Meat-Free McCartney

Animal advocates on various social networking site have been getting excited over the news that Paul McCartney (formerly of some band or other) has just released a cookbook. Why the excitement? Some say that it's another step forward for nonhuman animals. Me? I say it's another step backwards, thanks to another well-intentioned celebrity who doesn't understand that animals aren't ours to use.

The Meat Free Monday Cookbook -- by Paul, Mary and Stella McCartney -- has just been released to further promote McCartney's campaign (i.e. its namesake) to get people to not eat meat one day a week. According to The Telegraph, royalties from the book will go directly into funding for the ongoing Meat Free Monday campaign McCartney's been promoting for the past few years now, whose greatest accomplishment thus far seems to have been to make people feel better about themselves for meaninglessly shuffling around various animal products so that they omit one particular type one day a week. "But meat-free Mondays promote veganism!" I was assured earlier today by a fellow vegan. "You're being too cynical," I was told by another.

Not unlike the North American Meatless Monday fad, however, the Meat Free Monday campaign doesn't concern itself with persuading people to go vegan. It doesn't really concern itself all that much with animal use at all, actually. The McCartney family's statement from the official website:

"By giving up meat for one day each week you can save money, reduce your environmental impact and live a healthier life.

In 2006, a United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, highlighted the environmental impact of meat-eating and the importance of making more environmentally and socially conscious food choices. In 2009, we launched the Meat Free Monday campaign as a simple and straightforward idea to show everyone the value of eating less meat – and to make it easier for us all to do so.

We’re not asking you to give up meat completely, we’re encouraging you to do your bit to help protect our planet."

Where do animal rights fit into all of this? How does this campaign purportedly promote veganism? Right! It doesn't. In fact, the recipes link on the official site leads to a veritable smorgasbord of animal products, with milk, cream, butter, a seemingly never-ending variety of cheeses, eggs and honey.

If you have any lingering doubts about where veganism fits into McCartney's campaign, a couple of preview glances on Amazon UK's page for the book should clear things up for you. The very first recipes listed from Page 19 of the book are for Blueberry Pancakes (which include unsalted butter, organic milk, buttermilk and organic eggs), along with one for falafel and another for quinoa salad (both of which are free of animal ingredients). The second page of recipes listed (Page 44) lists recipes for a dish called Laban Bil Bayd (which contains unsalted butter, Greek yogurt and organic eggs), then an Asparagus Tray Bake (with crème fraîche, Parmesan cheese and eggs) and then a final recipe for Lemon Pistachio Biscotti (containing eggs). The third page of recipes listed (Page 159) lists recipes for Poached Quince with Vanilla (with a suggestion to serve it with yogurt), Puy Lentils with Roasted Red Peppers and Goat's Cheese (containing the aforementioned goat's cheese) and then Cheese and Chive Potato Jackets (which include butter, organic milk and Cheddar cheese as ingredients). The very last page of recipes featured (Page 222) lists three recipes which happen to be free of animal ingredients. Basically, out of 12 recipes from the book happening to be featured on the Amazon UK site, over half of them use animal ingredients -- easily avoidable animal ingredients.

If you're vegan and thinking of picking something up for a non-vegan friend or family member, please don't waste your time or money buying this book. There are so very many excellent vegan cookbooks available on the market right now. Why waste an opportunity to show someone you love how delicious food can be without animal products? A book like McCartney's accomplishes nothing but to to reinforce to the public that animals are ours to use and that food somehow requires animal products to be tasty. We know better, though, don't we?

Help your non-vegan friends and family connect the dots about what we owe nonhuman animals; please don't follow Paul McCartney's lead and merely confuse them further.

Should Vegans Endorse Meatless Monday?

Over the course of the past year, I've read about and have occasionally referenced the hot trend that's currently being promoted by foodies, environmentalists and even some animal welfare organizations. It's called "Meatless Monday" and is a revisiting of the voluntary rationing encouraged by the US government during the war years. In 2003, the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health jumped on it to start a public health awareness campaign. Clicking through the "Meatless Monday" website, it becomes obvious that the campaign's sole purpose is indeed to promote better human health. The site spells it out clearly in its FAQ section that the campaign isn't about promoting veganism or vegetarianism--it's about "moderation". The regular consumption of eggs is touted as nutritionally desirable and the consumption of low-fat dairy and fish are also presented as being nutritionally sound options. In fact, the consumption of fish is even encouraged.

So who's supporting this movement? Foodies like Michael Pollan have promoted it and it's even been endorsed by self-described vegan authors with a penchant for Paris exceptions. Kathy Freston, Oprah's once-upon-a-time fad vegan cleanse guru, also promotes it, adding a 'tsk' or two for those who don't eat the flesh of nonhuman animals and who aren't themselves supportive of the campaign:

I know that some vegetarians pooh pooh Meatless Monday as not enough. I'm sympathetic to that view, but I think it's unnecessarily strident. For people who think that going totally vegetarian is too challenging, the Meatless Monday campaign offers a gentle entrée into the idea of eating without eating animals. My hope is that people will use the campaign as a stepping stone -- first one meatless day per week, then three, then five, then seven. As we lean into meatless eating -- switching out more and more meat meals for meatless meals -- we end up feeling better, both physically and ethically.

Is it necessarily true, however, that cutting back on eating the flesh of nonhuman animals one day a week will lead to someone's "switching out more and more meat meals for meatless meals"? Prof. Gary L. Francione argues effectively against touting vegetarianism as some sort of gateway to veganism, as have others.

Furthermore, is it not misleading to present the not eating of the flesh of nonhuman animals as being somehow more ethically significant than not consuming their products (e.g. dairy, eggs, honey) or not buying clothing made using their flesh or fur? It seems to be a change that's really more a shuffling around that just reinforces the view and treatment of nonhuman animals and their products as commodities, rather than an actual step forward in any sense. For instance, an omni friend of mine emailed me this morning with a link to a news article about the campaign, telling me excitedly that she intends to stop eating "meat" on Mondays. Since she knows that I'm a vegan, she said that she'd thought that I would be happy to hear it and would be glad about what she called her "small contribution towards veganism". When I asked her why she had decided to hop aboard the bandwagon, however, she told me that it was mostly due to environmental concerns.

So, what was on her plate today? She had an egg omelette for breakfast this morning, a Greek salad for lunch, and was planning to have a frozen cheese pizza for dinner. Sure, she's not having a hamburger today, but that's little consolation for the chicken enslaved to produce the eggs for her omelette, the goat confined and impregnated to make the feta cheese for her salad, and the cow confined and impregnated to make the cheese for her pizza. It's also little consolation for the chicks, goats and calves considered "by-products" of these processes who are either slaughtered if male, or reinserted into the whole cycle if female. When she expressed her disappointment that I wasn't applauding her decision, I started to explain to her that I don't view eating a steak as being any more ethically problematic than eating a dairy ice cream cone. She then asserted to me that she was "doing [her] part" and that I should at least agree that it was better than nothing. Is it really, though? Is it better to let someone think that eating cheese is more ethical than eating fried chicken, or that not eating nonhuman animals on a Monday makes eating them somehow more alright the rest of the week?

Regardless of Freston's 'tsk', I have to say that it troubles me to see fellow vegans advocating the "Meatless Monday" campaign, especially when they attempt to argue on ethical grounds that it will somehow lead to less nonhuman animals being harmed or consumed. To begin with, the idea of promoting it feels too much like managing a lottery for nonhuman animals. Got the winning ticket? Lucky you (although it's not so lucky for the the animals whose flesh will be consumed from Tuesday through Sunday)! It's important to remember that the campaign isn't "Animal-Free Monday" and that it completely side-steps the issue of animals enslaved for their "products"; I simply can't accept this as being, in any way, a productive component of anything resembling vegan education. So why are vegans endorsing it?

Some vegans like dietitian Virginia Messina view Meatless Monday as a good opportunity for advocacy; I agree that it can certainly be used as a springboard, as long as it's not condoned, which honestly just sends out mixed messages about the reasons one should continue to view nonhuman animals as things or property. I'd also like to hope that vegans aren't holding out for that one symbolic single day a week that ethically compartmentalizes the consumption of various parts of nonhumans to educate others: We need to take each and every opportunity we can--not just on Mondays.

Foodie Fads: Trying on and Discounting "Veganism"

There are two major themes that are playing themselves out ad nauseum in confessional-like foodie articles in mainstream media today. One, of course, is the trend towards the purportedly sexy hands-on involvement in the slaughter of animals that some foodies seem to think leaves them holding the ethical equivalent of a "get out of jail free" card with regards to their embracing their more carnivorous urges (and they sure as heck like to harp on the "c" word). Another trend popularized by some folks like Oprah Winfrey (and no, this isn't going to be an Oprah rant, for those of you who've expressed concern over my dissing her in the past for her cleanse last year), where for one reason or another, veganism -- more often, a strict vegetarian diet -- is tried out temporarily for its short term benefits, or sometimes merely to assess its merits outside of any sort of ethical context.

One article I stumbled across this morning was written by someone in the latter camp -- and to be fair, this person is more of a general "writer" than an actual foodie. Tulsa World's Cary Aspinwall's five day stint eschewing animal products reads like a disgruntled teenager talking on the phone to a friend about having been forced to participate in a family outing. Plus, it includes all of the customary (obligatory?) jabs at veganism and the ethics inherent in it. For instance, she starts off the article mentioning her long-time curiosity about veganism, but qualifies that it's

curious, with a mild disdain. Good for vegans if they don't want to eat any cows, pigs, lambs, chickens and fish. In my view, those animals died for the sake of deliciousness.

Yes, we get it, Cary: Savouring the taste of animals is hip. Mark Bittman loves you. And since most of your five days were spent trying to find identical substitutes for animal products instead of really exploring all of the other things that you could have tried eating -- and since you've stated outright that you walked into this with your nose wrinkled, you were disappointed.

So? The article ends with a bunch of regurgitated information about the potential health benefits of lowering one's consumption of animal products somewhat, and touts the John Hopkins Institute's "Meatless Mondays" as being an ideal path to follow in lieu of veganism (and by "meatless", this means "abstaining from red meat, poultry and high-fat dairy products" and that "fish and seafood, especially those high in omega-3 fatty acids, are encouraged"). I remember getting a lot of spammy comments on my blog from one of their people sometime before Xmas, more or less saying the same thing over and over again as leavers of spammy comments are wont to do. But I digress... It's a shame that in writing an article about the possible benefits of reducing one's consumption of animals that Aspinwall felt the need to both misrepresent and undermine the lifestyle that's most conducive to reducing one's consumption; it's also a shame that she did so without even once taking a fair and serious look at the ethics behind that lifestyle. Ultimately, though, presenting eating animals as sexy is what's selling in mainstream media today, so this article was just yet another feeble manifestation of this trend.

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Although it's not worthy of its own post, I thought I'd also tack on this link to an article by a vegetarian of eight years who decided to try to go vegan for a week, but who -- while avoiding any real discussion of the ethics behind veganism -- failed to reproduce what she deemed a tasty vegan mac and "cheese" dish, and so decided that veganism is too time-consuming and expensive to bother. She asserts that she envies those with enough willpower to be compassionate, but that she feels that merely focusing on being a "conscious" consumer is the better way to go.

Recipes, Muscle-Flexing and Documentaries, Oh My!

From the interwebs this morning:

The Washington Post's Kim O'Donnell's latest "Meatless Monday" instalment featured recipes for a BBQ Tempeh Sandwich and Carrot-Cayenne Coleslaw, both from Bryant Terry's Vegan Soul Kitchen.

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Mother Jones had a really positive article on vegan bodybuilder Kenneth Williams in the online version of their March / April issue.

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Variety's Brian Lowry wrote a review of the documentary Death on a Factory Farm, which airs on HBO tonight at 10 pm. He describes it as "exposing cruel treatment and horrible conditions for animals bred for butchering, without addressing the larger question of societal complicity in our demand for food at reasonable costs". Lowry sums up the documentary by stating that

The main drawback with this sort of exercise -- and indeed, the animal rights movement -- boils down to a matter of degree and perspective. Wanting such operations to be as compassionate as possible is certainly laudable. But unless everyone turns Vegan overnight, animals are going to be killed for our consumption, so the question boils down to how.

It's annoying -- but unsurprising -- to hear yet another person stress that it's unreasonable to strive towards the eventual cessation of animals being raised and slaughtered for food, and that our attention should instead be focused on animal welfare -- i.e. how animals are treated as they continue to be raised and slaughtered for us to eat.