Why it's a real pity that vegans don't eat meat

18 January 2017 - 15:22 By Andrea Burgener
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Veganism is a hot trend. Andrea Burgener questions whether taking meat off the menu really is a more ethical or healthy way of eating

Veganism, apparently, is having a moment, gaining new converts every day. Whether or not this will continue is doubtful. Going vegan is hard. Really, really hard. I tried it for half an hour as an experiment, and bailed out. Being vegetarian, by comparison, is a doddle. In fact, it's pretty much the same as being a full-on carnivore.

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First up, it's the same ethically - unless you source your eggs and dairy very carefully - because you're still supporting the big intensive animal rearing machine (battery-egg hens have an arguably worse time of it than fowls reared intensively for meat, and the story of industrial dairy production is very ugly indeed).

Secondly, it's almost as good nutritionally, because you can get virtually the equivalent protein, fats, and vitamins from dairy and eggs that would otherwise come from meat.

But veganism is a whole other thing. For some reason, it's often linked to health, both physical and mental. The trouble is, though, that it's actually bad for you. Humans, like it or not, need the nutrients present in animal-derived foods. Deficiencies in retinol, vitamins D, K and B12, iron, and zinc are hard to make up for with supplements. Some say impossible.

I feel for vegans, I do. I admire them for their huge empathy, and for sustaining a life full of social difficulties with no Parmesan cheese, honey or even a goose-down cushion for comfort. But truth be told, it's as flawed a position as the vegetarian, carnivorous, or slightly more bonkers pescetarian one.

block_quotes_start Truth be told, veganism is as flawed a position as the vegetarian, carnivorous, or slightly more bonkers pescetarian one block_quotes_end

How many mice and rabbits are killed by machinery in industrial vegetable farming; how many slugs die when lettuces are processed? For that matter, how many small mammals and insects die from pesticides in conventional cotton production? Is anyone asking? And as for eating vegan being better for Earth, that's another myth ...

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Still, vegans make a nice change from vegetarians giving me a holier than thou attitude about meat eating while sporting leather shoes (don't kid yourself, good leather is not always a by-product of the meat industry, it's often a product of calves born primarily to be shoes, and only secondly to provide meat).

Bottom line, it's all about production methods. Sourcing ethically produced animal products, whether for food or clothing, is far more meaningful than whether you're a vegan or carnivore. And that, I'm afraid, is the hardest thing of all.

For some help in this regard, I must once praise the most ethical health food shop I know of in Johannesburg. Organic Emporium in the Bryanston Shopping Centre stocks glowing organic vegetables, wonderful beef from pasture reared indigenous cattle, organic Jersey-cow dairy, sourdough breads and much more.

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