Empowerment through Joining the Vegan Revolution

 A Personal Journey

It has been almost 10 years since I became a vegetarian in March 2010. We had recently moved to bustling London from laid-back coastal Australia to start an exciting new life. Looking back, I’m grateful for the wise decision I made a decade ago. I’m extremely healthy being meat-free and feel good living each day making ethical food choices.

I’ve evolved from a dairy and egg-eating vegetarian to a vegan, having found yummy plant-based substitutes for cow’s cheese, butter and milk. I delighted in keeping hens and discovering their quirky personalities and enjoying cruelty-free eggs when I lived for few years in the Kent countryside. Since moving on I’ve mostly eliminated eggs from my diet. (I confess it’s hard to resist an occasional cake.) 

With Golden Girl, Sparkles, Rosie and Fancy in 2015

Critics and cynics could point out my inconsistencies. I’m not perfect. I do my best whether at home cooking for myself or out and about or travelling abroad. Becoming a vegan is a constantly evolving journey.

It was my son Daniel and his mate Marcus who convinced me to watch the heart-wrenching film, Earthlings and there was no turning back.

Read about my personal journey.

I invite you to take your own journey and join the Vegan Revolution.

Viva La Revolution

The Vegan Movement gained momentum in 2018 as millions of well-informed young Millennials and concerned older people around the world made the connection between the heinous meat, fishing and dairy and egg industries with abject cruelty and the rapacious destruction of our planet.

Juliet with piglet  

The Movement achieved a tipping point and erupted into a Revolution. This new mass awareness and mass action is the realisation of the ambitious dream of passionate campaigner, Juliet Gellatley who founded Viva! 25 years ago.

Back in my idealistic youth when I first went Veggie only weird hippies lived on nuts and lentils. Now, as our planet faces a crisis, veganism in 2020 is an idea whose time has arrived.

World famous naturalist, Sir David Attenborough

We know this is true when revered naturalist and master documentary maker, Sir David Attenborough calls on everyone to eat less meat to save the planet and scientists, academics and the UN warn of the dangers of animal agriculture and join forces with dedicated activists, high profile celebrities and sports champions to advocate plant-power.  

The shifting consumer demand has pressured food manufacturers, supermarkets, fast food outlets and cafes to offer an innovative array of appetising vegan options. The Vegan Revolution is having real impact reducing the demand for meat and dairy and disrupting the supply chain.  

We even have our own World Vegan Day on November 1 to celebrate a revolution dedicated to saving the 150 million land animals killed for food every day – that’s billion of land animals – cows, sheep and goats, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese and other birds - and trillions of fish and sea creatures needlessly tortured and slaughtered every year for food. To comprehend the scale of the massacre, read this report. 

Why Go Veggie?

There is a strong case for Going Veggie. Read my enthusiastic article written when I first went Veggie 10 years ago.

To summarise the complex issue, there are four excellent reasons to become vegan:

Save Animals

1    Ethical: Refuse to be part of the immense suffering and killing of animals. Animals possess ‘sentience’ meaning ‘the capacity to feel, perceive or experience subjectively’.

Animals (and birds and fish and sea creatures) clearly have cognitive intelligence. Have you ever seen an octopus open a jar?

Like us, animals have nervous systems and feel physical pain.

They also feel a range of positive emotions including pleasure, contentment, excitement, joy, love and affection when living natural lives.

They feel intense fear (terror), grief and misery when hurt and abused, and sent to their agonising deaths. 
Animals also have strong social bonds. They attach to offspring, family groups and herds and suffer deeply when separated (as in the sad case of baby calves taken from their mothers so humans can steal their milk.)

As mammals, cows and calves, sheep and lambs and pigs and piglets are just as adorable as our pet dogs and puppies and cats and kittens.

The only way workers can be cruel to animals and consumers can justify eating animals is to see them as ‘food objects’. The mental trick of shutting down empathy and compassion and ‘objectifying’ makes people numb to the mass cruelty, abuse and killing.

Save the Planet

2    Environmental: Animal agriculture and intensive factory farming are polluting and destroying the planet. Precious oxygen-producing, bio-diverse rainforests in the Amazon (the home to many species) are being cleared to graze cattle to make fast-food burgers. Cattle produce high levels of carbon emissions causing global warming leading to climate change.

Animal agriculture pollutes the air, land and waterways. There are countless scientific articles on the environmental damage of livestock and the urgency of switching to growing sustainable plant crops.

Save Humanity

3    Human hunger: No man, woman or child on this earth would starve if the world went vegan. We could overcome the horror of starvation if the world gave up eating meat. All the land used to grow crops to feed livestock and graze cattle and other farm animals could be used for crops of grains, legumes, nuts and seeds and vegetables and fruit to provide plant protein and nutritious food for the human population.

No child should ever suffer starvation

Save Yourself

4    Health: A vegan diet is healthy. Plant-based foods provide ample protein and nutrients. Meat, fish and dairy foods are full of bacteria, viruses, growth hormones, antibiotics and toxins (such as pus in milk from cows with mastitis and mercury and other heavy metals in fish). Bad fats clog the arteries. Meat is acidic and disrupts the body’s balance. Meat takes days to digest and putrefies in the bowel. Eating animal products is linked to cancer, heart disease and many other diseases.
   
     Watch The Game Changers on Netflix and be astonished to discover how champion sportspeople are thriving on a plant-based diet. Scientists dispute the myth that real men eat meat and the human body needs meat to build muscle and strength. 
     The doco exposes how insidious marketing indoctrinates consumers to believe meat and dairy are healthy, just as marketing in the 1950s, 60s and 70s convinced people that smoking was healthy.    

  

The Four N’s Used to Justify Meat-Eating

After years of research and arguing with staunch meat-eaters, Viva! succinctly sums up the defence of eating animals into the Four N’s!

Naughty but NICE!

Meat-lovers lament: “Steak, lamb chops, bacon, fried chicken, fish and chips, scrambled eggs, melted cheese on pizza, and ice cream are so nice! I like the taste! I couldn’t give up these foods!”

This abundant earth is richly blessed with a vast array of scrumptious vegetables, herbs, fruits, legumes, seeds, nuts and grains that can be made into an infinite variety of delicious dishes. Join the Viva! Recipe Club, search for thousands of vegan recipes online or consult countless beautiful vegan recipe books. There’s a plant-based version of every favourite dish or snack! 

A tasty bean burger with vegan cheese

Delicious vegan cheesecake

Why should an animal suffer and die because you like the taste of its flesh?

No carrots don’t have feelings! Carrots don't have a nervous system. But if you see a carrot running down the road screaming in pain, let us know!

Meat is Necessary 

The second N is for necessary! Staunch carnivores claim: “Meat is necessary for protein. I couldn’t survive and be strong and healthy without meat.”

Gorillas, one of the strongest animals on earth, are Veggies

The body is made up of 63 per cent water, 22 per cent protein, 13 per cent fats and 2 per micro-nutrients. Humans can get all the protein they need to build muscle and tissue from legumes (such as chickpeas, red kidney beans, lentils, soya products like tofu), nuts (such as cashews, almonds, walnuts) seeds (such as sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds and sesame seeds ground into the super food, tahini) and whole grains (wheat, rye, oats, corn, rice, quinoa and couscous etc)

Plant-based complex carbohydrates are essential for a steady flow of energy to the brain and body. Diets that limit complex carbohydrates are considered unhealthy by many experts.

So natural...just like the jungle!

Clever defenders of killing say: “Eating meat is natural. Look at nature. Animals eat animals in the wild.” 

I’ve been on safari in East Africa and witnessed apex predators, magnificent lions, leopards and cheetahs hunt at lightning speed and devour prey animals, antelope, wildebeest and zebra.

But humans no longer live in the wild and the Law of the Jungle doesn’t apply when you do your supermarket shopping and buy your flesh neatly wrapped in plastic.

However when you hunt and kill your prey with your bare hands and use those sharp incisors to chow down on your next meal of raw wildebeest, please let us Veggies know so we can film it!  

Carnivorous apex predator having lunch

Eating meat is normal...everyone does it! 

Meat-eaters and dairy lovers claim consuming animal flesh and their secretions is normal.

Normalising harmful behaviours is the cunning trick of our lucrative Consumer Culture to indoctrinate us to buy harmful products and practices. 
When you conform you’re rewarded by feeling normal and a sense of belonging. 
When you don't conform you are punished and sanctioned with ridicule or ostracism. You can be made to feel 'abnormal', a misfit, a weirdo and a difficult troublemaker! 

Yes humans should drink the milk meant for a calf?

Now people, if you want to truly belong and find your tribe of like-minded caring, compassionate people, join Viva! Be part of the Vegan Revolution and be empowered to protect animals, save our planet, feed the hungry and become super healthy.   

The way of the future