On Getting that 'Word' Out!

'Veganism' Is Everywhere!!

I remember a few years ago how articles about veganism in online media sources were just occasional finds. They still are, really. I mean, the word 'vegan' gets tossed around a fair bit these days. You'll find it in food and health-related articles in the NY Times or in articles on the ethics of factory farming in The Atlantic. You'll hear it brought up on daytime talk shows whose hosts have either dabbled with some sort of plant-based thing or who've actually taken it further to refrain from using animal products altogether. You'll hear it in soundbites on entertainment gossip shows when this or that celebrity self-identifies as having embraced and/or rejected veganism (e.g. Larry Hagman is the latest to throw his hat, claiming to have 'gone vegan' to fight his cancer, while Eva Longoria was recently widely-quoted as having suffered almost immediate negative health effects when she supposedly went vegan). The thing is, though, that with few exceptions, none of these article that drop the v-word actually educate the public about anything having to do with veganism.

Partitioning Veganism

We end up with a jumble of mixed messages from mainstream media sources or others in the public eye. Even so-called animal advocacy groups like Vegan Outreach end up condoning animal consumption, either setting up false dichotomies or basically shaming vegans that we're wasting time and energy in actually avoiding personal consumption of animal products. In the words of its co-founders Matt Ball:

I like to sum up this philosophy by pointing out that a half hour of leafleting will likely reduce more suffering than the effort it takes to go from 99 to 99.9% vegan for one’s entire lifetime.

You had better turn a blind eye to those anchovies or to that casein, lest you somehow magically get a couple of hours lopped off your life that you could have used to hand someone a pamphlet!

Vegan Outreach's other co-founder Jack Norris, a self-identified vegan, takes it even further, calling upon vegans to consume animal products to convince others that it's easy to not consume some animal products :

If a food is 99% vegan, then it’s vegan enough for me. I want other people to think that they too can boycott animal cruelty and still eat in as many places / situations as possible, but I also feel okay about it knowing that the small amounts of animal products I might be eating are probably not causing any measurable harm, especially compared to alienating one person from trying vegetarianism for even a few meals.

A few issues arise from this statement, assumptive and straw man-ish as it is. First of all, Norris is using percentages to qualify a food as being "vegan enough" to indicate how convenience should influence the quantity of animal products a vegan should feel comfortable consuming. The fact that it's sometimes difficult for a vegan to eliminate all animal products from his or her daily life (e.g. driving or riding in a car involves using a vehicle whose manufacturing has at some point involved animal testing, tires containing animal products, etc.) isn't a license to shrug and deliberately choose easily avoidable animal products just for the sake of convenience or the sake of appearances. As for appearances: Do you really think that by eating animal products, you're going to convince another human being that going vegan is easy? If anything, you'll just be successful at conveying to that human being that vegans shrug off animal use. Norris doesn't mention trying to convince another human to go vegan, though, but uses the term 'vegetarian'.

I suppose that if you self-identify as a vegan and want to convince your meat-eating friend that it's easy to find a meal that doesn't include meat, going ahead and ignoring that pat of butter on your baked potato or the sprinkle of parmesan on your marinara sauce might be effective. I should hope that as a vegan, though, you'd know enough that there's no ethical distinction between eating a chicken's leg or her eggs, a cow's tongue or the milk meant for her calf. There's as much suffering involved in the lives of those enslaved for their so-called products as there is for those enslaved for the taste of their flesh. There's no less injustice involved and the truth is that they all end up in the slaughterhouse in the end. Where eggs and milk are concerned, even additional lives--those of male chicks and of the calves produced through repeated impregnation--are lost. Norris confuses the issue completely. To him and to Vegan Outreach, it's "vegan enough" to continue to deliberately provide demand for this enslavement and slaughter of others. And why? To convince someone that it's not difficult to sometimes consume some animals, since it would supposedly be off-putting to try to show them that it's not difficult to be vegan? Vegan outreach, indeed. And it's not just Vegan Outreach rejecting the opportunity to send a clear vegan message. PETA does it in all shapes, sounds and smells (e.g. in a letter to the editor where they promote "go[ing] vegan -- at least for one or two days a week" to save water).


Mostly Plant-Based Diet?

The truth is that when the word pops up in print these days, its meaning has become quite commonly understood to be something akin to 'mostly plant-based diet'. We have non-vegan foodies like Mark Bittman to thank for that, along with every other food or health fad writer who's jumped on the bandwagon to find ways to pimp the word 'vegan'. Upon pointing this out here or there on the interwebs, I invariably end up with at least one person raising an objection, insisting upon one (or a combination) of the following, that

a) every little bit counts,
b) I can't expect things to be 'all or nothing',
c) anything that lessens [sic] animal suffering at all should be celebrated,
d) I'm being overly-critical/judgmental/divisive in not embracing that Person X (who is advocating not eating this or that species or part of an animal on this or that day of the week) and I are really fighting for the 'same cause',
e) and that it's important to get The Word out there. (Apparently, I tend to forget about this thing called The Word again and again!)

The thing is, though, that something is spreading, but this so-called 'word' has little to do with examining the ethics of using other animals. More often than not, it has nothing to do with educating others to reject animal exploitation at all--even when it appears to do so.

The Result?

With wrongheaded messages like these, is it really any wonder that those outside of advocacy get it wrong? When so-called animal rights activists--well-funded groups perfectly capable of disseminating truthful and consistent information--choose instead to 1) send mixed messages to the public, and 2) to shame those who take the rights and interests of animal seriously out of trying to set things straight, should we be surprised that the word 'vegan' is now being tossed around by so many to mean anything from vegan, to someone who occasionally eats an occasional salad with an oil and vinegar dressing? All of a sudden, everyone's a spokesperson for veganism and neither being vegan nor actually taking animal rights seriously seem to be qualifying criteria for this.

A blurb I read sometime last week on the Indianapolis Star's website ("Vegan diet can be a healthy, satisfying start to the new year"). In this bit purportedly promoting a "vegan diet", its author, in fact, recommends "eating vegan or vegetarian a couple of times a week" and partitions veganism into 1) something that merely means not eating animals and 2) something that sometimes means not using them at all. In this other article I read today ("Local vegetarians have limited options"), a self-described "flexible vegetarian", who excuses away awkwardly re-branding her regular old omnivorism bent by insisting that she doesn't like "labels", is quoted as saying that it's "hard to be a vegan" in her area and that one would likely "starve to death". The article continues by using 'vegan' and 'vegetarian' interchangeably and quotes another apparently stellar authority on veganism-cum-vegetarianism, an assistant professor of dietetics, who offers up that it's hard to find vegan-friendly food in grocery stores and that (because he's also got a degree in sociology or psychology tucked into his jeans), it's also difficult to not eat some animal products (e.g. meat) because you can't go out with your friends and not "be the picky one". These are the people who are out there getting the so-called 'word' out.

Get Talking!

Who's going to tell the public that veganism isn't about having the occasional grilled cheese sandwich or sprinkle of smoked pig's flesh on a salad and calling it "vegan enough"?

Who's going to tell the public that the animal enslaved and slaughtered for human use doesn't care whether you wear her flesh on your feet or gnaw on rib once she's dead? Meat = dairy = eggs = leather = fur.

Who's going to tell the public that we owe other animals more than to continue to use them for the sake of convenience, or worse, for the sake of appearances?

Who's going to tell the public that we owe other animals--these sentient persons--more than to continue to use them as things?

Who's going to tell the public that we don't need to keep participating in or perpetuating this cycle?

Who's going to show them by example that going vegan is easy?

If not vegans, then who else? If you're not vegan, then please consider what's involved in your continued use of other animals today. Visit Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach for more information. If you are vegan, get that 'word' out--but please just make sure you get that 'word' right. Talk to someone about veganism today.

Animal Advocacy Leaders Hall of Fail

Animal Advocacy Leaders Hall of Fail

Years ago when I'd first stopped eating animal flesh, the writings of John Robbins were recommended to me by many vegetarians. Robbins is the one-time heir to the Baskin-Robbins ice cream empire who purportedly walked away from it permanently and completely to

"...pursue the deeper American Dream... the dream of a society at peace with its conscience because it respects and lives in harmony with all life forms. A dream of a society that is truly healthy, practicing a wise and compassionate stewardship of a balanced ecosystem." (Read more here.)

He began his pursuit by writing several books about the health and environmental implications of factory farming, as well as of the cruel conditions under which non-humans are kept on such farms. From what I remember and from recently discussing him with others, he generally dodged using the term "vegan" in his books and either opted for "vegetarian" or referred to following a "plant-based diet". He may very well have been either vegan or a strict vegetarian at some point, but he's been quoted a few places online as having stated in this 2006 interview with Raw Vegan Radio that he will eat animal products while traveling. (I guess it's hard to "respect" others while on the road, as Peter Singer and Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson have also expressed.)

Knowing all of this, it wasn't that much of a surprise to read Robbins' latest Huffington Post article ("The Brutality of Factory Farms: An Inside Look"), in which he unapologetically excludes some animals from his aforementioned dream world. Focusing on the treatment of dairy cows and this or that lawsuit of PETA's (who can keep track?) with which he is getting involved, he asserts the following:

My concern, let me emphasize, is not with small-scale family farms. I have no problem with the many hard-working families who treat their cows well, take care of the land and try to bring a healthy product to market. My problem is with the much larger agribusiness enterprises, the factory farms to whom the animals in their care are nothing but sources of revenue.

He's done a bit of an about-face since insisting on his own website at one point in response to a reader that there is no such thing as a "happy" dairy cow. I guess that this is where things get tricky when you focus on the ethics of how animals are treated, rather than considering whether or not they're ours to use at all. The truth is that Robbins is perfectly OK with animal use. According to one of his websites, he's not even out to ban the billboards referenced in the Huffington Post article. He writes:

My ideal goal would actually not be to ban the ads. My preference would rather be to see the dairy industry reconcile the discrepancy between the conditions portrayed in the ads and the actual reality. If the industry treated cows in the manner exhibited in the ads, I’d drop the suit in a heartbeat.

When I'd originally read a couple of Robbins' books around 15-16 years ago, I was just at the very beginning of a stage of my life where I thought I was making a difference as a lacto-ovo-vegetarian. Part of my motivation to stop eating animal flesh at the time had to do with the health and environmental arguments that Robbins presented in his books. I seem to remember his having advocated a strictly vegetarian diet with some emphasis on the treatment of animals on factory farms. As I learned more about ethics and animal rights, my own way of viewing what we owe non-humans changed drastically, so I left behind Robbins' books and didn't keep track of the path he continued to follow. I'm now really glad that I never bothered.

Bad Reputations

Rock icon Joan Jett has been a celebrity mouthpiece for PETA for years. She's also often misrepresented in the media and by animal advocacy groups as being vegan, even though she consistently shows up at public events wearing her trademark leather pants and other leather clothing. She set the record straight about her non-veganism recently in an article in the New York Observer:

"If not wearing leather would stop animals from getting eaten, then I'd stop wearing leather tomorrow," said Ms. Jett, who recently released a greatest-hits album and a new book and is played by Kristen Stewart in a new movie, The Runaways. "At least I can sit there and thank the dead cow for letting me wear its skin."

The non-human animal enslaved and slaughtered and whose skin Jett continues to wear to maintain her rock 'n' roll image doesn't care whether his or her parts ended up in her body or on her body (or "its" parts, as Jett might prefer to say). It's not how we use non-humans that is significant; what's wrong is that we use them at all.

Add to all of this that PETA described her as handing out "vegetarian/vegan starter kits" for it in NYC a few months back. Whether PETA was using the terms 'vegetarian' and 'vegan' interchangeably (which is problematic in itself, albeit not surprising from PETA) or unapologetically non-vegan Joan Jett hit the pavement to promote that which she herself opts not to embrace, my head could very well implode trying to peel away the layers of muddled contradictions and moral confusion.

If Jett's inability to "get it" with regards to animal use isn't apparent in the previous quote, how about this one from PETA's GoVeg.com website, where she responds to a question concerning how she feels about people who wear fur?

I believe they are callous and self-involved. With such good-quality imitation fur available for making clothes, etc., there is no reason to torture animals. It’s the “out of sight, out of mind” syndrome. Put fur lovers’ legs in a steel trap for a few days, or whack ’em on the head with a club, and maybe they’ll get it.

So eating animals is wrong and wearing their skin with the fur still left on it is worthy of having your leg put "in a steel trap", but wearing that skin is perfectly alright as long as you unhair it first? From Jett's first comment, I am guessing that she assumes that all leather comes from cows raised for human consumption and thus attempts to justify her use of it in that she figures that the cows are dead anyway. This is far from being a given, though.

What's somewhat ironic is that PETA, itself, has a blurb about leather on its site where it states the commonly known fact that leather can come from the skin of a wide variety of non-humans (e.g. cats, alligators, kangaroos, ostriches, and more -- some of them raised specifically for the human use of their skin). PETA points out that since leather is generally not labeled, there's often no way to tell whose skin you're wearing (as if it should matter whose skin it is, honestly). PETA also states on its site that the leather industry is the most economically important by-product of the meat industry, helping to prop it up financially. What PETA doesn't mention is that the skin of calves helps prop up the dairy industry even more so -- whether taken after they are slaughtered to become "veal", or taken from the fetal calves of spent pregnant dairy cows at the time of slaughter. Providing demand for a cow's skin ensures the continued profitability of the beef and dairy industries -- dots which Jett, unfortunately, fails to connect. What's most important to remember, though, is that condoning the occasional use of some parts of some non-human animals for human pleasure merely perpetuates the status quo -- that animals are things for us to use. Is that really the best way to advocate for them?

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For more information about PETA and the many dots it miserably fails to connect, itself...

Please check out Dan Cudahy's Unpopular Vegan Essays blog here.

Visit Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach to read Prof. Gary L. Francione's articles on how PETA kills animals and has been killing animals for a while, and on Ingrid Newkirk's defense of PETA's speciesist and sexist campaigns (and check out a few examples of the sexist campaigns here and here). Also read about how PETA gives awards to animal exploiters like KFC and works with them to make people feel better about continuing to consume animals.

Have a look at previous My Face Is on Fire posts to read about how some of my fellow abolitionists and I got fed up and wrote a letter rejecting those sexist tactics used by groups like PETA in the animal advocacy movement. Also read an example of how PETA profits from animal exploitation, how it misrepresents veganism while promoting the consumption of animal products and finally, how PETA's Bruce Friedrich has shamed vegans for asking waiters about ingredients on restaurant menus.

Bits and Blurbs in the Media about Veganism

The news has been out for a few days -- Mike Tyson proclaimed that he's gone vegan. What exactly he means by "vegan" is questionable, however, since a few months ago, Animal Planet announced that Tyson would be starring in its new reality show about pigeon racing, trained by experts while competing against pigeon-racing pros. From "green gossip" website Ecorazzi:

“I’m honored to be a part of this monumental show on Animal Planet,” says Tyson, who’s first ever fight as a child was in defense of his birds. “I feel a great pride acting as an official representative for all the pigeon fancier’s out there. I want people to see why we love these birds."

Tyson echoed what dozens of "happy meat" farmers have been claiming to the public for several months now through mouthpieces like Jonathan Safran Foer -- i.e. that the exploitation of sentient non-humans is admirable, and that it even involves something akin to love, as long as their treatment appears "right". The thing is, though, that there's nothing "right" about enslaving living creatures and using them as toys for human pleasure. There's certainly nothing "vegan" about it, anyway. I can only surmise that Tyson's interpretation of veganism embraces that unfortunate misrepresentation that attempts to limit it to its dietary component. I suspect we'll read more about it in the future -- maybe even groan about it a little more, since Tyson appears to be working hard to make his comeback as a kinder gentler sort.

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Speaking of celebrities (mis)flinging the word "vegan" around: Glee star Lea Michele was being discussed by vegans on Twitter a few months back for having self-identified herself as such. According to teen gossip site JSYK, however, Michele recently clarified just what kind of "vegan" she is:

[I]n her recent interview with Asos magazine, the Glee star says that she's actually a macrobiotic vegan, who is reintroducing fish into her diet.

According to JSYK:

Even though a vegan diet is known to not include any animal foods, the macrobiotic vegan regimen does make allowances for fish 2-3 times per week. This is why the reintroduction of fish into Lea's diet still follows her original principles.

Principles, huh? I guess it's all good, since Michele (along with a number of other non-vegan celebrities) is also a huge supporter of PETA's anti-fur campaigns. I guess that too "still follows" Michele's "original principles", which obviously reflect that the use of some animals is somehow more morally significant than the use of others.

PETA and HSUS Tag-Team to Take on Pizza Industry? Hardly!

The trade website Pizza Marketplace ran a piece yesterday about how supposed "animal rights" groups PETA and HSUS are tag-teaming to take on the pizza industry. According to the site, both organizations "are 'crashing' Papa John's and Domino's shareholder meetings". What they mean by this is that HSUS has recently used its supporters' dollars to become a shareholder in Domino's Pizza and that PETA has done the same with Papa John's. PETA has, of course, been doing this sort of thing for years. I remember back in 2003, for instance, when it proudly announced its having become "part owner" of Tyson Foods, Inc., the world's second largest processor and marketer of the flesh of chickens, cows and pigs.

Why on earth would two organizations that promote themselves as advocates for animals and let others misrepresent them as "animal rights" organizations choose to profit from animal exploitation? Both PETA and HSUS claim that these actions were taken to give them each an official say in the decisions each pizza company makes (via shareholders' meetings) with regards to the animal flesh and secretions it uses to garnish the products from which it profits -- the animal flesh and secretion covered products from which supposed animal advocacy organizations PETA and HSUS also now profit. So will PETA and HSUS try to convince these companies to stop exploiting animals? Nope. Will PETA and HSUS maybe opt for the token gesture of trying to convince these companies to incorporate some animal-free substitutes for the dairy cheese and animal flesh they use on their pizzas? Nope. A half-hearted attempt to get them to use less animal flesh or secretions? Nope. According to Pizza Marketplace :

The Humane Society of The United States' Kristine Middleton said she would address what she said is [Domino]’s practice of using pork from suppliers that confine breeding pigs in gestation crates.

So HSUS bought stock in -- and is profiting from -- a company that uses the flesh and secretions of cows, the flesh of pigs and chickens and the flesh of fish. And why? To talk to Domino's about using gestation crates? As Gary L. Francione stated in his 2007 interview with Eric "Happy Meat" Marcus, enlarging or getting rid of gestation crates is like offering someone a "string band on the way to the gas chamber". Furthermore, aside from the fact that it does nothing to address animal use, it would only serve to make people feel more comfortable about eating pig's flesh on their pizza. This is how HSUS justifies profiting from the use and exploitation of non-human animals. As for PETA, the self-described "animal rights" group:

Stephanie Corrigan from PETA said the group would like to work with Papa John's on the company's dairy standards. "We're looking at the dairy farms they're using and encourage pizza companies to make sure their suppliers implement the most basic animal welfare standards," she said.

While PETA is profiting from the use and exploitation of animals, it wants to try to ensure that the companies exploiting the animals in question at the very, very least offer those animals "the most basic animal welfare standards". How charitable of them! While this is going on, the people over at the industry-front Center for Consumer Freedom (via its HumaneWatch site) are having a really good laugh, chortling that "PETA has been doing this for years [and that] [t]hey never got more than about 3 percent of support from any shareholders." I wonder, on the other hand, what percentage of the world's third largest pizza delivery company's profits PETA will get; with Papa John's over $1B in revenue in 2007, I'm guessing that it could be a nice chunk of change.

Of course, one does have to take what spews out of the Center for Consumer Freedom with a grain of salt, since they do also insist that in seeking to regulate various companies' use of animals and in choosing to profit directly from the use and exploitation of non-human animals, that somehow, HSUS has a "vegan agenda". It seems to me, however, that if HSUS actually had anything even vaguely resembling a "vegan agenda" that it would actually spend some of its millions seriously advocating for veganism. It doesn't. Furthermore, as long as HSUS can trick its financial supporters into allowing it to sell them indulgences while profiting from the actual hands-on exploitation of animals -- its bread and Earth Balance, why on earth would it have any interest whatsoever in actually advocating for the actual end of animal exploitation? Why on earth would it seek to educate consumers about not providing demand for animal exploitation, if doing so would ultimately affect its own profit margins?

I love pizza with the sort of ferocity that most people reserve for chocolate or reality TV shows. Thankfully, my pizza fix comes animal-free quite easily now. Between the vegan cheese and meat substitutes available on the market right now, the frozen vegan pizzas and the hundreds of other plant-based ingredients available to use as toppings, there's no need for a single animal to be enslaved and then slaughtered for anyone to indulge themselves in a slice.

Of course, you won't be hearing about that from HSUS or PETA, now, will you?

Oreos: Where PETA's Got it Wrong

Just before the holidays, Oreos came up in a discussion on Twitter. Was it true? Were they vegan? For some time, PETA's listed them in the snacks section of its "I Can't Believe It's Vegan!" lists of so-called "accidentally" vegan foods on its website. Surely, PETA would have verified this, no?
No!
Or rather, PETA's got a definition of veganism that it keeps flexible enough to include animal products and thinks that your definition should be that flexible, too. The disclaimer on the main page of its "I Can't Believe It's Vegan!" website reads:

Items listed may contain trace amounts of animal-derived ingredients. While PETA supports a strict adherence to veganism, we put the task of vigorously reducing animal suffering ahead of personal purity. Boycotting products that are 99.9 percent vegan sends the message to manufacturers that there is no market for this food, which ends up hurting more animals. For a more detailed explanation of PETA’s position, please visit http://www.caringconsumer.com/labels.html.

Basically, PETA says that fussing over ensuring things you put into your mouth are actually vegan is nitpicking and becomes an obsession over "personal purity". How far PETA takes this was recently reflected in a press release back in May to promote The Animal Activists' Handbook, co-written by its Vice-President Bruce Friedrich and Vegan (?) Outreach's Matt Ball. In it, Friedrich was described as arguing "against questioning waiters in restaurants about the ingredients in menu items". I mean, if PETA thinks you should even ask if any ingredients are animal-derived at all, then one really has to wonder about the work it put into assessing or ascertaining whether anything in its list of purportedly accidentally vegan processed foods is, actually, vegan.

It's one thing to acknowledge that in a world where animal exploitation is rampant that it's impossible to always avoid consuming foods whose ingredients or processing have involved some sort of animal exploitation; it's another matter, however, to fall into the practice of deliberately turning a blind eye where a simple question or two can provide that information and allow you to choose and act accordingly. So? I wrote to Nabisco and asked if its Oreos are animal-free. Specifically, I asked if the sugar used in them is processed with bone char. The response on December 23:

Hi Mylene,

Thank you for visiting http://www.nabiscoworld.com and for your interest in our OREO product.

I understand that knowing what ingredients are in the food products you eat directly affect how you practice your lifestyle, and Kraft Foods does all that it can to assist its consumers in making educated food decisions.

I apologize but unfortunately this ingredient information is not currently available.

As you can imagine our products change frequently, and maintaining a list of products that contain enzymes would be virtually impossible.

Thank you for contacting us and please add our site to your favourites and visit us again soon!

Kim McMiller Associate Director, Consumer Relations

Enzymes. I hadn't even considered those when first writing to Nabisco (some enzymes used to condition dough in processed based goods are animal-derived). Not having received a response to my question concerning the sugar itself, I asked again and this time received this information in the following response on December 28:

Kraft has several sugar suppliers. Sugar in our products can come from either sugar cane or sugar beets, depending on availability.

Some of our suppliers DO use the animal-derived natural charcoal (also known as "bone char") in their cane sugar refining process and some suppliers DO NOT use this process.

Since we may use any of the sugar suppliers at any given time in production, we cannot give a definite answer as to whether or not bone char was used in the sugar refining process of a particular product.

So there you have it, straight from Oreos' makers, themselves. There is no way to confirm whether one package of Oreos or another contains animal-derived ingredients (e.g. enzymes used to process the dough) or sugar that's been processed using the charred bones of animals; there's no need to embarrass yourself, as PETA would have you think you are, by asking if any animals were used to concoct 'em.

Spread the word that PETA's information on what is or isn't vegan should be examined critically by all vegans. While you're at it, maybe ask yourself something I've been asking myself since the Oreo discussion came up: Why support a company that ordinarily profits off the massive exploitation of animals anyway when other options are available? Better yet, do a Google search or three for vegan cookie recipes and go nuts while ensuring that no animals were used to satisfy your sweet tooth. Feel free to post any links you find to recipes yielding particularly scrumptious results in the comments below!

Celebrity and (Non-)Veganism

Ecorazzi announced some of this years annual VegNews awards winners today, including that Ellen DeGeneres won for Favorite Celebrity readers' pick (you can read it here). Aside from the fact that it seems that you cannot be an American celebrity and not endorse and / or shed your clothes for PETA in recent years, I've always really wondered what the sense is in attributing any sort of significance to public figures who decide to flirt with animal advocacy while sending mixed messages about animal exploitation. Unapologetic meat-eater Oprah Winfrey, for instance, comes to mind, having won PETA's 2008 "Person of the Year" award.

Things become even more problematic (and often confusing) when veganism is thrown into the mix. For instance, DeGeneres, who was also honoured by HSUS earlier this year, may have won readers choice for "Favorite Celebrity", but she's a spokesperson and model for Cover Girl, a company owned by Proctor & Gamble that both uses animal products and engages in animal testing. So, DeGeneres, who is currently profiting from the exploitation of animals, somehow gets a few back pats from the odd welfarist organisation or two and suddenly vegetarians and vegans the world over assume that she's an exemplar of sorts. We're also left with the general public viewing her non-veganism as being vegan.

Ecorazzi's story on this also features a link to their own Top 5 Vegan Celebrities list from this past June. DeGeneres, the "vegan" who profits from animal exploitation, is on it. So is "vegan" actress Ginnifer Goodwin, who came under fire this year for wearing an assortment of animal products for a magazine photo shoot for a piece about (wait for it...) her veganism. Then there's NBA star and PETA supporter John Salley, a "vegan" who went vegan for health reasons and whose activism involves promoting vegetarianism. Then? Alicia Silverstone, another solid PETA supporter who is now making the rounds promoting her new book, The Kind Diet, in which she subcategorises veganism into three levels, one of which includes eating animal products. Then there's actress Emily Deschannel, yet another vocal PETA (and HSUS) supporter who, when interviewed, mostly focuses on the environmental reasons to be vegan. (Not that there's anything wrong with promoting all pluses of abstaining from eating animals, but is it too much to ask that these self-professed vegan celebs actually talk about the problem at hand -- animal exploitation?)

In short, these supposed vegan celebrities are touted as exemplars of veganism. Most of them are vocal and public supporters of welfarist animal organizations that don't promote veganism as any sort of necessary moral baseline in advocating for animals and some of them have otherwise additionally misinterpreted and misrepresented veganism. Is there any wonder that the general public is confused? At the end of the day, should vegans really be applauding these celebrities outing themselves as vegans (i.e. regardless of their confusing things) since "it brings veganism into the mainstream", or should we actually be concerned (or in my case, sort of irritated) that these folks are just further warping people's understanding of what it means to take the interests of nonhuman animals seriously?

PeTA and Peter Singer: What's the Problem?

This is just a quick post to draw attention to a couple of pieces that should be read by those sitting on the fence about a) where PeTA really stands in terms of animal rights, and b) whether Peter Singer has ever actually had anything whatsoever to do with anything even ever so vaguely resembling a serious interest in the rights of nonhuman persons. A My Face Is on Fire reader emailed me today to ask me if I'd read Roger Yates' most recent post on his On Human-Nonhuman Relations about the current public misconception of PeTA's being a radical animal rights organization (or, rather, how it misrepresents itself as such). Yates points out in his recent post that

a visitor to PeTA’s site may find herself looking for animal rights books in PeTA’s online catalogue. However, the only philosophy book on human-nonhuman relations there is Animal Liberation. There are no works of animal rights theory. Instead PeTA misrepresent Peter Singer’s texts by saying, “If you read only one animal rights book, it has to be this one.” For some reason, Singer seems to tolerate this distortion – elsewhere he’s at pains to make it crystal clear that his views have no rights-based foundation.

The reader who emailed me was wondering why it is that PeTA would misrepresent Singer as presenting any sort of philosophical framework that is rights-based if his work is not, in fact, based on a serious concern for the rights of nonhumans. (Why indeed?) She then asked me if I could clarify Singer's position in a simple manner and explain to her how it differs from the abolitionist approach to animal rights. I ended up forwarding her this link to an essay called "Peter Singer and the Welfarist Position on the Lesser Value of Nonhuman Life" by Prof. Gary L. Francione from his Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach website and I suggested that she also go directly to the source and take the time to read Singer, herself. I hope she'll check out the link in question (and the book) and respond to this post if she has further questions or concerns.

I also recommend to anyone else who's unfamiliar with Singer's actual work and with where it fits (or doesn't!) in terms of the "big picture" to take the time to go to your library and pick up a copy of Animal Liberation and read it--critically. Then go back and read Prof. Francione's essays and let the dots connect like mad. And in case anyone already familiar with Singer's work lets out a little gasp that I may be offering it up as recommended reading on this blog (I know that I just did!), I'll just point this out: It's the simplest thing in the world to nod in agreement with others--especially when you know and value the soundness and significance of their work--but to actually take the time to muddle through source material yourself to come up with an actual understanding of why you agree (if you do) is invaluable and will honestly make you a better advocate for nonhumans who haven't the voice to speak for themselves.

PETA's 'Mister Manners' Tells Vegans to Eat With (and Even Kiss!) Meat-Eaters

A press release was issued by PETA today to promote a new book called The Animal Activist's Handbook. Co-written by welfarists Vegan Outreach's Matt Ball and PETA Vice-President Bruce Friedrich, as well as endorsed by both welfarists Peter Singer and Matthew Scully? Buyer beware!

My favourite bit from the press release: "[Friedrich] argues against questioning waiters in restaurants about the ingredients in menu items". Uh, so what? Don't eat? Pretend you're not vegan? So now PETA is saying that if I adhere to an ethical framework that permeates every aspect of my life, including what I eat, that it's "impolite" and somehow harmful to the animal rights cause to find out if what's offered on a menu is suitable for me to eat? I'll guess that they'd probably OK my doing so if I had a life-threatening food allergy, so why should merely asking be portrayed as socially unacceptable if you're doing it for ethical reasons? Why seek to shame people for merely informing themselves?

The full text:

New Book Tutors Activists on the Finer Points of Being the Biggest Nags in Town (and at the Table)

For Immediate Release:
May 8, 2009

Contact:
Jake Smith 757-622-7382

Dear Editor,

That irritating animal rights activist who never stops bugging you about your leather shoes and complaining about meat at the office potluck is about to get a makeover--courtesy of a new book by PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich, a man with a mighty bullhorn and a life mission. Along with colleague Matt Ball, Friedrich has authored The Animal Activist's Handbook, a first-of-its-kind guide that explains to activists that if they want to be effective, they'd better brush up on their social skills and appearance, or people may just ignore the message and shoot the messenger.

In the book, Friedrich--a vegan for more than 20 years--knocks down quite a few of the "sacred cows" of the animal rights movement. Taking on the role of PETA's "Mister Manners," Friedrich explains the importance of socializing and breaking bread with meat-eaters--and even dating them. After all, he explains, boycotting holiday meals or applying a vegan litmus test to our love lives will only alienate friends and family and cut down on our dating pool and sphere of influence.

Friedrich gives specific examples of what to say in "mixed" company when the topic of eating meat comes up. He suggests that meat-eaters should be fed faux meat rather than ethnic or other less familiar foods as their introduction to vegetarianism, and he argues against questioning waiters in restaurants about the ingredients in menu items.

The book has gotten raves from a diverse group of reviewers that includes Rory Freedman, number one New York Times bestselling coauthor of Skinny Bitch; Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University; and Matthew Scully, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Scully wrote that Friedrich's book "is full of good sense, thoughtful advice, and practical action on helping all of us to reduce the needless suffering of our fellow creatures. I recommend it."

With an inspiring foreword by PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk, The Animal Activist's Handbook also addresses several tangential issues, including why striving to make the world a better place is the most rewarding endeavor anyone can undertake as well as why Friedrich and his coauthor believe that animal liberation is not only possible but also inevitable.

I hope you that will consider running a profile on Friedrich and The Animal Activist's Handbook.

Best regards,

Jake Smith
Media Coordinator

Oprah Wins PETA's Person of the Year Award

Sure, she did a show on puppy mills, became a strict vegetarian for a heartbeat and dedicated a show to her dead dog. Her actions also reminded everybody of the double-standard by which most people live: Some animals are our beloved friends, while other animals are our tasty food. The fact that Oprah can get a pat on the back from an animal welfarist organization like PETA for purportedly being a powerful voice for animals as she continues to eat them is no surprise. All this award does is drill home that PETA thinks it's OK to be a hypocrite.

The Tradition of Pretending Animals Are Rewards

I've been avoiding writing about this whole "new dog in the White House" thing, but figured that enough was enough.

So, to keep up the years long tradition of each new US President having an official White House Critter, the Obamas promised their daughters a brand new puppy if Obama was elected. One of the Obama daughters is allergic to dogs, but that won't throw a wrench into the longstanding tradition -- instead, the Obamas have been searching for a hypoallergenic breed. In the interim, VP-elect Joe Biden's gotten himself a three-month-old purebred German Shepherd. I stumbled across a bloggish piece in the Christian Science Monitor that mentions it. In this piece, according to Biden's spokesperson Elizabeth Alexander "[h]e’s excited to bring it home when it gets a little older and has promised that his grandchildren can name it after the New Year".

"It" pretty much sums things up. The puppy is a thing. A gimmick. Worse, Biden went to a breeder to get a dog, when in the US alone, 4 million companion animals are killed each year because they've been abandoned or mistreated by people. Many of those are purebred dogs.

The CSM piece is titled "Biden gets new dog -- animal rights advocates not happy". What got my attention about is that the supposed animal rights advocates named in the article are the folks from HSUS and those from PETA, which are both clearly animal welfare organizations and not animal rights advocates. And this whole "Let's hope Obama does the right thing and gets a shelter dog" just misses the point altogether. You don't promise someone a dog the way you'd promise them a car on their 16th birthdays. There's no heavy symbolism in the Obamas' getting a shelter dog, unless that symbolism is that dogs are things to be given. Sure, I'd rather see President-elect Obama rescue a dog from a shelter rather than perpetuate the companion animal status quo by getting one from a breeder. Whatever he does, though, means little when you look at the bigger picture.

Or so I thought when I started reading the comments left by CSM readers:

"It’s a dog, who cares where it comes from."

"Why should the Bidens, or the Obamas, have to accept somebody else’s leftovers?"

"Bringing in an unknown dog from a shelter is risky especially when you are dealing with kids. Often no history about the cute dog is known. Perhaps it was abused, beaten, had a tough life or for whatever reason would like to snap and eat your child’s head off. [...] The positive is, he bought from a reputable breeder, some one who breeds dogs for the love of the breed."

"Don’t breeders have a right to do business or is PETA saying that all dogs should be gotten from the pound. I have a dog which is wonderful and was gotten through a no-kill humane society. But there is nothing wrong with getting a dog from a breeder and why should they have to join the ranks of the unemployed."

Ah, that old grey area that I can't for the life of me ignore. I keep forgetting the level of ignorance held by so many when it comes to animals species we deem worthy to welcome into our homes. As much as I hate this whole White House tradition and the message I can't help but feel it delivers, I guess that I can't help but hope, myself, that the Obamas -- if they have to go through with this act at all -- do choose to adopt from a shelter: If only to send the message out that just because you've been abandoned doesn't make you a bad dog; in some cases, it just means that there are bad caregivers.

Veganism in the News

Switzerland issued new rules for enlistment in its army around a week ago. It seems that although you can serve in the Swiss army if you "smoke marijuana, take Ecstasy or drink regularly" as long as you can prove that you're not addicted. However, you can't be a conscript if you're a vegan.

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PANOS brands is recalling their Vegan Rella Cheddar blocks with a sell date of 12/09/2008 because they may in fact contain a milk protein not listed on the label. Click here for more info.

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New Brunswick's own Mount Allison University came out on top of PETA2's list of most Vegetarian-Friendly Universities in Canada. Mount A. apparently offers students a fully-vegan dining station with more than 100 vegan dishes from which to choose.

Veganism in the News

The Baltimore City Paper printed an article in its Eats section by a woman called Violet Glaze (I think she usually covers entertainment). She starts off by asserting that she's a vegan, "but not a very good one". She refers to her "ravenous, carnivorous muscles" sending "red alerts" to her subconscious when she purportedly becomes protein deficient (perpetuating the myth that vegans don't get enough protein). She quips that her skimping on seitan leads to dreams of animal flesh, and that although she knows that she can get sufficient protein from vegetable sources, that it's animal flesh her body craves anyway. She presents veganism as a struggle against these sorts of cravings.

She uses this as a diving board to plunge into -- you guessed it -- an argument for the ethical superiority of eating animals grown and slaughtered locally, versus eating plant-based foods that are shipped in from far away. She quotes Barbra Kingsolver, who mused that opting for plant-based foods and meat alternatives from great distances leads us to "overlook the suffering of victims of hurricanes, famines and wars brought on this world by profligate fuel consumption". Therefore, we're left with an either / or situation where you can either eat local animals and their products or be a vegetarian and have your animal-free food shipped in from far away, which apparently leads to great human suffering. The assumption is that all meat and animal products are local and that everything else has to circle the globe to get to us.

Glaze accepts this either / or scenario and refers to the "rug of vegetarian moral superiority" being "yanked out from under" her feet (perpetuating the myth that vegetarians are, by default, smug and holier-than-thou types). So her solution to what she feels is a true ethical dilemma left in her lap by Kingsolver? To eat insects, since (as she puts it) "an insect is practically a plant, right?". In the end, she asserts that her experiment has likely left her a more "dedicated" vegan, but she continues by saying that if she ever sees insects on a menu in the future that although the "saint" in her won't order them, the "omnivore" in her might.

(Photo of the article's author from the Baltimore City Paper)
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In other news: Time magazine recently featured an article in its "10 Questions" series that allowed readers to ask Ingrid Newkirk of PETA some questions. I liked her response about the whole Ben & Jerry's breast milk campaign that left so many people outraged and ranting. Newkirk essentially points out that it was indeed a joke to get people -- as well as the media -- talking about how cow's milk is meant for calves. I didn't quite like how she answered the question concerning how one could fight for animal rights in a world filled with poverty and starvation. She focused on the unhealthiness of meat, when so much more could have been said.

I'm not a huge fan of PETA, but in all, I guess that this bit by her in as mainstream and conservative a publication as Time wasn't all that bad.

Vegan bits in the news

Jane Glen Haas, health columnist for the Orange County Register, has decided to embark up on a 21-day vegan cleanse à la Oprah. She wrote about it yesterday, mentioning Kathy Freston's Quantum Wellness book as her source of inspiration. The article is mostly about her cravings for animals products and her dealing with the gas and bloating she's experiencing 4-5 days into the cleanse. Unfortunately, she presents some misinformation in the column when she defines veganism by stating that a ''vegan, for the uninitiated, eats no meat, dairy or eggs. Also no sugar, gluten, alcoholic beverages or caffeine''. Veganism is about eschewing animal products, which in no way whatsoever automatically rules out sugar, gluten, alcoholic beverages or caffeine. Someone's mentioned this in the reader comments below her column, so hopefully she'll clarify this in a future column. (By the way, her column can be found here).

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PETA's been grossing people out again. They've recently started campaigning to purportedly convince Ben & Jerry's to use human breast milk in their ice cream instead of cow's milk. It obviously isn't going to happen, and PETA is just trying to shock people into thinking about the issue. The thing is that aside from maybe an increased risk in the transmittal of human pathogens, using breast milk would hardly be any more unnatural than using cow's milk. The knee-jerk reactions to the story don't reflect any understanding of this, of course, since in North American culture anyway, we view human breast milk as baby food and cow's milk as human kid / grown-up food. A typical response:

''I understand the health benefits of breast milk...to babies. I understand that a mother's milk is usually the best thing for her NEWBORN to consume.

But...I am FAR from a baby, and even further from being anyone's newborn anything.''

What this particular blog writer for South Carolina's Island Packet doesn't get is that using his own logic, cow's milk -- which is produced for baby cows -- would be even less appropriate for him.

The newspaper's blogger also dismisses the fact that there is any cruelty involved in the dairy industry:

''These people REALLY need to find something better to do with their time...and the donations that they receive. Like...rescuing lab animals. Saving whales. Helping protect the rights of animals...that are being abused! I've worked on dairy farms. And I can tell you, there have often been times when I've envied the life of a cow. How can the milking of a cow be considered abuse? Isn't that what these nut-jobs are all about???''

Someone needs to do some research before making uninformed statements. Dairy cows are probably worse off than most other factory farmed animals.

PETA and KFC-Canada -- Gary L. Francione`s take on it

The PETA / KFC-Canada story has generated a lot of discussion in veg*an circles over the internet this past week. I've gotten involved in a few of them, myself, and have been surprised at how divisive the rights vs. welfarism issue has become. Criticizing /praising PETA has also become a divisive issue within veg circles (which I won't get into today, although I'd like to write about it and about the love / hate veg*ans have for PETA at a later date). Anyway, I just wanted to post this link to my favourite animal rights philosopher, legal scholar Gary L. Francione's take on the whole PETA / KFC-Canada happenings, since I think he makes a really sound case for why it's all just been one big ol' publicity coup for KFC-Canada and why PETA's work here is far from a step forward, but is instead several steps backward for the animals in question.

Update to the KFC Canada / PETA story

WorldPoultry.net, an industry website, has published more details of the KFC Canada / PETA agreement.

- The vegan chicken substitute will only be offered in a little over half of the KFC restaurants in Canada (i.e. those owned by a company called Priszm).
- KFC Canada will merely be "urg[ing] (my emphasis) its suppliers to adopt better practices, including improved lighting, lower stocking density and ammonia levels, and a phase-out of growth-promoting drugs and breeding practices that cripple chickens", so it appears that there'll be no actual requirement for it (or if there will be, nobody's sayin' so).
- No information is provided on solid dates for the phasing in of controlled-atmosphere killed chickens.
- They'll be forming an advisory panel to monitor the changes and suggest further ones, but no information is given on who will be on the panel and how (or if) they'll have any direct sort of impact on real changes.

The list on the WorldPoultry.net website is taken directly from PETA's and there's no information at any of this at all yet on KFC Canada's website.

KFC Canada and PETA come to an agreement

After five years of dealing with PETA's ''Kentucky Fried Cruelty'' campaign, KFC Canada is ''promising improved welfare for the chickens it buys for its fast-food outlets in exchange for an end to a boycott campaign that will continue in the U.S. and elsewhere.''

KFC Canada and PETA have supposedly signed an agreement, by which KFC Canada agrees that it will begin buying from suppliers who gas their chickens to death -- a method deemed less cruel than other popular methods. KFC Canada is also going to lay down animal care guidelines by which its suppliers must abide (e.g. mostly pertaining to limiting crowding in cages and phasing out the use of hormones and drugs). Basically, they're just implementing some small welfarist changes to enhance their image and to get PETA to call of its goons. I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around the concept of PETA-approved animal slaughter.

KFC Canada is also planning to introduce a vegan ''chicken'' subtitute, but I have to wonder about that since it seems that everything at KFC is deep-fried together, isn't it?

DIY meat -- PETA's million dollar in vitro meat challenge

Someone needs to tell William Saletan at Slate that humans are o-m-n-i-v-o-r-e-s. In his article on PETA's million dollar vat-grown meat challenge, he consistently refers to non-vegetarians as ''carnivores''.

I haven't wrapped my head around this whole lab flesh idea -- this in vitro meat. It's come up for discussion (and debate!) over the past few years in many an online vegetarian community, so the theory has been kicked around for a while. I'm obviously all for the idea of getting animals out of slaughterhouses and supermarkets, but the thought of growing animal flesh in a lab just sounds bizarre and gross to me (as I suspect it will sound to many other veg*ans and omnis). I'll have to give it some more thought.