Farmer: It's time to challenge the move to veganism

Consumers are being persuaded that to become vegan is healthier and better for the future of the world.

However, neither of these claims is completely honest. There have always been vegetarians, for many reasons – allergies; an abhorrence of raw meat or, ‘it’s healthier’.

Allergies are unavoidable, though very few people can be allergic to all ‘non-plant based’ food. Abhorrence to raw meat, is triggered by a visual reaction and an unrealistic perception that there’s something wrong with eating it, as is ‘eating baby animals’.

But why? It’s not logical. It was Sir Paul McCartney who famously said that all his animals die a natural death, and that he doesn’t interfere with nature, neither treating them with chemicals or castrating the males, because they have a right to life. That approach is arguably not caring for animals as well as we as humans care for each other with medicines and doctors.

Very few people would leave their much loved pet to die a long slow painful death; they would take it to the vet. Crawl away and die in a ditch is nature’s way.

I’m an omnivore, which of course means I eat both meat and vegetables, so I get my vitamins and minerals from this diet, with added things like vitamin D in the winter and Omega-3. However, when the world became vegetarian, many people failed to have enough of these, so either became ill or started taking lots of additional supplements to ‘supplement’ this lack. Vegans’ diet lacks B12; D3, selenium, and Omega-3. They get some of their needs from microalgae. which is the food of whales, and to get this, fishermen sweep the oceans depriving the whales of their only food source, risking their decline in numbers, thus reducing the carbon capture of 37 billion metric tons of CO2 which is about four times that of the Amazon rainforest in a year. They either don’t know this, or just aren’t telling us – or maybe they don’t care?

The recommended rate of protein per day per adult is 60 grams. To get this as part of a mixed diet, a person could eat a portion of beef, plus two eggs, cheddar cheese and two cups of milk, and still not reach that target without fruit and vegetables. The University of North Dakota estimates that to get 60 grams from a non-meat diet, a person would need two cups of soy milk, a cups of beans, a cup of split peas, half a cup of peanuts, and pumpkin or flax seeds, just to replace the meat protein – and one cup is the equivalent to half a pound – and still not reach that target without fruit and vegetables. That’s a lot of cups of seeds!

Soy is widely promoted as a substitute for animal protein, but apparently it contains oestrogen-like compounds called isoflavines. And some findings suggest that these compounds could promote the “growth of some cancer cells, impair female fertility and mess with thyroid function”.

Oatly adverts have been banned due to misleading environmental claims. They claimed that “dairy and meat emitted more CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) than all the world’s planes, trains, cars, boats etc combined”. Really? Also that 25 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gasses are generated by the food industry, and meat and dairy account for more than half. The World Health Organisation says that 14 per cent of CO2 is produced by meat and dairy, which means that 86 per cent is produced by everything else, including the production of vegan food. These are the two main reasons for the advertising ban.

Of course you can pretty much prove anything with statistics, so to encourage the public to choose veganism, they fall back on the “you can’t tell the difference” or “it tastes just as good”, and in the last months major players in the fast food industry like McDonald’s, KFC and Greggs have jumped aboard, and why? To increase their market share, sell more products and make more money. Never mind whether it’s healthier or not. These fast food companies work with ‘Beyond Meat’ which is an American company which helps them increase their vegan options and promote them here in the UK.

Another trial says ‘Beyond Burgers’ contain water, pea protein, canola oil, refined coconut oil, rice protein, natural flavours, dried yeast, cocoa butter, methylcellulose, and less than one per cent of several flavouring ingredients and vitamins, but beef burgers contain only beef.

Finally, there are no statistics to compare the food miles of beef versus all those non-beef ingredients. Beyond Meat claims that its burgers are healthier than beef burgers because they contain no antibiotics or hormones. That’s because they are American where both of these are allowed in beef production, but are banned in the UK and Europe. Just make sure you don’t buy products from the Americas.

* Rosemary Allen is a retired livestock farmer who lives near Ellesmere in Shropshire