
00:28:57
Speaker
um They added, they stay together and they're a lot calmer. When showed a video of this method in use, depicting pigs thrashing and screaming, when asked, does that sound like they're falling asleep peacefully?
00:29:11
Speaker
The response was, they look all right, don't they? The screaming is added on. It's edited. Julie, this is quite the bold claim.
00:29:22
Speaker
Are we doing wrong by even giving this a few minutes worth of airtime? Is it complete nonsense? Or do you think that animal rights activists might be inclined to, I don't know, enhance things or or add effects to draw attention to the plight of these animals? Absolutely.
00:29:39
Speaker
Well, they don't need to because we have all seen enough footage of pigs in gas chambers from other sources that show what goes on.
00:29:51
Speaker
So we're not relying on one piece of footage anyway. So that's the first thing I would say. The farmer are concerned... is a woman. Actually, it's not a man. It's not a Mr. Lloyd. It's a Ms. or a Missy. Silly me. No, it's fine. this is This is worth pointing out because it just shows level of ignorance among certain members of the farming community and ah or a willingness to just absolutely try and bullshit everybody. If you look on their website, Farmers Against Misinformation, it's a poor, pathetic place to Google, really.
00:30:35
Speaker
and They've even got some crappy merchandise on there. And if you want to see just some humour that really misses the mark and some other kind of bad biases and insults against humans as well as animals go on their Facebook page.
00:30:55
Speaker
It's desperate. So as an entertainment, it's not bad, but it's it's a really good illustration of the worst of Faharmers, F-H-A-R-M-E-R-S, I think.
00:31:13
Speaker
I think there's only one way to to find out, and that's by allowing people like us into places like that with a recording device and see if they do scream or not. That's the only way to find out. So I would lay the gauntlet down to MAM, is it farmers against FAM, farmers against misinformation?
00:31:30
Speaker
and allow someone like Joey Carbstrong or one of you guys or one of you guys that you know or something like that into an abattoir, into a death pit and and and and record the goings on there and see if there is any screening and put it to the test.
00:31:46
Speaker
Or see if maybe some of the animals that they actually value, if they would be happy for them to be killed in that manner. You know, they've probably got a pet dog they're ridiculously fond of, you know, whereas they spend the rest of their day killing other animals and they'd be crying for three days if their pet dog, you know, was to be euthanised or whatever. So, yeah, what do they think about that?
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah. I wouldn't want any animal and in that environment. just want say that now. ah Or would it be okay for people? you know is that Would that be fine for Dignitas? Would they be fine if that was the option?
00:32:22
Speaker
you know I mean, to to but to be honest, having heard what this particular farmer has to say, I'd i'd be quite worried by what their response might actually be. I don't think I'm making this up, but I think Manchester vegan runners, at a vegan running group,
00:32:38
Speaker
um in the UK. I'm pretty sure they did a run once that deliberately skirted a slaughterhouse for pigs. And I'm sure ah in chatting with one of them, they said you could hear the screams.
00:32:52
Speaker
Yes, I know the slaughterhouse to which you refer. And it's absolutely famous in that part of Manchester for passersby. Anybody can hear it.
00:33:02
Speaker
Mm-hmm. you know, and it's it's famous for it. Yes. Angie, you you and mentioned a while ago about you were reading a book by Christopher Hitchens, who himself wasn't a vegetarian or a vegan, but was concerned about animals and animal rights. And there was a brilliant quote that I used from him about the shrieks that pigs make when they're being slaughtered.
00:33:22
Speaker
ah specifically pigs, and it's meant to sound like children. And he's saying there's something about that shriek that really gets to him and it really gets to even experienced slaughterhouse workers. It still disturbs them, the shriek of pigs, specifically pigs, when they're being murdered.
00:33:38
Speaker
is meant to be really a human-like child, like really haunting. I've heard it. I have heard that It is awful. um I remember that Bite Size Vegan did a piece on that and was outside that Manchester slaughterhouse.
00:33:54
Speaker
Yeah, some good content the Bite Size Vegan used to do. I don't think they're active anymore, but yeah, they did some good stuff. No, she stopped, but yeah, she was great. Right, thank you both for those summaries of those first six stories.
Accessibility and Resources
00:34:07
Speaker
We're going to take a quick break, make yourself a cup of tea, and when you come back, we are going to hear Mark and Julie's picks of the week. We are talking about chickens, and we are talking about one particular elephant.
00:34:19
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. So to access any of these written transcripts, head over to zencaster.com forward slash vegan week. I'm going to spell it all for you.
00:34:55
Speaker
then a forward slash, and then the word vegan, V-E-G-A-N, then a hyphen, and then week. Zencaster.com forward slash vegan hyphen week.
00:35:06
Speaker
And then each transcript is embedded with any of the shows that you click on. Well, you know what, everyone, my kettle is not particularly quick. But what I did manage to do in that break is send an email to Brittany Ferries telling them not to live transport calves. So it's really, really quick and easy to do. You can definitely do it.
00:35:28
Speaker
in just 60 seconds by following that link in the show notes. Julie, let's start with your pick for the week. This is another throwback to a story that we covered a few months ago. We were covering Iceland, the supermarket, their promise to go cage-free about 10 years ago, which they'd swept under the rug and lots of people were making a fuss about it because they realised it had been swept under the
Cage-Free Pledges and Welfare Concerns
00:35:51
Speaker
rug.
00:35:51
Speaker
But... They've done a U-turn on their U-turn and they're pledging to go cage-free by 2027, which, though it's not the same as saying they won't stock animal products at all, I think that's ah that's a positive step. What's your take on this one?
00:36:06
Speaker
Well, yes and no. They are pledging to go cage-free on what they call shell eggs by 2027, but not on products of theirs that they're selling that contain eggs. and So that those eggs may still be containing, but you know, even from different countries, they could be battery hen eggs. Which is the argument that, you you know, we hear folks say, I only have backyard eggs or I only blah, bla blah, blah, blah. but but
00:36:38
Speaker
But folk that don't check ingredients that aren't diligent with these things, they're going to be missing all of that. And that's probably the majority, isn't it? When they a house, when the birthday cake gets passed round work,
00:36:50
Speaker
when they're in a cafe, when they're on holiday, all of these things. If they have eggs in their life as a thing to eat and consume, then yes, they will be slipping up in dataly oh So that's the first thing. Yes, it's better that they are, it's a somewhat successful move, but cage-free does not mean cruelty-free. Let's be clear on that one, for sure. Just to explain, the cage system that Iceland is slowly, very slowly leaving behind, success
00:37:31
Speaker
The conventional battery cages that some of us know about were banned in Europe in 2012. And we have now what are called enriched battery cages.
00:37:43
Speaker
And that's an absolute on that piece of fluff, isn't it? Usually when you enrich something, you make something that's good even better. But, you know, if you're making a hellhole enriched, behind it's It's not you know it's not it's going very far, is it? So then you utter humane washing when it comes to caged hens. Hens in but these so-called enriched cages have got about the space or less of an A4 sheet of paper so to live your their entire 18 months and of their painful They're standing on wire.
00:38:24
Speaker
you know nearly all of the time to the extent that sometimes their feet become grafted onto that wire so that when they are removed from their cages, presumably when they're dead or maybe just when they're really ill, or sometimes their legs get torn off their bodies. Their wee feet just must be so sore and damaged at the best of times and even why if their wee legs stay on. They cannot stretch their wings, they can't do any of their natural behaviours. They are breathing disgusting air and they're not even getting daylight at all. The improvement that would happen for the hens that were being
00:39:09
Speaker
slaughtered for Iceland's offerings would possibly come from a barn system where hens have a little bit more space to move around and the chance to do some but not all of their natural behaviours.
00:39:25
Speaker
They are still hugely overcrowded and Their living conditions are absolutely filthy a lot of the time because they can just that poo whatever they like. or They still don't get to see daylight. And because they're so crammed in, they are often suffering from illness and injury from fighting as well. And but again, because they're so crowded in, the chance When they become unwell and when they die, it's very hard for that to be noticed by the people who are supposed to be taking care of them. So often they are just left um decaying among their times the and the ones that are still alive. So yeah, that's this that's going to be the best of what Iceland is coming up with, this barn system. You might have some friends who say, oh, I only buy free rates.
00:40:18
Speaker
eggs Well, again that's kind of similar to the barn system. when they become and The hens do have access to the outside during the day through these things called potholes, but sometimes the overcrowding means that um they can't get to the potholes. And lie The Animal Justice Project carried out undercover work that we've mentioned on the show.
00:40:42
Speaker
i Some was in 2024 and some was in 2023. So they've covered a lot of farms in that time. they oh And they were all farms from the RSPCA Assured Scheme. Some of them were from really big retailers that are meant to have good ethics and everything. So they weren't going for the worst. They were going for the best. or supposed to be the best. And mean they found absolute mankiness there.
00:41:08
Speaker
And, you know, and chickens living among dead, decaying chickens and not getting out of these potholes that were closed for some reason, I don't know why, and for days on end. So they weren't getting outside. they were all An organic free-range system can be as bad as what I've just described. The only difference is they get a bit more space. to And for the wf with the organic rules, they're not allowed to have their beak cut, which most chickens in commercial situations, because they pick their own feathers and each other, living they get their beaks cut with no anaesthetic. It's painful for them, but it's to try and limit that behaviour. Obviously, these the problem with it all, regardless of the system used, is so that can be it's all happening behind closed doors. We don't see in these places very often, except when there's undercover situations. And, there you know, it's hard for people to orchestrate those. So there's very little scrutiny and it's all about profit. So these little animals are producing...
00:42:19
Speaker
Far more eggs than is healthy for their little bodies. They would normally only produce about 12 eggs a year, whereas commercial hens are coming up for about 300 eggs a year. And that is doing a number on their little bodies and their bones and leading to fractures and and except problems were with their their little cloacas, which is where the egg comes out.
00:42:47
Speaker
So there's very little scrutiny. if anybody in your life is an egg consumer you might want to point out to them that hen's pee, shit on exhale and lay eggs all out of the same little opening.
00:43:02
Speaker
That might make them think twice about how commercially nice looking an egg is for food. They're not really food for humans at all. and And you've also got this thing about male chicks being killed in the egg industry and the fact that all hens are sent to slaughter when they're not commercially viable.
00:43:22
Speaker
So it's not a pretty picture, it is an improvement from Iceland's point of view and it shows that there is a demand for to them some concessions, some kind of thought about what the sort of processes for these see goods arriving on shop shelves. You know, people are but starting to care about that side of things. Well, and I was drawn to to what Mark was saying before about the power of protest and and direct action, actually. The very bottom of this article, they cite that activists, I assume, gied on by the Humane League, but possibly not, um in that the Humane League are cited earlier in the article. um But they staged demonstrations at Iceland stores across the yeah UK. There was a protest outside the company's headquarters. So it's it's all it's all making a noise that in some way or another seems to have been listened to.
00:44:16
Speaker
yeah I mean, what is a wee bit good sad right is that the Humane League have been going on atlar at this issue since 2016. Look how long they've had to go at this. for and you know But having said that, they have had success.
00:44:32
Speaker
it's also very difficult to know which organisation really caused the success because a lot of them will go on their website and say, yes, we've done it. And then another animal welfare or even an animal rights organisation will yes, we've done it.
00:44:45
Speaker
So we never know really who's done it, but it's a collective effort, I think. But this the cage-free business, it's an animal welfare issue, not an animal rights one in that the Humane League are an animal welfare organisation, they're not animal rights. They're not saying everybody, fucking well stop eating, sorry for this wearing, I'll say that again. They're not saying everybody stop consuming eggs and consigning these beautiful, innocent little creatures to this imprisoned, horrible life. You know, they're just saying, let's give them a bit of a better time of it before we nick their eggs kind of thing. I'm not 100% on board with that, I'm an animal rights person. So if we want to know what we can do though for little hens, because this is beyond upsetting when we're reminded about the conditions they live in, know that by avoiding egg consumption ourselves under any circumstance, we're already doing something.
00:45:52
Speaker
and i'll still when this with that birthday cake with eggs in it comes around your workplace or whatever don't apologize just say it you know like it is i just say it's not for me that's not something to this that i want to be a part of politely explain your standpoint you can also go on the humanely website and sign their petition i've done it it's again it's really quick and share it if you want to that you've done that on your own social media muitia and if you are into cooking and baking at all if you're one of these this wonderful gifted people then please show people that you can make anything that people usually make with eggs you can do it you know you can do it without them yeah absolutely absolutely and i for one will uh will happily consume your ah vegan products. Although that will probably go go against the point, wasn't that you need to show non-vegan people that if there's any left, I'll have one or two. as I as i did this morning after my park run, I thought, ah, I've been running for about 20 minutes. i I reckon I deserve three cakes.
00:47:00
Speaker
i can also Yeah, thank you for that one, Julie. Some real real nice tangible things that folk can do there as well as some really clear arguments to use because people don't want to change, do they? So they will do all sorts of mental gymnastics. When you when you were describing that, I always think that the differences between wonderful caged people eggs and, you know, organic or or whatever... you can tell just from an economic point of view that there's not that much difference because the price isn't quadruple or 10 times the price, is it? I mean, I'm speaking from a UK perspective, know what it's like across the rest of the world, and New Zealand, Mark, but like,
00:47:39
Speaker
that The cost of an organic free range egg is not that much more, which tells you that the conditions can't be that much different because otherwise it would it would cost through through the roof, wasn't it, if they were really having the laugh. I do use that as an excuse, though, and it does put their costs up and it does give them problems.
00:47:59
Speaker
Because if you're going to put a tiny little animal in a cage so that it can't move, it can just stand there and eat and poop as it stands and that poop gets taken a away on a conveyor belt literally underneath it.
00:48:14
Speaker
So the food is delivered automatically, you don't need a human to do it and the poo is taken away automatically, you don't need a human to do it but The more freedom that you give these animals, the more chance that the poo gets places where their little feet go, so then they get more illnesses that way.
00:48:33
Speaker
But also, and look how mercenary this is, they cost more to raise these chickens that have a little bit of freedom to move around than Because they burn some calories moving around, so they need to eat a bit more.
00:48:47
Speaker
So that costs more to raise them. And they've mentioned that as a cost, and like, ah oh, we can't, you know, just transition overnight to this system because it's a whole different system. Just giving them no cage and a bit of freedom.
00:49:00
Speaker
it changes the landscape for the know the people you know in the business. under Well, if it becomes unprofitable for them, fine, grow mushrooms. and But I guess that's my point. like you're absolutely You're absolutely right there. what freedom if you if you if somebody imagines what they think who gets place eggs, like free-range eggs, where they come from, the lives that chicken, those chickens have had, to come Like think how different that is to a
00:49:31
Speaker
a hen that is just sat in a cage, it can't move, it's not expending any calories, it's having its poo taken away, it's not having to move to get its food, anything like that. Think of all the added costs in order for it to live a life where it just, it goes wherever it wants. And you know, there could be eggs anywhere, it could be under a lovely tree, it could be down by the lake, it could be, you know, how much would that cost? Your eggs wouldn't cost a little bit more, they'd cost a hundred, a thousand times more.
00:50:00
Speaker
well So you... you pro I guess that's what I quite poorly communicated. But yeah, great stuff. Great stuff. Thank you for that one, Julie. Let's move on to your pick then,
Jainism and Animal Rights Conflicts
00:50:10
Speaker
Mark. This comes to us from the Hindustan Times. I think we have reported on stories from them before.
00:50:17
Speaker
And it's regarding an elephant that has been in ah what is being cited in the article as the Jaya discipline. Now, Jayaism is something that is often linked to to veganism there's lots of links with not wanting to harm animals and things like that but you wouldn't think it from this article obviously none of us are from india i know you have been there for an extended period mark and i'm sure you'll you'll mention that obviously none of us are going to be pointing the finger here saying oh well there's no animal cruelty in our countries these
00:50:49
Speaker
blooming people in India, but you know, that's not what we're going to say, but some really surprising cruelty from people who really are making it sound like they care for animals. Yeah, Jainism is one of those peculiar religions. and When you look at the history of religions, Jainism and Hare Krishna, so Hinduism and Buddhism,
00:51:11
Speaker
They all started around the same time, around the same area, and Zoroastrianism as well. okay They're all very interesting because they' all of them talk about what we would refer to today as human rights and animal rights.
00:51:25
Speaker
and they They didn't use those those terms. They generally use nonviolence, ahimsa, compassion, and so on. But what they meant was treating treating all beings around them, be they're human or or non-human,
00:51:37
Speaker
with respect. ah Traditionally, it it could involve vegetarianism, but it didn't have to. With Jainism, first of all, it's it's got the ah ah unlucky coincidence that its main symbol is the swastika and and it's mentioned in their temple. They're the Swasti Shri Temple, I think it's down there.
00:51:58
Speaker
And that's the root word for swastika. And their main symbol is a swastika, but it's it's on its... it's on it's it isn't It isn't hooked. It isn't the hook and cross like the the Nazis used, which is a swastika on an angle.
00:52:11
Speaker
It's a swastika laying flat on the ground. So, yeah, unfortunately, ah human history has thrown up some really ah vile movements and Nazism has been one of them.
00:52:21
Speaker
And the Nazis nicked their symbol from the Jains, who didn't invent that symbol. But ah Jainism, it's its sub sort of theme is nonviolence is the highest religion. that that That's their sort of tagline.
00:52:36
Speaker
And as far as trying to avoid ah harming other beings goes, it takes it to the nth degree, right? So You can go along a certain down a certain amount of the road with them in terms of compassion for all living things, but then they do things like they strip off all their clothes they wander around completely naked, except for a broom that is communally owned that they use to brush the path in front of them so they avoid stepping on any insects.
00:53:02
Speaker
And they won't eat root vegetables like ginger and potatoes and onions because harvesting them, pulling them up out of the ground might disturbs my my disturb microorganisms.
00:53:13
Speaker
around that tuber, around that plant. so So they they don't consume meat or eggs ah and they don't consume root vegetables for these reasons, but they do like milk.
00:53:26
Speaker
So a bit like the Hare Krishnas who bang on about how much the the they love cows and all that, they also love milk. ah Both of these religions consider dairy to be the fruit of the gods, literally the fruit of the gods, a substance that was put on earth for mankind's consumption.
00:53:42
Speaker
They never explain what the calf is meant to be consuming instead. they're they're ah they're They're obsessed with the idea that milk is this sort of divine fruit of the gods and they love it. So their animal concerns ah very much stop at a certain point. It's very much human-centered.
00:54:02
Speaker
And this ah this scenario going on with the elephant, they adopted the elephant back in 1992. The elephant is a sacred symbol in Jainism. They have lots of parables about the elephant and they bring elephants on their religious processions.
00:54:15
Speaker
so So they're really into elephants, but as a symbol, not for the elephant, the individual elephant in itself. So they have this elephant that they've held in captivity on its own. These are very social herd animals. They shouldn't be on their own.
00:54:27
Speaker
this el this elephant has been ah profit-making venture for this Jain temple for decades. and They hire out the elephant for religious processions to use for the for the many religious days that you get over in India. so You have these elephants that are surrounded by throngs of thousands of people walking down a really crowded street with music blaring and and everyone's trying to touch various parts of the elephant because there's an old Jane's story about a bunch of monks inside a dark cave with an elephant and they all touch a different part of the elephant and describe what they see. They're all just describing something different and then they realize that they're looking at a very specific aspect and they you need to look at the whole rather than just the very specific and all that.
00:55:11
Speaker
And it's a lovely bit parable, but these guys take all these things to the point where i i was I was raised in a very Catholic family in a very Catholic country, Ireland. I was marinated in this religious philosophy for decades of my life.
00:55:24
Speaker
and And I came out of it with a real contempt for for ah the Abrahamic religions, should we call them, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. i've no I have no time for them at all.
00:55:37
Speaker
and When I looked into stuff like Zoroastrianism and Jainism, I thought, now there is a creed I can go along with. Then when you start reading the extreme ends of it, where there monks go around with no clothes on except for a ah mask over the face so that they don't breathe in any any he flies that are passing by. They don't even have a begging bowl like ah Buddhist monks have.
00:55:57
Speaker
They just use their hands. They're completely naked, not even with a loincloth, not carrying anything except for communally owned brush. That's all they have. So these guys really take it seriously, but they can't extend it to the dairy industry.
00:56:11
Speaker
And it seems perverse and bizarre that there is such a gap in their philosophy. The Jains are a tiny sect in India. Numerically, they're probably a few hundred thousand.
00:56:24
Speaker
But because of their aestheticism and their non-attachment and all that, they've risen to the very top of businesses in India. So they're actually politically very, very powerful. So even though they're numerically small, they have a big impact on Indian culture. So this, yeah, this is a bizarre story, but it does show when religion is let off the hook and allowed to sort of run away with itself. It comes out with these notions that we should be going around the place naked with just a community-owned room. And this is the way to go about things. But eating ah dairy is okay, but wearing underpants isn't.
00:56:56
Speaker
And it just becomes a very bizarre ah spiral of stupidity, to be quite frank. I'm sorry to say it. Look, i've I have a lot more time for Jain than I would do, say, Catholic, ah but m I still think it's all stupid.
00:57:09
Speaker
I remember seeing a guy what walking down the street once with ah with ah with a T-shirt that says, religion is stupid. but And I thought myself, that's a bit reductive. But when you hear stories like this, you think, you know what?
00:57:21
Speaker
That T-shirt just sums it all up. Religion is very, very stupid. and and did this change well what's What's interesting about this one is that actually you you mentioned sort of getting off the hook.
00:57:32
Speaker
Actually, in in this instance, this particular story, it's come into the news recently, is that it's not got off the hook in organisations, including PETA.
00:57:43
Speaker
have pushed for the basically the confiscation of this elephant and and got it sent to the sent to a sanctuary. this This happened ah couple of years ago and they appealed against it. And the last couple of weeks, the the the appeal has been turned down. So in in a sense, they' let me just bring it up. I think the headline in the Hindustan Times is basically animal rights is upheld over religious customs. like So it's...
00:58:11
Speaker
that feels quite significant to me that actually in a country that is so focused on religion actually animal rights has come out on top. Yeah it seems that Jainism is being dragged kicking and streaming into the 4th century.
00:58:27
Speaker
India is quite a strange place. It does re revere the cow and but they also viciously exploit cows and they'll squeeze them, they'll squeeze every last drop of milk out of them and then set them free on the roads and motorways and byways of India. It's not like they go to like a like a retirement forest and spend the rest of the time in an ecologically good way for them. and They're wandering the streets eating plastic.
00:58:53
Speaker
and bits of rubbish on the side of the road, slowly starving to death. So whilst India generally is very vegetarian friendly, there is dairy everywhere, including in the Jain cities. There is a Jain city in Rajasthan, which is near the border with Pakistan, and it is cold. And I i did an article on this really.
00:59:15
Speaker
Palatana is the is the name of the city and it's owned by, it's it's essentially run by the Jain movement. They have temples everywhere and they banned the sale of ah meat, fish and eggs recently from anywhere in the city. So you can't buy or consume meat, fish or eggs anywhere in the city, but de again, dairy is okay. So these places are vegetarian friendly, but not vegan friendly. In fact, they will consider veganism an aberration and and spitting in the face of gold because god put milk on this planet for humans so to turn that down is to deny something god's offering you so it's actually a slap in the face to their credo which is quite bizarre but again if you understand that it's it's not coming from an animal welfare place it's coming from a religious place the two of them overlap in the venn diagram there is a bit of come of commonality between
01:00:07
Speaker
a religious creed like Jainism Buddhism and animal welfare, but they aren't two of the same thing. And when you have contradictions like this pop up, it's because it's a religious ah framed thing. And it's all about you and your soul and where your soul is going to go after you die.
01:00:24
Speaker
Not so much about the animal in front of you. The animal is a conduit and a test and a metaphor but it's not actually and in and individual being. So whilst it's more pro-animal friendly, it's not actually an an animal welfare oriented ah state of mind at all.
01:00:41
Speaker
And it's easy to confuse the two, but they aren't the same. Thank you for that one, Mark. It's ah it's obviously like an emotive issue and um lots of lots of significant cultural differences deep set beliefs there that are going on in in conjunction with one another.
01:00:59
Speaker
Those are our main eight stories for the show. We've given our say on things, but we very much enjoy and value hearing what you out there listening think about these things to, or maybe there's a story you think that we've missed or an angle that we haven't covered.
01:01:14
Speaker
We love hearing from you. Here's how to get in touch. To get in touch with us, just send us an email at enoughofthefalafel at gmail.com.
01:01:25
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.
01:01:37
Speaker
Go on, send us a message today. enough of the falafel at gmail dot com Okay, we are going to report on one more story this week. I've got a quick roundup of stories that didn't make the cut from the Brecon and Radna Express animal rights group Peter Unfurl Banner in Bwilth Wells on the first day of the Royal Well Show. I particularly enjoyed that one because there was some comments or some headline somewhere else reporting on it saying, bloody Peter. are at it again, which I quite enjoyed because it shows that you're getting under people's skin.
01:02:12
Speaker
um Again, from the UK, in Somerset, a golden retriever attraction has been shut down as the owner has been banned over animal cruelty. And over in the USA,
01:02:25
Speaker
ah There's the story of a New York City carriage driver who has been cleared of animal cruelty charges after a horse's death um in Central Park.
01:02:35
Speaker
The last story we are going to report on comes from the BBC and it is about forest green
Vegan Innovations in Sports
01:02:42
Speaker
rovers. You might have heard of them before. They are a football team and they're often cited as the world's most green football team, vegan football team, at all the food on the site at their stadium is plant-based and they have revealed a new vegan football kit and it's been certified by the vegan society.
01:03:04
Speaker
I'll be interested to hear what Julie and Mark think about this both there from a fashion point of view. and in the the whole PR around it, it's quite difficult to find out why exactly it's vegan and why exactly other football kits might not be vegan. And I think that would be my main criticism, because I think a lot of people would look at that and go, well,
01:03:26
Speaker
what's not vegan about ah a football shirt then? They do mention and that they're using recycled monofibre materials. Well, that's not necessarily anything to do with animals.
01:03:38
Speaker
Plant-based dyes, I suppose you could have animal-derived dyes in a football kit. But as is often the case with forest green rovers, most of the things that they seem to be valuing are to do with the environment, which is obviously commendable they're talking about the fact that normally football kits are renewed every year different kit um everyone buys it everyone makes it blah blah blah so they're saying well this is only going to be on a two-year cycle um then after it's done we're gonna recycle them and turn them into other things but let's let's start off very quickly with the basics mark julie you seen the kit what what do you think just from a fashion point of view it's raised a few eyebrows it's um
01:04:20
Speaker
not not sure i would wear it yeah i've seen the kit yeah no it it looks like a rorschach test you know those rorschach tests with all the blobs and stuff that move around and you're supposed to say what you see like it looks like that i don't know how that uh how that was inspired by nature i've never seen those colors in nature ah apparently a barking tree frog apparently i've never seen a barking tree fog or even heard of a barking tree fog i wouldn't mind seeing a a frog that can bark though that would be i've got a cat here you would freak the cat out completely um yeah no i i have heard of forest green overs i have no interest in football i have less interest in football now after seeing their shirts it really wouldn't be something i would go with at all but they'll certainly stand out on the on the edge pitch i must say yeah absolutely julie do do you think this kind of undermines the word vegan i mean that it doesn't surprise me that this has come from the bbc they've shoved the word vegan in
01:05:13
Speaker
everywhere i assume forest green rovers have done a press release that is similarly shoving the vegan word in everywhere because it does well on search terms and google and seo and all of that but in in a sense ah i kind of came away from this thinking i think that's kind of undermining what we stand for really because it's not really saying why it's vegan no i mean they are plant-based aren't they And they make a big deal yeah ah about that.
01:05:41
Speaker
and so theyve and And they've promoted Sea Shepherd and organisations like that before. Like they've had a big Sea Shepherd sponsorship and stuff. Yeah. So they might be doing that thing where they're just being a bit lazy with language and saying vegan when they mean plant-based.
01:05:57
Speaker
But good on them. I mean, I'm i'm a supporter. yeah Yes, good on them. yeah Personally, I like... pink, black and white is a colour scheme.
01:06:08
Speaker
I really do. I really like that. I wasn't sure when I saw the pattern because I thought it was leopard print. And I don't know why, but i always avoid that myself as a pattern to wear.
01:06:24
Speaker
I just don't like the connotations of leopard skin at all. Even if it's just on piece of cotton, I just, something about it and I do not like.
01:06:34
Speaker
But if they recycle this pink, black and white gear into running clothes when they're done with their footballing, then I might be tempted, really.
01:06:46
Speaker
But overall, I thought it looked okay. I would say, though, I don't know if the people in the picture are their actual football players or if they're models. I do not know.
01:06:58
Speaker
But it would be hard to make those men look bad, i think. They would be. Look very good in anything. And if they are actual football players and if they are actual vegans, even better. To the best of my knowledge, when when the club first sort of decided to make everything plant-based, I think there was a push to encourage all of the players to adopt a fully plant-based lifestyle. I think they've taken a step back from that.
01:07:33
Speaker
But I think all the food that they serve at their canteen and like when players are training and everything like that, i mean um all of that is plant-based. So if they're not vegan, they're getting a lot of getting a lot of plants in their diet, for sure. I think, I thought they were. I'm disappointed now. I might withdraw my support of them. I thought they all had to be. Oh, wow.
01:07:53
Speaker
so i'm sure I'm sure the club nutritionists would advocate for it, but I mean, you can't you can't make people follow that in their own home. But their concho man is that Dale, isn't it? we deal Dale... Dale Vince, yeah. like Yeah, he's very vegan.
01:08:09
Speaker
I thought they all were. I think they all should be. Maybe i would write to them. If they all are, they're they're looking well on it. Let's say that. They are looking brilliant in pink. Yes, indeed. Well, that is the end of our news stories. We do hope you have enjoyed the show. If you have enjoyed the show, there's a little something that we would ask as a little favour if you haven't already.
01:08:32
Speaker
would say 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 you think might enjoy it too.
01:08:43
Speaker
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01:08:59
Speaker
That will also help the show pop up for when people search for vegan or animal rights content online. Thanks for your help. Thank you everyone for listening.
01:09:11
Speaker
wee heads up now to the next Enough of the Falafel episode, which is going to be a vegan talk episode and available from Thursday the 31st of July with Anthony, Carlos and Kate.
01:09:27
Speaker
And they are going to be taking a look at the online vegan-friendly UK platform. And just a quick note from our fact-checking department. I made an error in last week's show ah where I talked about the rate of veganism in New Zealand being between 3% and 5%.
01:09:47
Speaker
I was woefully ambitious in that in that figure there. It's actually about 0.7%, so we're not even touching the 1% at the moment. I was referring to the amount of vegetarians in New Zealand, which again varies from between 2% and 10%, depending on the study that you look at.
01:10:05
Speaker
So ah results do vary wildly, but we're nowhere near that 3% or 5% that I mentioned as vegans in New Zealand yet, unfortunately. So sorry for any confusion, folks.
01:10:18
Speaker
Well, I think what Mark was actually doing was setting up a trap to just check that listeners were paying attention because we did get example a couple of bit of correspondence pointing that out.
01:10:29
Speaker
um And so, yeah, well done for everyone who passed the ah the test of spotting the deliberate mistake there. Anyway, that is enough of the falafel for this episode.
01:10:40
Speaker
Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Julie, for your contributions. Thank you, every everyone, for listening. I've been Anthony, and you've been listening to Vegan Week from the Enough of the Falafel Collective.
01:10:56
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.
01:11:06
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.
01:11:37
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 week.
01:12:01
Speaker
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