Viva!Life Issue 79 | Spring 2022

Published by Viva!, the vegan campaigning group

Undercover turkey investigation

life Issue 79 Spring 2022

Tranmere Rovers Vegan for the planet

Matt Pritchard

Goodwill an alien concept

Viva!’s TV advert is GO!

Interview with dirty vegan ironman

Hogwood goes global

£160k campaign kicks off

Facts about bird flu

Horror story to be streamed on Netflix

You have been warned

Viva!’s lipsmacking Bake Off

Our staff’s favourite recipes

Meet Chris Packham Eco warrior who’s ‘a bit weird’

Launch of Viva! Farming Helping farmers to grow vegan

E R E’ W B C A K

Celebrate everything vegan

11 – 12 June, 2022 Alexandra Palace London

To book tickets visit

veganlifelive.com

VeGan FOR aLL LiFe Viva!’s fight is a fight for life – for ourselves, animals and the planet.

Humankind’s abuse and exploitation of animals lies at the heart of most of the planet’s accelerating problems. The crushing number of farmed animals slaughtered every year impacts on almost every ecosystem and is the driving force that has propelled planet Earth into its sixth mass extinction.

The tens of billions of victims of this massacre are brushed aside by governments across the world. Viva!, however, is constantly revealing the abject conditions in which they are forced to live by secretly going inside factory farms. They are not only cruel but provide stinking reservoirs of disease where antibiotic resistance flourishes, deadly superbugs mutate and pandemics take root.

Over the years we have captured the headlines with our exposés, triggered the decline of meat, fish, egg and dairy consumption and spurred the vegan revolution forwards.

Viva! is a registered charity (1037486) viva.org.uk

Contents

7 8

ChRiS PaCkhaM Juliet Gellatley interviews a brave eco warrior

10 ChRiStMaS tuRkeyS exPOSed Viva!’s latest undercover investigation

12 takeaway the Meat

On eVeRy FROnt Viva! has four sections which are displayed on our new website, a mass of verifiable information on why veganism is imperative to the future – everyone’s and everything’s future.

Viva! Animals provides fascinating information on all the species exploited for food in the UK and fun facts about their private lives. You can, however, also witness Viva!’s brave undercover investigations that show the shocking reality of the UK’s meat, egg, fish and dairy industries.

Viva! Planet explains why animal farming is the driving force behind all the world’s environmental crises. It also explores the solutions.

Viva! Health is science-based and exposes the links between animal products and ill health; but also why varied vegan diets protect us. It takes you through the A to Z of diseases and the A to Z of nutrients.

Viva! Lifestyle is packed with advice on how to go vegan, plus has over a thousand recipes. Our V7 and V30 programmes make it easy for anyone to go and stay vegan.

hOw tO Get thiS MaGazine Join Viva! for just £17 to get your copy of Viva!life magazine four times a year.

You’ll also receive a supporters’ card – giving you discounts at hundreds of shops and on services and holidays (see myvegantown.org.uk/discounts) – plus a free car sticker. Call 0117 944 1000 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm) or join online at viva.org.uk/join.

life 79

the making of our new tV ad

12

14 BLOSSOMinG BiRd FLu Could this be the next pandemic?

16 Matt PRitChaRd Faye Lewis meets a crazy vegan

18 the GReat ViVa! Bake OFF top-notch nosh from our staff

22 tRanMeRe GO VeGan the Rovers embrace Veganuary

16

24 COnSPiRaCy and it ain’t no theory, says tony wardle

29 i COuLd waLk 1,000 MiLeS 14-year-old walks for Viva!

34 hOGwOOd the MOVie Our horror story on netflix

10

18 5 Lifelines 23 John Robb 27 Lifestyle 31 Merchandise 32 Viva! Poland 36 V-Biz 37 Media Life 39 COP26 40 Books

viva.org.uk 3

Welcome

life

This is the first issue of our now quarterly Viva!life. At the request of many supporters who love the magazine, I really hope you enjoy hearing from us a little more frequently. The lead story is my interview with someone I’ve respected for many years – Chris Packham (page 8). It’s so rare to meet people of public prominence who are not afraid to tell it like it is. His forthright and compelling arguments for a vegan world have attracted death threats from thugs and bullies and while deeply worrying, will not stop him campaigning.

That takes real courage.

Our series of undercover investigations into Britain’s factory farms continue unabated (page 10). This time it’s Christmas turkeys and just like every Juliet with Kissy at Starfield Farm Animal Sanctuary other exposé, it’s a catalogue of pain, suffering, neglect and indifference. For anyone who is not motivated by the acute animal suffering revealed, then I suggest they read page 14, which outlines the growing threat from the bird flu virus, H5N1. Another pandemic in the making? Possibly, but one that could be infinitely more deadly than Covid. It’s why we keep reiterating our campaign cry – End Factory Farming Before it Ends Us. Directly linked to this is our launch of a new aspect of Viva!’s work – Viva! Farming (page 26). There is no longer any argument about the role livestock farming plays in destroying human health, biodiversity and the planet, and we’ve done our best to expose this over the years. If the planet is to survive in a form that we would want, then farmers have to change – there is no alternative. Viva! Farming will help them transition away from damaging animal production and towards sustainable, plant-based systems – an entirely better way of doing things.

One of the most unlikely promoters of veganism is Matt Pritchard (aka Dirty Sanchez).

Macho to the point of disbelief, he is also a caring, concerned animal lover. Faye Lewis interviews him on page 16 and reveals the motivation of this quite extraordinary man.

We had some real fun with our own, in-house Bake Off and Viva! staff rose to the occasion by cooking their favourite recipe, which resulted in some truly gorgeous dishes. The winners’ recipes are there for you to try on page 18, along with some brief details of those who devised them.

Viva! was involved in the very first Veganuary and in the few short years since then it has blossomed into an international phenomenon. This year we worked with Tranmere Rovers football club to get the team to go vegan for the planet – and to encourage their fans to do the same (page 23). Our friends at Forest Green Rovers, under the direction of Viva! patron Dale Vince, were the first all-vegan football club but they’re not going to be the last.

On a disturbing note, on page 24, Tony Wardle gives his own acerbic rundown on how the great environmental jamboree of COP26 has fudged the issues and let us all down. But on a more positive note, I can report that our multi-award-winning documentary, Hogwood: a modern horror story (page 34), will be streamed on Netflix as from April, 2022 and our first vegan TV ad will be aired in February 2022! Thank you for helping make these happen!

Yours for the animals

Juliet Gellatley Founder & Director juliet@viva.org.uk facebook.com/juliet.gellatley

General enquiries Contact Viva! on 0117 944 1000 (Mon-Fri 9-5) email info@viva.org.uk write to Viva! at: 8 York Court, Wilder Street, Bristol BS2 8QH 4

life

Viva! Founder & International Director Juliet Gellatley Executive Assistant Jess Nagji-Nunn Editor Tony Wardle Head of Campaigns Laura-Lisa Hellwig Head of Investigations Lex Rigby Head of Communications Faye Lewis Campaigns & Outreach Alice Short, Dani Lawton, Siobhan Dolan Viva! Health Dr Justine Butler, Veronika Charvátová Office Manager & Supporters’ Liaison Laura Turner, Beata Rzepecka-Wilk, Renata Rzepecka Bookkeeping & Legacies Administrator Carla Sheppard Merchandise, Business & Events Emily Coster, Siobhan Dolan, Charlotte Heath, Lucy Constable Food & Cookery and VRC Maryanne Hall, Pia Werzinger Design The Ethical Graphic Design Company Ltd Web & IT Roger Peñarroya i Zaldívar, Conor Haines, Jeremy Ludlow Podcast Presenters Faye Lewis Editorial enquiries 07956 496923 Advertising enquiries 0117 944 1000 Membership enquiries 0117 944 1000 info@viva.org.uk Online viva.org.uk vivahealth.org.uk veganrecipeclub.org.uk vivavegancharity vivacampaigns vivacharity Viva!, 8 York Court, Wilder Street, Bristol BS2 8QH

vegan is a staTe of kind Kind to you, animals and the planet

lifelines

Amazon – cause not cure decades of contempt for the amazon rainforest by the Brazilian government, with its slash and burn policies, has transformed it into a net producer of C02 rather than a carbon sink. the old characterisation as ‘the lungs of the planet’ has literally gone up in smoke as the forest now contributes a billion tons of C02 annually to global warming.

Luciana Gatti, national institute for Space Research in Brazil, who led the research, said: “Places where deforestation is 30 per cent or more show carbon emissions 10 times higher than where deforestation is lower than 20 per cent. Fewer trees mean less rain and higher temperatures, making the dry season even worse for the remaining forest.” She added: “we have a very negative loop that makes the forest more susceptible to uncontrolled fires.” (Published in the journal Nature)

AND BIDEN ISN’T HELPING a main driver of Brazil’s beef production is the uS hamburger trade but president Joe Biden chooses to ignore it. his answer to the environmental ravages that animal agriculture is causing across the globe is to boost competition in the uS meat industry – and he’s providing $1 billion to fund it. his concern is that a handful of big beef, pork and poultry companies have too much control over the american meat market.

“Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. it’s exploitation,” Biden said. the money will be used to subsidise and expand the independent meat sector with the ultimate aim of bringing down meat prices – and therefore increase sales. despite your environmental rhetoric, you just don’t get it, Joe, do you?

In November, founder and director Juliet Gellatley, and Viva! patron Peter Egan, handed in to 10 Downing Street, Viva!’s End Factory Farming petition with tens of thousands of signatures. Factory farming needs to end to prevent further pandemics, tackle antibiotic resistance, cope with the climate emergency, end world hunger and stop the suffering of millions of animals. THANK YOU to everyone who signed our open letter to Boris Johnson to end factory farming.

Boris, we await your response!

Vegan becomes aspirational there’s an old saying that political awareness always lags behind public awareness. it’s confirmed by a new youGov poll for Veganuary that found 36 per cent of uk adults believe that eating a vegan or plant-based diet is an ‘admirable thing to do’. Change starts with aspiration and government policy is lagging way behind this exploding phenomenon. the poll reveals the extraordinary speed with which people are changing. in 2019, the Vegan Society estimated that just one per cent of people was vegan. this latest poll, just two years later, found that eight per cent of people have now gone plant-based. there are many millions more, of course, who are meat reducers. and it ain’t about to stop!

2 2 0 2 t u O p m Vegan Ca a new venue, an extra day, a bigger line-up of speakers and events and probably a bigger attendance, Vegan Camp Out 2022 will take place at Stanford hall, Leicestershire, from July 15 to 18. Viva! will continue to sponsor this fantastic event and we’ll give you further information closer to the event. tickets now on sale from tkt.to/vco2022.

Photos © @ne3d

viva.org.uk 5

lifelines Major market boost for VBites Viva! patron and founder of VBites, heather Mills, describes her company’s new partnership with Pfeifer & Langen as ‘transformational’. the German company is one of the leading international plant ingredient, ‘farm to fork,’ manufacturers. it has taken a 25.1 per cent minority stake in VBites and its specialisation in procuring and refining raw ingredients for their own intersnack food businesses, gives VBites the security and reassurance of controlling its own supply chain at a time of global ingredient shortages. heather says: “VBites’ output has doubled over the last 12 months and with that growth set to continue we are very pleased to be working with a partner that specialises in large-scale food manufacturing.” it is believed that the initial focus of the partnership will be to accelerate the growth of VBites’ thriving, award-winning plant-based cheeses and fish-free products.

VEGAN CHEF SACKED Daniel Humm (45) is no ordinary chef, he is the culinary equivalent of an Oscar winner. Not only has he been awarded three Michelin stars for his New York restaurant, Eleven Maddison Park (which is entirely plant based) it has also been judged No1 of the world’s top 50 restaurants. He is the god of posh dining.

Humm also runs the Davies and Brook restaurant at the five-star Claridge’s hotel in London’s Mayfair which he also wanted to make plant based. Not on your life, said Claridge’s, and rejected his vision for an all-vegan menu, sacked him and closed the doors to the restaurant rather than go vegan. Despite Daniel Humm’s extraordinary global success, caviar and foie gras won the day. You’ll regret it fellas!

FARROWING CRATE BAN DITCHED despite all their promises to ban farrowing crates (at some distant point in the future) the Government has given way to its friends in the pig industry and ditched the idea.

Producers trotted out all the same old excuses in opposing the ban – crates stop sows rolling on their piglets and enable staff to work around sows at a time when they can be aggressive. Both are phoney as free-range production has proved. national Pig association chief executive, zoe davies, was cocka-hoop with their legislative victory. She said: “we are pleased that the clause has been thrown out and, it was good to hear both sides showing awareness of the potential unwanted consequences of banning farrowing crates.” those consequences were entirely financial: “an immediate ban would trigger a mass exodus from the pig sector.” and that’s a bad thing?

Catholic Concern for Animals presented the 2021 St Francis award to Viva! director Juliet Gellatley on november 6, 2021, at a ceremony at the Rembrandt hotel in kensington, London. it recognises individuals who have dedicated their lives to improving animal welfare and advancing animals’ status in human society

Zero marks for net zero Build Back Greener is the uk Government’s net zero strategy to cut greenhouse gases. it sets out proposals for decarbonising all sectors of the uk economy to meet its net zero target by 2050. there were enough memory lapses about parties in downing Street but they have had another one over this vital strategy. they’ve forgotten all about the need to change our diets to slash the carbon emissions from meat and dairy, which run at 20 per cent of all emissions. if they’d spent as much time and energy on this as they have on promoting electric cars (all transport combined produces about 13.5 per cent of GhG) we would already be much closer to net zero. how bad does it have to get before they finally stand up to the livestock lobby?

6

life

Unilever backs vegan “as one of the largest food manufacturers in the world, we have a responsibility to help shape a global food system that is fair for everyone.” So says a mammoth organisation renowned for snapping up its competitors faster than Pac-Man. unilever’s new Future Foods strategy has set itself a target of €1 billion annual sales for plant-based meat and dairy alternatives within five to seven years. this is astounding. it is also promising to halve food waste from its own factory operations, double the number of products that deliver positive nutrition by 2025 and to lower calories, salt and sugar across all its products. well, well!

TESCO’S TRANSFORMATION as you’re probably aware, Viva! has for years been hammering away at tesco like woody woodpecker on steroids, about the abject cruelty to livestock that it encourages. Could it have finally worked? in a nationwide advertising campaign that includes tV, radio, press and also billboards, Britain’s largest supermarket is effectively promoting plant-based eating. One ad is based around a little girl who doesn’t want to eat animals any more so her dad creates an all-change, vegan sausage casserole. “tastes just as good as before”, says dad.

“Better, actually”, says daughter. tesco also has a burger ad in which a meat burger is swapped for a plant-based one and ends on the sentiment: “a little swap could make a big difference to the planet.” this is to promote tesco’s decision to reduce the prices of their Plant Chef range. the farm owners’ nFu was obviously delighted: “the nFu believes that messaging such as this is demonising meat as a food group, which not only has negative connotations for farmers but also for the avocation (sic) of customers eating a healthy balanced diet.” Oh for gawd’s sake!

Microplastics in meat/dairy new research shows that meat and dairy contain microplastics. the implications for human health are potentially disastrous. Microplastics disrupt our immune system, poison our nerve cells and increase cancer risk. the magnitude of this discovery (only just found as no one previously looked for it) can’t be overstated.

Viva! intends to enquire more deeply into this troubling discovery and we will provide an analysis of its potential impact and what to do about it in the next issue of Viva!life.

Viva!’s shorts

l The ITALIAN SENATE has voted to permanently shut down the country’s 10 remaining fur farms and ban fur farming entirely, making this home of fashion the sixteenth country in Europe to ban fur farming. l Co-leaders of the GREEN PARTY – Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer – are both vegan.

Adrian is from Norwich while Carla is a Bristol councillor and will be standing for parliament at the next election in the Bristol West constituency. l Owners of FLORA, the Upfield company, has announced that all 15 of its spread brands will be fully plant-based by 2025. They include ProActiv, Becel, Elmlea, Bertolli and Violife as well as Flora – and plantbased Flora Buttery is to return only months after being withdrawn. l Viva! recently helped with an objection to a factory farm PLANNING APPLICATION that would have had 192,000 egg-layers in three sheds. The application was denied. l With government support, the UK FARMING INDUSTRY has tried its hardest to argue down the contribution made by livestock to greenhouse gases – currently claiming they’re six per cent.

Extrapolating from the latest research in science journal, Nature, the true figure is closer to 20 per cent.

Forest Green Rovers, once little more than a village football team, look almost certain to be promoted to the Fa division one at the end of the season. this picture shows Viva!’s message to supporters of this all-vegan club, owned by dale Vince, CeO of ecotricty and Viva! patron. viva.org.uk 7

Chris Packham

…teller of uncomfortable truths

O

INTERVIEW BY JULIET GELLATLEY

n the BBC’s Springwatch (and other seasonal ‘Watch’ programmes) Chris Packham comes across as the ultimate scientist, concerned mainly with facts. The emotional input is largely left to co-presenter Michaela Strachan but don’t be fooled – passion and commitment ooze out of his every pore and, boy, has he paid a price for it!

He has condemned the whole concept of culling (killing) badgers and has consistently opposed the ‘barbaric’ practice of fox hunting. As a result, the Countryside Alliance has tried its hardest to get the BBC to sack him; dead animals have been left outside his isolated house in the New Forest; an arson attack was carried out by two masked men who blew up a Land Rover at his front gates, destroying them; and he is constantly trolled on social media, including numerous death threats. Considering all that’s happened, he takes these threats very seriously but insists it won’t stop his campaigning for animals. That takes some guts!

The list of Chris Packham’s interests and achievements

8

life

is staggering. Although he’s best known as a naturalist and TV wildlife presenter, that doesn’t even scratch the surface. He started his working life as a wildlife film camera assistant and since then the number of nature programmes he has fronted or made through his own production company, is vast. He has written numerous books and papers and is an accomplished photographer.

Awards have come thick and fast and he has still found time to support numerous charities, including being an Ambassador for the National Autistic Society. Chris is on the autistic ‘spectrum’, having Asperger’s Syndrome – a diagnosis that didn’t come until he was in his forties.

In his TV programme Chris Packham: Asperger’s and me, he is brutally honest about its impact on him. He struggles in social situations, has difficulty with human relationships and is, by his own admission, ‘a little bit weird’. Chris experiences the world in a very different way to others, with heightened senses that at times are overwhelming and a mind that is constantly bouncing from one subject to another. He is also very precise in what he says – there’s no padding or waffle just clear and unambiguous communication.

It was typified by his response when I asked him why scientists weren’t being more outspoken about the fact that we are in history’s sixth mass extinction and that livestock are the primary driver – and I quoted studies that confirmed this. Chris replied: “I think it’s really important that we’re precise with words. It’s common parlance to say that we’re in a sixth mass extinction but I prefer a sixth mass extermination because it’s us who are exterminating the rest of the world’s biodiversity and ultimately, if we continue to do so, ourselves in the process. It’s not an accidental thing; it’s not that we’re losing them, we’re destroying them.

We’re either actively killing them or we’re taking away their habitat.

“I fear that the single biggest problem we face is that the human species is remarkably intelligent but can’t change its mind very easily. All the facts and figures can be put on the table but if you push them too hard, people can become quite intransigent. We’re living in exceptional times and, globally, we have a very unexceptional group of leaders.”

I was interviewing Chris Packham at the 2021 Vegan Camp Out that Viva! sponsors and his presence there was a magnificent testimony to how its status has blossomed over just a few years. Chris confirmed that as he continued his line of thought.

“I don’t think they’re going to fix it – we will have to push them to fix it and that’s why Vegan Camp Out is so important. It is a collective of people who’ve summoned the courage and integrity to change their minds and that fortitude is something we need to celebrate. It proves that there is hope for us to make a difference.”

I don’t easily set people on pedestals, do hero worship or readily genuflect but Chris Packham has been way up there in my esteem for almost as long as I can remember. Although his face is so familiar and I feel I know him, I’ve only met him once previously – at the launch of his company, Wild Justice, which takes legal cases and advocates for a better deal for UK wildlife. I had no time then to pose the questions I wanted to. One was my speculation as to whether people have grown so used to being shat upon that they’ve developed a lack of respect for authority.

“I think you’re right, people are disenfranchised, they’re disempowered. They’re disconnected from the idea that their voice will ever matter and that’s why we face what seems to be pervasive apathy. But what we have to remember is that we don’t need everyone to change their minds – science tells us that we need just 25 per cent of people to change their thinking about something and then it cascades quickly. By the time you get to about 27 per cent, you’re on a roll, and in a very short space of time, the entire population will change.”

Wow! When I consider how the vegan revolution has exploded in the last couple of years I’m overjoyed.

Suddenly it puts into perspective the millions of leaflets Viva! has distributed, the thousands of talks we’ve given and the acres of newsprint that’s been devoted to our exposés. Are we now on the brink of something amazing? People are starting to change their shopping habits so it seems we do have power in terms of choosing what we buy. Chris agreed.

“What we put in our mouths has been produced either directly or indirectly by ecosystems servicing earth – it’s either been farmed or it’s been harvested and hasn’t magically appeared from outer space. It’s our closest connection with the natural world and it happens every day. But we’re bedevilled by food labelling. We see

pictures on cigarettes of what long-term smokers’ lungs look like and I want to see pictures on packaging of what meat does to us and the conditions in which those animals have had to live.”

He has a point – why isn’t there labelling on bacon to say that it’s a class one carcinogen? And of course over 80 per cent of all meat comes from factory farming. Was it this, I wondered, that made Chris originally go vegetarian.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 41

Science tells us that we need just 25 per cent of people to change their thinking about something and then it cascades quickly

viva.org.uk 9

CHRISTMAS TURKEYS

Our latest investigation shows there is still little goodwill towards them

I

BY LEX RIGBY, HEAD OF INVESTIGATIONS

n the early 2000s, Viva! carried out undercover investigations of Bernard Matthews turkey farms for three consecutive years. One of these exposés received extraordinary coverage, with GMTV accompanying us into the sheds and reporting live from the site on its networked show. It revealed abject animal cruelty being carried out by one of Britain’s major household names, and garnered national condemnation.

It’s almost 20 years since that watershed moment and our latest investigation into British turkey farms indicates that little has changed. In the run-up to Christmas, our team of investigators secured damning new footage from inside a deeply overcrowded Lincolnshire turkey farm being operated by poultry giant, Hook2Sisters – owned

by Ranjit Singh Boparan, who bought out the struggling Bernard Matthews in 2016.

The evidence once again brought to light the disturbing reality of factory farming – in which thousands of birds were found tightly packed into industrial-sized sheds, robbing them of any freedom to express their natural behaviours. Every day of their lives is automated by mechanical feeders and heating and lighting systems that control their habits and encourage them to rapidly gain weight.

Due to selective breeding that again prioritises growth, factory farmed turkeys often suffer from agonising leg disorders, joint degeneration and heart disease. They’re crowded together inside barren sheds in their thousands, in much the same way as broiler chickens, on waste-sodden litter with little or no

10

life

environmental enrichment worth its name. Frustrated by these harsh living conditions, many develop aberrant behavior such as injurious pecking and cannibalism, despite the low lighting that is supposed to curb aggression.

During my time at Viva!, I’ve been through countless hours of such investigation footage, written up pages and pages of findings, reported regulatory violations to authorities, compiled material for public release and participated in a range of outreach activities to help people choose compassion instead. But with every investigation comes yet more heartbreak and the number of turkeys killed each year remains static at around 14 to 15 million.

A wild turkey’s natural lifespan ranges between three to five years, and the oldest known wild turkey lived to be at least 13 years old. In stark contrast, those bred on factory farms are killed anywhere between 12 and 24 weeks old – all for the sake of a Christmas ‘tradition’ dating back a mere 70 years. There’s a big part of me that fails to remain hopeful when looking at all these facts and, in many ways, I hate the festive season because of it.

Turkeys truly are wonderful animals; affectionate and playful as well as chatty – with over 30 distinct vocalisations. Their calls have different functions, for example keeping the flock together, telling other turkeys about especially good food and warning of danger.

Despite having no ears, they do have a keen sense of hearing and with a 300-degree field of full-colour vision, they can see movement almost a hundred metres away!

I’m lucky enough to have spent quite a bit of time with

“The total disregard for animal health and welfare witnessed on this farm is utterly depressing and I was appalled to see dead birds left rotting on the floor. These animals aren’t living, they’re just existing to be exploited.”

Veterinary expert, Dr Marc Abraham OBE, BVM&S, MRCVS

rescued turkeys at various animal sanctuaries across the UK and that helps to counter so much of the misery I see in our investigations. Harriet, one of the turkeys at Dean Farm Animal Sanctuary in Chepstow, adores a cuddle and even purrs as you stroke her iridescent feathers.

Observing the unique personalities of rescued turkeys, like Harriet, living out their lives free from harm is what drives me to continue this difficult work.

As a direct result of our frequent exposés that lift the lid off the secretive world of animal agriculture, veganism is rapidly on the rise – and that’s the bigger picture I try to focus on. No longer a fringe movement, it’s getting easier and easier to support people in making the switch to a plant-based diet and getting them active in the fight for animal rights.

Our supermarkets were flooded with cruelty-free alternatives last year and the plethora of product launches in-line with Veganuary is truly motivating as we start the year with a bang. With a drop of 17 per cent in UK meat consumption in the decade to 2019, the tide has started to turn and we will End Factory Farming Before It Ends Us.

to find out more about our 2021 turkey investigation and watch the video please visit viva.org.uk/investigationturkeys. Our Christmas turkey video can be seen at viva.org.uk/xmas

viva.org.uk 11

Lights, camera and now

BY LAURA-LISA HELLWIG

ACTION!

you’ve smashed it! Our tV ad will reach over 16 million people starting on Valentine’s day Above: Marcus Smith and Antonia Whillans, with Rufus, as the couple ordering a take-away.

B

rilliant, brilliant, brilliant – we asked you to fund our massive Takeaway the Meat TV advertising campaign and you did it! First we asked you to fund the making of the ad and you found the £30,000 necessary. Then we asked you to fund the £40,000 transmission costs and you did that, too. The appeal has closed at £41,239.72.

Left: Viva! director Juliet Gellatley keeps a watching brief. Below: delivery man Ross Coles, Antonia, Juliet and Marcus

12

life

But that’s not the end of it! A very generous donor has matched the £40,000 figure, increasing it to £80,00.

And through a special Channel 4 TV grant, that figure has been doubled again to £160,000. This is a very serious advertising budget that will ensure innumerable transmissions over a considerable timescale, on all of Channel 4’s associated networks, reaching 16 million people. Your incredible generosity has helped to produce a truly ground-breaking moment for veganism. Thank you so much!

We had previously worked with the highly-talented, Bristol-based, Skylark Media agency and were very impressed with their creativity. They came up with the goods again – their initial treatment immediately winning us over.

The advert follows an everyday, meat-eating couple as they decide which takeaway meal to order. Snuggled up on their sofa, with their beloved dog, they choose pulled pork from the food delivery app, ‘Just Meat’. When the doorbell ‘dings’, they open it to find a delivery driver there with an adorable little piglet. He hands them a glinting butcher’s knife, announcing: “Just Meat, delivered fresh to your door.” The couple are gobsmacked – surely, they won’t kill the cute little piggy?

Their gorgeous dog has the final word.

Our advert encourages people to make the connection between the companion animals they adore and the ones destined for their dinner table. To work, it had to be creatively imaginative and highly professional. When you’re demanding perfection, shooting a 30-second TV ad is pretty challenging – but it is also very exciting.

Script readings, changes and rewrites to ensure a powerful message; auditioning and casting actors, scouting locations and finding just the right animals.

And finally the filming – 12 hours, 15 people, two pigs and one dog?! Action… stop… more make-up…

Action… no, the cushion is in the wrong position… wait

the plant is in the way of the actor’s face… ACTION. It was a long but very successful day and by 1am we knew we had all the shots we needed in the can.

Everyone’s favourite stars were Rufus, the most laidback dog in the world, Sophie (piggy number one) and Clara (piggy number two). They do say never work with children or animals but we were clear that if we wanted to juxtapose people’s very different (hypocrtitical?) approaches to animals then we knew we had to use real animals. Rufus the dog was an absolute star – big and very handsome, with his proud daddy and mummy (human ones, that is) on set for the whole shoot, ready with frequent breaks, treats, walks and naps.

Actors Antonia and Marcus quickly became Rufus’s new besties and without bidding, he happily jumped onto the sofa with them for the first scene. Rufus is a big boy and the main problem was that he completely obscured them – solved with a few more treats. To shorten his time on set, all his scenes were shot first.

Then there were the piggies – the highlight of the day.

Sophie and Clara are companion animal pigs and live with other pigs, running around fields and rooting.

Their human even has cameras installed in each of the paddocks to keep a constant check on them. They are almost identical and took turns on set to reduce their ‘acting’ time but they were very close to each other throughout, with one always just out of shot.

The main problem was that neither wanted to look up at the camera for that oh-so-appealing, million dollar shot. But when you need an animal whisperer, who better than our own Viva! director, Juliet Gellatley.

Down on her hands and knees, a supply of carrots and apples to hand, she proved irresistible and it was Sophie who finally looked up into the lens and … CUT. And off they went back home to play in the mud!

Actress Antonia Whillans, who plays the girlfriend, is

vegan herself and told us that on the same day she saw Viva!’s announcement of the production, she received the invitation to audition: “When I got offered the job, I actually cried. I’ve supported Viva! for many years.”

Nina Postans, Skylark Media’s Marketing Manager, also vegan, one of the many passionate and talented people who worked on our ad, said: “The Skylark team wanted to reflect the passion behind the Viva! brand. As a vegan, it’s especially rewarding to work with the brilliant Viva! team on a project that amplifies a message that I feel passionate about. We need to connect the dots between pets and farmed animals and hope that this TV ad does it.”

At the end of the ad listen out for the voice of our patron, Peter Egan. Thank you Peter!

Above left: Antonia chats to Sophie and Clara (or is it Clara and Sophie?).

Above right: Marcus relaxes with Rufus between shots

Our advert could not come at a more pivotal time in our fight to end animal farming What a way to start 2022! Our advert could not come at a more pivotal time in our fight to end animal farming. In addition to it impacting almost every environmental tragedy, the recent IPCC’s climate science report reveals that human activity is “unequivocally” the cause of the climate catastrophe and we are on ‘red alert’. Again livestock are involved, being the second largest source of greenhouse gases.

Viva! is constantly thinking of new ways to change people’s eating habits and we believe that this TV advert will do just that – on a national scale. And for enabling us to do that, you have our sincere and grateful thanks.

viva.org.uk 13

I

NEW PANDEMIC just three steps away

Other pandemics are waiting in the wings, says Viva!’s dr Justine Butler

n January this year, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) confirmed avian influenza (bird flu) had infected a man in South West England. It is assumed he caught the virus from ducks he kept around the home which had become infected.

Professor Isabel Oliver, Chief Scientific Officer at UKHSA, said: “Currently there is no evidence that this strain detected in the UK can spread from person to person but we know that viruses evolve all the time and we continue to monitor the situation closely.”

Avian influenza is a type of flu that normally spreads among birds but can infect humans. The H5N1 strain spreading globally is a particular concern as it is very contagious among wild birds as well as farmed birds such as chickens, ducks and turkeys. It has caused the deaths of tens of millions of birds and led to the culling of hundreds of millions of others in an effort to slow its spread.

14

life

Over the winter 2021-2022, the UK experienced its largest-ever outbreak of bird flu, with H5N1 cases in captive birds being reported almost daily. Cases began from late October and in November, Avian Influenza Prevention Zones (AIPZs) and strict biosecurity measures were enforced across Great Britain. Later that month, it became a legal requirement for all birds, including free range and small backyard flocks, to be housed indoors – lockdown! But it didn’t work and the disease continued to spread, with over 80 premises, mainly commercial poultry farms, affected. In Lincolnshire, where there is a high density of poultry farms, about one million birds have been culled to try and limit the spread of disease.

Although it mainly infects birds, H5N1 can infect many species, including humans, when case fatality rates can be high. Since 2003, there have been 863 cases of H5N1 in people reported from 18 countries, according

Fast growth, low immunity, no natural light, overcrowded, filthy and stressful – the perfect breeding ground for disease and it applies to most UK farmed animals.

Virus and bacteria heaven!

Running alongside the global increase in demand for meat, fish, eggs and dairy is an unprecedented increase in infectious diseases. Scientists have long been warning that factory farms could spur the next pandemic – after all, they’ve already given us BSE, bovine TB, avian influenza (bird flu), swine flu, Campylobacter, Salmonella and antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

A bird or swine flu virus might be the

EW

Factory Farms – a breeding ground for disease

N

NEW VIVA! REPORT

trigger; it may be an antibiotic-resistant superbug or maybe something brand new – no one knows for sure. But it will happen!

Scientists can’t say where, and from which animal, the next pandemic will emerge but they’re sure it will happen.

This report explains why it is vital to end the abuse of animals and move towards a plant-based food system. It’s a case of ending factory farming before it ends us!

Factory Farms – a breeding ground for disease, the pandemic threat of animal agriculture. Order yours for £5 from vivashop.org.uk/factory-farm-report or call 0117 944 1000 (Mon-Fri, 9-5)

to the World Health Organisation. Of these, 456 were fatal, that’s 53 per cent. Seasonal flu kills around 0.1 per cent of those infected.

Most human H5N1 cases resulted from people handling, slaughtering or eating infected poultry, with just a handful of person-to-person infections among families caring for sick relatives. The reason H5N1 doesn’t spread easily between people is because it has not acquired the ability to be transmitted in respiratory droplets like seasonal flu or Covid-19. Scientists warn that it may only take a few mutations for the H5N1 to attain airborne transmission – and viruses are mutating constantly. We’ve seen how this can happen; the Omicron variant of SARSCoV-2, for example, is much more transmissible than the Delta variant. Flu viruses constantly change, which is why new flu vaccines are developed every year.

The viruses that have caused human flu pandemics over the last 100 years, including the devastating 1918 Spanish flu, originated from avian influenza viruses. So how close is H5N1 to becoming a pandemic threat? One study suggests that it might take only five mutations for it to become airborne and then be able to spread via tiny droplets in a cough or sneeze. Another, looking at surveillance data, found that two of these five mutations have already taken place and are now common in H5N1 viruses in nature. So, we may be only three mutations away from a serious and potentially highly-deadly pandemic threat.

Senior public health expert at the World Health Organisation, David Nabarro, warned that should it mutate and become more transmissible, a pandemic caused by H5N1 could result in the deaths of anywhere between five and 150 million people. It’s hard to imagine such devastation. Writing in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, scientists said: “If this virus acquires human-to-human transmissibility with its present fatality rate of 50 per cent, the resulting pandemic would be akin to a global tsunami. If it killed those infected at even a fraction of this rate, the results would be catastrophic.”

The poultry industry likes to blame the spread of bird flu on migratory birds. Whilst wild birds undoubtedly contribute to the local spread of the virus in the wild, the industry forgets to say that birds have lived with this virus for millennia when it was almost entirely benign.

Something has changed it and made it far more deadly and that is almost certainly human interference.

Commercial activities, particularly those associated with the Petri dish of intensive poultry production, are the major factors responsible for the global spread of bird flu. It is transmitted from bird to bird by direct contact or through contaminated body fluids, faeces and feathers but can also be spread by contaminated feed and water or by farming equipment, vehicles, clothing and footwear. The steady rise in cases begs the question – are poultry farmers taking the government guidelines as seriously as they should be? It would seem not!

Chickens are raised in closed, filthy, stressful and crowded industrial facilities with little or no natural light Juliet Gellatley, founder and director of Viva! says: “It is trading live animals in markets that caused bird flu to mutate from originally harmless forms in wild birds to deadlier versions. And now factory farms provide an ideal breeding ground for a future pandemic.

Viva! have been into these hellholes and exposed the horrific conditions birds are forced to endure during their short lives. Over one billion chickens are slaughtered for their meat in the UK every year and around 95 per cent are intensively reared on factory farms.

“There are 24 billion chickens in the world at any one time – more than three birds for every single person on the planet. Whichever way you look at it, domesticated poultry are massively over-represented among the world’s bird population.”

Intensive poultry production provides an ideal breeding ground for mutating viruses. Chickens are raised in closed, filthy, stressful and crowded industrial facilities with little or no natural light – important as UV light harms viruses. We are literally handing viruses the perfect opportunity to mutate into more deadly forms – a perfect storm of our own making. The solution is simple – remove the viral reservoir and end factory farming before it ends us!

viva.org.uk 15

FROM WILD MAN TO VEGAN IRONMAN

M

BY FAYE LEWIS, HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS

att Pritchard shot to fame as a professional skateboarder and stuntman for MTV’s hugely successful programme Dirty Sanchez, before reinventing himself as a celebrity chef. In 2019, the 48year-old hosted the very first vegan cookery TV show, Dirty Vegan, on BBC. He’s also released two vegan cookbooks – Dirty Vegan and Dirty Vegan: Another Bite. But now he’s changed again and being an ultra-fit Ironman is his main preoccupation.

In his twenties, Matt Pritchard was referred to as a ‘wild man’ – and oh how accurate that was. As cocreator and co-star of MTV’s Dirty Sanchez, he was basically paid to do stupid and highly dangerous stunts – usually while drunk and/or high. He was whipped with barbed wire, voluntarily bitten by attack dogs and shot with a shotgun. Yes, really!

Matt pushed his body beyond all comprehensible human limitations.

“It was a different level of crazy,” he laughs, from his home in Cardiff when we catch up via Zoom. “At the time, I didn’t think about the injuries. I had a one-track mind and just thought – where’s the next party? Where’s the next buzz?”

16

life

It was 2001 when Matt began filming the first series of Dirty Sanchez, which quickly snowballed to become MTV’s highest rating show – making overnight stars of Matt and his friends Dan Joyce, Lee Dainton and Mike Locke. Series two and three quickly followed and there was even Dirty Sanchez: The Movie and Balls of Steel for Channel 4 TV. “You don’t give a shit. Everything is exciting because you’re young and loving it. We totally beat the system,” Matt recalls. “We got paid to have a laugh, get drunk and do what we wanted and we didn’t think about the downside.”

Off the back of this, Matt became a global celebrity and with it, of course, enjoyed all the hedonistic trappings of the cliché rock’n’roll lifestyle.

“I’d experienced a bit of fame as a professional skateboarder but it was nothing compared to Dirty Sanchez.

That was a completely different beast.

It came along and was the craziest, best of times. But it takes its toll.

You get to the other side and think ‘wow’,” he shakes his head, soberly.

With the highs came the inevitable lows and a downward spiral that nearly ended his career –

and his life. The turning point came when he looked in the mirror and didn’t recognise the man staring back at him.

“I addressed it by saying I am going to do a halfmarathon, because that is what I did as a 15-year-old and I knew the training would make me start looking after myself again – and it did. It took me back to square one and, slowly but surely, I really fell in love with fitness.”

This was in 2007 and from that point, Matt set his sights on becoming an ultra-endurance athlete – albeit one who once ran a marathon in a mankini!

“I am one of those people constantly looking for the next buzz. I have an addictive personality and if I like something, I dive in head first,” he laughs.

Following on from the success of his half-marathon, Matt worked his way through marathons, ultramarathons and triathlons, progressing to triple-Ironman events – 54 hours of continuous, intense exercise!

While the rest of us binged on Netflix during lockdown, Matt and a four-man crew rowed across the Atlantic Ocean to raise awareness about mental illhealth and funds for our dear friends at Dean Farm sanctuary – in case you weren’t already feeling sedentary enough!

Talking to Matt, you quickly realise that his determination to persevere is hardwired within.

“You have to want to do it,” he says. “If you have that attitude then you can do anything. But if you can’t be arsed, you only do a half-arsed job. I just love that there’s a competition between my mind and body and I am too stubborn to give up,” he laughs.

The conversation turns to food and ultimately his journey to veganism. It was in 2015, after watching the award-winning documentary Cowspiracy that the turning point came.

“I was pescatarian, but looking into veganism, because there are a lot of vegan endurance athletes and I wanted to know why.

But then I saw Cowspiracy and realised there was so much more to it than not eating dairy and meat. That was it for me.

“Life really did begin at 40. I started waking up to the lies we’ve all been told,” he says. “For example, that milk is good for us. Milk is for baby calves, not humans. I had a debate with a farmer’s daughter and I asked her outright: ‘What is cow’s milk for?’ She said ‘humans’, and was adamant. It was infuriating. I know it’s her livelihood but she can’t be that daft!”

In 2017, Matt launched a YouTube-based cookery series called Proper Vegan Cookin’, before hosting the BBC’s first vegan cookery show, Dirty Vegan. His two cookbooks followed.

“I’ve always loved cooking and find it therapeutic.

Even with a hangover, I’d much rather cook in a kitchen than order a takeaway. My cooking isn’t Michelin Star but it’s honest, simple, home-cooked food – one-pot stuff like curries.”

Being a bit of a party animal, what was the reaction from his friends and family when he first went vegan?

“Your mates always take the piss out of you. They seem to think that vegans dress like hippies and smell of patchouli oil!” he laughs.

“When you tell everyone you’re vegan, you get a lot of abuse online,” he shrugs. “Lots of people said don’t do it because you won’t get enough protein. I wanted to prove them wrong, to show that being vegan and competing is better for me – and I’ve done that countless times. People see me rowing across the Atlantic and competing in Ironman events and think, ‘If he can do it, so can I!’” Matt’s redemption is one of positivity, hard work and determination. But what of the future?

“Everything I’ve done, I’ve enjoyed and wanted to do it – but there is still a lot more for me to achieve! I have lots of events planned, which means I have to do all the lead up work that goes into them. That’s what I enjoy doing – pushing myself keeps me mentally focused, fit, and healthy.”

viva.org.uk 17

, s

Great Vegan

Bake Off!

Channel Four can’t have it all its own way! we have had our own Bake Off. Viva! staff conjured up an impressive array of cakes, breads and treats to compete for the Viva!’s Great Vegan Bake Off winner title! we’re delighted to share some of the favourite recipes from our VGVBO, including winner Conor’s delectable focaccia recipe; alice’s super easy chocolate Oreo torte; Charlotte’s Biscoff cheesecake; and Jess’s lemon meringue tartlets – all perfect for easter and Mother’s day!

ALICE SHORT i’m one of Viva!’s campaigners and love showing the public how easy it is to go vegan. i’ve seen first-hand at Viva!’s street actions how great vegan food has the power to change hearts and minds – inspiring me to keep on making delicious treats! this decadent torte was the first dessert i made as a vegan and it continues to be a staple of mine. a super simple recipe that’s a crowd-pleaser for both vegans and non-vegans!

Super Easy Chocolate Oreo Torte PREP TIME 15 MINUTES (PLUS 30 MINUTES FOR BASE CHILLING) CHILL TIME 4 HOURS (OR OVERNIGHT) TOTAL TIME 4 HOURS 45 MINUTES SERVINGS 16-18

Oreo Base l 30 Oreo biscuits l 85g vegan butter/spread, melted

Ganache filling l 170g vegan dark chocolate (plus a little extra for topping) l 170g vegan milk chocolate l 250ml vegan double cream (eg Elmlea) l 55g vegan butter/spread

1 Pulse Oreo biscuits in a food processor until finely ground or place in a bag and crush with a rolling pin.

2 transfer crumbs to a medium bowl, add melted butter, mix thoroughly until combined and moist.

3 Press mixture onto the bottom of a 9-inch (23cm) round cake tin – preferably with detachable base.

4 Place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

5 whilst chilling, make the filling. in a medium heatproof bowl, place chopped dark and milk chocolate and set aside.

6 in a small saucepan, heat cream and vegan butter to a low boil.

7 Remove from heat and pour over the chocolate. allow to stand for one minute then stir the mixture until melted, combined and smooth.

8 Pour filling mixture over chilled Oreo base and refrigerate until set – minimum four hours.

9 Grate remaining chocolate over the top of finished torte for decoration.

18

life

WINNER!

CONOR HAINES i’ve been Viva!’s web content editor since 2019. Bread being my favourite food, baking this focaccia (several times) was a no-brainer!

Focaccia PREP TIME 2 HOURS 30 MINUTES (INCLUDING PROVING) COOK TIME 25 MINUTES TOTAL TIME 2 HOURS 55 MINUTES SERVINGS 12-16

l 500g strong bread flour l 7g dried fast action yeast l 2 tsp fine sea salt l 5 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for the tin and to serve l 1 tsp flaky sea salt

l 100g black olives (halved) l 6-8 sundried tomatoes (halved or quartered) l Small bunch of rosemary sprigs l Italian herbs (optional)

1 tip the flour into a mixing bowl. Mix yeast into one side of the flour and the fine salt into the other side. then mix everything together (this initial separation prevents the salt from killing the yeast).

2 Make a well in the middle of the flour, add 2 tablespoons oil and 350400ml lukewarm water, gradually, to form a slightly sticky dough (you may not need all the water).

3 tip dough onto a floured surface, including bits left in the bowl. knead for 5-10 minutes until soft and less sticky. you can keep mixture in the bowl and knead with a wooden spoon, folding over and pressing to get desired consistency. Place dough into a clean bowl, cover with tea towel and leave to prove for 1 hour, until doubled in size.

4 Oil a rectangular, shallow tin (25 x 35cm). Place dough into tin and stretch to fill. Cover with a tea towel – prove for another 35-45 minutes.

5 heat oven to 200°C (fan)/390°F/Gas Mark 7. Make dimples by pressing finger into dough until you touch the bottom of the tin. Mix together 1½ tablespoons olive oil, 1 tablespoon water and flaky salt and drizzle over dough. Push the olives, sundried tomatoes and sprigs of rosemary into the dimples.

6 Bake for 20-30 minutes until golden. whilst bread is still hot, drizzle over 1-2 tablespoons olive oil. Cut into squares and serve warm or cold with extra olive oil.

OPTIONAL l Sprinkle Italian herbs over the dough in Step 5. l Top with additional flaked or pink salt when out of the oven and oil has been drizzled over.

NOTES when removing bread from oven, cut a little off the end. if still doughy, put it back in the oven and cook until done.

viva.org.uk 19

CHARLOTTE HEATH i’m Charlotte, the Merchandise and Office administrator at Viva!. you’ll find me taking care of online shop admin, packing orders and looking after our wonderful animal adoption scheme. i chose to make this Biscoff cheesecake for our Bake Off as it’s delicious, indulgent and super easy to make – even i can do it!

Biscoff Cheesecake PREP TIME 25 MINUTES SETTING TIME OVERNIGHT SERVINGS 8-10

Biscoff Base l 170g Lotus Biscoff Original biscuits l 2 tbsp vegan butter or spread Filling l 400g plain vegan cream cheese (I used Violife) l 200g Lotus Biscoff Spread (smooth) l 2 tbsp granulated sugar Topping l 10g Lotus Biscoff Spread (smooth) l 80g Lotus Biscoff Original biscuits Base 1 Crush Lotus Biscoff in a mixing bowl until like breadcrumbs (food processor or rolling pin).

2 Melt dairy-free spread and combine with crumbs.

3 transfer mixture into a loose-bottomed cake tin and press down with back of a spoon to make an even/solid layer.

Filling 1 Mix Violife cream cheese, Biscoff spread and sugar together in a large mixing bowl (by hand or with a blender).

2 Spoon mixture over biscuit base and smooth with back of a spoon.

3 Chill in fridge overnight.

To decorate 1 Remove from fridge, melt Biscoff spread in microwave for 20 seconds on 900w/until runny and spread over.

2 with a spoon, decorate top eg by creating fine lines using the melted spread.

3 Break remaining biscuits in half and push gently into the outside of the cheesecake.

20

life

JESS NAGJI-NUNN i’m Juliet’s executive assistant and started working at Viva! in 2019. My role encompasses a wide range of tasks from proofreading leaflets, hR, arranging events and assisting with Viva!life magazine – to dressing in a cow costume in the name of outreach! the variety is one of the things i love most about the job. i was inspired to make lemon meringue pies because it’s something i’ve really missed since going vegan and a vegan version isn’t readily available from shops or even restaurants, yet!

Lemon Meringue Tartlets PREP TIME 15MINS + 10MINS + 10MINS = 30 MINUTES TOTAL COOK TIME 20MINS + 20MINS + 40MINS = 1 HOUR 20 MINUTES TOTAL TOTAL TIME 1 HOUR 50 MINUTES SERVINGS 9 TARTLETS

Crust l 120g vegan butter, at room temperature l 40g icing sugar l 150g plain flour Filling l 120g silken tofu l 225g granulated sugar l Zest from 2 lemons

l 80ml fresh lemon juice (2 to 3 lemons) l 2 tbsp plain flour l 1 tbsp cornflour Meringue l 300ml aquafaba l 110g caster sugar l ¼ tsp cream of tartar l ½ tsp vanilla essence

Crust 1 Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.

2 Grease 9 individual tartlet cases (i used silicone ones) with vegetable oil (or spray), sprinkle with light dusting of plain flour. Set aside.

3 using stand mixer or electric hand mixer, cream the ‘butter’ and icing sugar until light and fluffy. add flour and beat until dough comes together.

4 Press into bottom and sides of prepared cases to form pie crusts, cover with baking paper and bake for 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and leave to cool while you make the filling (do not remove from the cases yet).

Filling 1 in a blender or food processor, blend tofu until creamy. add granulated sugar and blend again. add lemon zest, lemon juice, flour and cornflour and blend again until combined.

2 Pour filling into the baked pie crusts (pretty much to the top) and bake for 20 minutes or until set. Remove from oven and set aside to cool (don’t remove from the cases yet).

Meringue 1 Preheat the oven to around 80°C(fan)/175°F. 2 heat the aquafaba on hob until reduced by half (to 150ml) and leave to cool.

3 Once cooled, add ¼ tsp cream of tartar, ½ tsp vanilla essence and whisk until it forms stiff peaks with glossy sheen (about 10-15 minutes with electric whisk).

4 Pipe meringue mixture onto cooled lemon pie bases as though a cupcake.

5 Place back in oven and bake for about 40 minutes.

6 Remove from oven, blowtorch meringue tops but don’t scorch them – gently brown the edges.

viva.org.uk 21

S R E V O R E R E M N A TR m up with Viva! tea

S

upporting a football club is to be a part of a family.

Celebrating in victory, commiserating in defeat together. Come matchday, supporters all will be willing their team on for 90 minutes and if it fails…

Well, there’s always next week!

League Two Tranmere Rovers are no different. With a string of recent victories under their belt they are hot favourites for promotion to League One, with only our old vegan friends, Forest Green Rovers ahead of them.

But Tranmere are not going to be outdone of the vegan front either.

Spurred on by COP26, they partnered with Viva! for Veganuary in a bid to raise awareness of the environmental and health benefits of a vegan diet.

Placing an onus on protecting the planet, Tranmere went beyond its interests on the pitch, encouraging the local community to take real action to safeguard the environment.

Viva! made everyone aware that the health benefits of a vegan diet can include weight loss, lower sugar levels and improved kidney function, as well as protecting against some cancers and lowering the risk of heart disease – essential for team and town alike.

Viva! provided access to Kicking off Veganism Properly – a guide packed with meal plans, hints and tips for football fans wishing to try veganism for the first time. We also gave Tranmere’s players and staff access to Viva!’s Sports Resources, helping the athletes to realise their full physical potential.

Tranmere Rovers have always lived in the shadow of their bigger, bossier neighbour across the Mersey, Liverpool Football Club. But for once they’re ahead of them - in their desire to encourage both their team and the local community to do all they can to improve their health and save the environment.

And they’re not afraid to say out lou d that the way to do that is through veganism. If that’s not scoring for the planet we don’t know what is.

Throughout January, the club shared the content of this new initiative with their droves of fans on social media, encouraging them down the vegan road, too.

The UK’s vegan fanbase is experiencing rapid growth and is predicted to include around a quarter of the population by 2025. Speaking at the launch of the initiative, Juliet Gellatley, Viva!’s founder and director, said: “Going vegan is a game changer, for the individual and for the planet, which is why we’re delighted to team up with Tranmere. Tackling meat and dairy is one of the best things you can do to fight climate change and improve your general health and we look forward to empowering fans to do just that. Get off the bench and score for the planet – try vegan!”

22

life

One of the oldest football clubs in Britain goes vegan for Veganuary

NEW

All available to order at VegShoes

NEW

Euro Safety Boot (Brown)

Kensington Boot (Brown)

NEW

NEW

Airseal Boulder Boot (Green)

Airseal Boulder Boot Town (Patent)

Airseal Boulder Boot (Purple)

NEW Sand Boot (Black)

NEW

Snugge Boot Dream (Black)

Snugge Boot2 Caribou Dream Low Boot (Brown) (Black)

NEW NEW

A treat for your feet if you don’t eat meat!

vegshoes.com Tel: 01273 691913 info@vegshoes.com Over 200 womens & mens styles!

Vegan is for life – not just January…

Photo © Melanie Smith

VEGAN BOOTS

MEDIA MAN, PUNK-BRED JOHN ROBB

Of course, Veganuary is a fine and noble thing. A great example of a green populism that takes the meat-free message to people and a practical way of getting fleshfree sustenance to the mainstream.

And yet…

It makes me think of the forlorn, beautiful faces of those poor dogs abandoned a few days after Christmas. Left to die on the streets or rounded up by a dog’s home because the selfish twats who cooed and d-ogled over these fluffy canines over Christmas, swiftly got bored of their furry pals – along with whatever gadgets and perfumes they accrued over the so-called holy week.

As we all know, Christmas is a time of giving, taking and chucking away and soon the plaintive squeals of the puppies are not enough because their new owners are too lazy, too sunk into their settees, full of wind and empty of compassion, to take them for walks or feed them. Three days later, they’re chucking the puppies out on the street like any other unwanted toy.

Random acts off cruelty are part of what Christmas is all about, apart from TV that is stuck in 1974, forever moaning about eating unloved turkeys instead of giving them up…

Anyway… I see the same forlorn faces near the end of January when Veganuary vegan virgins stare balefully at the camera claiming they crave dead flesh and blood, like vampiric carnivores. Some even write hackneyed and clichéd columns about their so called ‘tortuous vegan experience’ for national newspapers.

The start of January sees the media full of meatless recipes, followed by those dumb columns from hard-nosed journos who ‘tried vegan’ and found it not to their liking.

Not sure if a Fleet Street hack or celeb pundit is a great barometer for big issues like these.

Cobbled-together clichés in the pieces talk about their own personal struggles with veganism, a private, plantbased hell they personally went through and how they felt back to ‘normal’ after eating blood-stained lumps of flesh for a few weeks… after rushing down to the butchers like psychotic vampires to rip bodies apart and shove lumps down their throats.

What they never seem to realise is that this whole thing is about the f’n animals! and not them skipping the odd bit of meat in their diet.

It’s always baffled me how anyone can step onto the plant based side and then step back onto the dead flesh side.

Surely after a few weeks of no meat and grappling with the issues in your head, the idea of going back to the world of factory farms and slaughterhouses must have caused conflict.

Remember… vegan is for life and not just for January!

viva.org.uk 23

T

here are so many conspiracy theories flying around that you could have given one to each of your friends for Christmas and still had some left.

The first one I recall began in the 1950s and involved adding fluoride to the nation’s drinking water to save our crumbling teeth. The antis didn’t hold back on their condemnation! It was ‘compulsory medication’ amounting to a tyranny akin to Nazi experimentation, they reckoned, and that set the tone for all the conspiracy theory rhetoric that was to follow.

We have a constantly rumbling Holocaust denial, despite there being hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of eye witnesses and the immaculate book keeping of Nazi murderers who listed the brutal massacre in revolting detail. But facts never stand in the way of a good conspiracy theory.

The World Health Organisation’s third-world vaccination programme against polio, small pox and other deadly diseases was, in reality, a way of injecting microchips into people to control them. Not sure what additional control is needed over billions of people who live hand to mouth and already have little control over their lives. But okay – find me just one victim, stick them in a scanner and let’s see this invasive microchip. Simple!

Then there’s the Illuminati, a powerful organisation that has secretly taken control of the entire world by infiltrating the media and brainwashing everyone (no, not Piers Morgan – although on second thoughts…).

As with the anti-Holocaust theory and the utterly degenerate Q Anon claims, there are despicable, antiSemitic undertones in many conspiracy theories.

The moon landings were faked; the twin towers were blown up by the CIA; 5G mobile was responsible for Covid (and the alternative is that Covid is fake) and the Covid-19 vaccination programme is about population control. Well, that’s a bit of a bummer considering the global population has grown 125million in the last 18 months.

Now, those long, white, fluffy lines you see high in the sky on clear days, they’re not the aircraft engine condensation trails you thought they were! No, many are chemtrails – toxic chemicals being sprayed into the atmosphere in order to sterilise us, reduce life expectancy, exert mind control or control the weather – take your pick.

I may not be the brightest spark in the bonfire but I suspect if I was intent on global domination, I might be inclined to not spray during daylight hours with visible chemicals and not to push them out through the delicate mechanism of a jet engine. Out the rear door in the dark would be my way but that’s logic and logic is alien to conspiracy theorists – as witness the flat Earth devotees.

Uhmm … when I travelled around the globe as a sailor, I didn’t drop off the edge!

Conspiracy theorising is not about evidence but belief – faith. And faith beats all. You can produce a boat-load of Nobel prize-winners and enough professors and doctorates to fill Wembley stadium and they’ll all be trumped by the Facebook musings of guy in Kyrgyzstan who once took a high school diploma in crystallogy (and failed – but not his fault!) so long as he supports the gibberish.

People embrace this hogwash, absorb it and nurture it until it defines them. They become the cognisant ones, the thinkers, and they alone comprehend all the ills of the world. Problem is, while these self-delusional disciples of wacky wisdom were tap-dancing around reality, a real-life, gold-plated, five-star conspiracy was unfolding in Glasgow at COP26 and just about every government in the world was a part of it. Get your teeth into that one, chaps! (Oh sorry, I forgot, global warming is fake news, too!).

… AND THIS ONE ISN’T JUST A THEORY, IT’S REALITY, SAYS TONY WARDLE

While these self-delusional disciples of wacky wisdom were tap-dancing around reality, a real-life, gold-plated, five-star conspiracy was unfolding

24

life

CONSP

Its aim was to try and limit global warming to no more than 1.5 deg C as it is currently on track to top 2.7 deg C, by the end of the century, with all the havoc and mayhem that will entail. The most interesting aspect of COP26 was not the watered down agreements it arrived out (‘don’t let’s phase out coal use, we’ll just phase it down’) but the lobbying that went on in order to get this kind of result.

Of course, India, China, Saudi, Russia and Australia, and 500 energy lobbyists, were successfully championing fossil fuels. As soon as the jolly was over, Australia’s resources minister, Keith Pitt, stuck two fingers up to the rest of the world: “… we’ll continue to have markets (for coal) decades into the future. And if they’re buying…then we’re selling,” he said.

As for animal agriculture, that didn’t even make it on to the agenda – the single greatest threat to the

IRACY!

planet, responsible for 20 per cent of greenhouse gases (GHG) and the main cause of just about every environmental catastrophe. Couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Brazil and Argentina’s heavy, preconference lobbying, could it? Both are huge livestock and fodder producers and they strongly argued against evidence in the draft report that reducing meat consumption is necessary to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It seems they succeeded.

And the media didn’t help either, ranting and raving about world leaders’ use of aircraft (about four per cent of GHG) while completely ignoring what they and most other people are stuffing into their gobs and which is far more damaging. And on that point, the official menu was 60 per cent meat, dairy and fish and only 40 per cent plant-based! That tells us all we need to know about the commitment of most delegates.

The COP26 lot and the ‘Elvis is still alive’ brigade are both defined by ‘blah, blah, blah,’ as Greta so succinctly put it The extraordinarily positive (on the face of it) agreement to reverse deforestation by 2030 came as something of a shock but it was just another version of the old three card trick or the ‘fur coat, no knickers’ that my gran would have called it. How can you end deforestation if you don’t identify what causes it? And that, primarily, is providing grazing land for cattle and growing fodder for the world’s factory farms, but that wasn’t mentioned.

One of the signatories to the deal was Jair Bolsanaro, president of Brazil, a man who has championed deforestation since coming to power, oversaw the loss of 877 sq km of the Amazon in the 11 months leading up to COP26 and then hitting an all-time record in October 2021, the month COP26 started. Had he suddenly been on a trip to Damascus or is he a lying toe rag? I leave you to judge – but he’s not the only one. Indonesia dismissed the whole concept of preserving forests only days after agreeing to it.

And as for halting and reversing biodiversity loss – the extinction of plant and animal species, where again livestock (and fishing) are the main causes – there was some lovely advice. ‘Know your impact’, ‘Plan together,’ ‘Value nature,’ ‘Grow with nature through nature-based circular solutions!’ What? Anything but saying: “The only solution to trashing the planet is to go vegan!”

Apart from ignoring science, the COP26 lot and the ‘Elvis is still alive’ brigade are both defined by ‘blah, blah, blah,’ as Greta so succinctly put it. The big difference is that the ‘Aliens walk amongst us’ cohort threatens few people and makes you laugh; the COP lot, on the other hand, threaten everyone and make you weep.

Want to know what the next big conspiracy theory is?

By 2029, Artificial Intelligence will take over from the human race entirely! Any bloody intelligence has got to be a good thing, I reckon.

viva.org.uk 25

Viva! Farming T

Promoting a transition from animals to plants

BY KERRI WATERS

he future of humanity stands at a crossroads and our food system is in crisis. Climate and ecological emergencies threaten to destroy our planet’s equilibrium and the habitat of billions of animals and plant species. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of biodiversity loss and a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, habitat destruction and soil, water and air pollution.

Animal farming is largely based around widespread, institutionalised abuse with factory farming spreading and becoming more intense. Cruelty, suffering and fear is all that many animals know and it should shame us.

But there is hope as people are increasingly becoming aware that animal agriculture is unacceptable must be consigned to the past, with a quarter of the population forecast to be either vegan or vegetarian by 2025. As the UK’s leading vegan campaigning charity, Viva! has been vigorously promoting this change for its 27 year existence and we have been successful in helping innumerable people to adopt a vegan lifestyle.

We are now taking a step further and are proud to announce the launch of Viva! Farming, to help farmers transition away from animals and towards plant-based agricultural systems – more ecologically sound, kinder and more sustainable. Our aim is to build a network of organisations and key people, from the farming and plant-based worlds, to support farmers through the process.

British farmers are facing economic hardship from Brexit and competition from alternative proteins.

Currently, the UK produces only 23 per cent of all the fruit and vegetables we consume but by growing our own, as well as protein crops, we can achieve food security, self-sufficiency and a fair return for producers.

In fact, this transition is already under way.

Laurence Candy, at Northwood Farm in Dorset, was a beef and dairy farmer. With increasing economic

26

life

pressure and growing concern about the climate crisis and loss of biodiversity on his own farm, Laurence decided to transition to veganic farming. With help from the Vegan Organic Network (VON) and Farmers For Stock-Free Farming, he began growing organic wheat using no animal inputs or chemical fertilisers.

The problem was he was still paying a large mortgage on the farm and loans for machinery and infrastructure so how would he make sufficient income without the cows? That’s why there has to be a transition period and the Biocyclic Vegan Standard (the fundamental principals of vegan agriculture) allowed him a two-year period in which to stop raising, breeding or selling animals. Laurence says: “Veganic farming is one of the most sustainable systems there is, with the lowest carbon footprint of any system.” He warns that an entire overhaul of farming is needed as even growing vegetables relies on animal products.

In neighbouring Devon, after 47 years as a dairy and sheep farmer, Sri-Lakan-born Kumar, had a dramatic change of heart. He was troubled by seeing his animals horribly stressed when being sent to slaughter: “I couldn’t cope anymore and I had to say no.” In 2019, a sanctuary took the sheep to live out their lives peacefully and Kumar set to work growing the ingredients for his vegan masala dosa business in Totnes – Kumar’s Dosa Bar. He believes deeply that food should be vegan, high quality, healthy, sourced locally and affordable to all.

It is clear that the future of food and agriculture is plant-based and so we invite the farming community to join us on the journey towards a food system that is fair to the planet and all sentient life.

lifestyle

Cai & Jo - The Tigress Woven Blanket I wanted to make my home space more colourful and vibrant, especially as the weather is so dull at the moment. So, after some Googling I came across a brand called Cai & Jo who are a small independent brand whose aesthetics draws inspiration from the textures, colours and shapes of the natural world. They strive to make their brand as ethical and sustainable as possible, with almost all of their packaging re-used, recycled and/or recyclable, and they have become climate positive by partnering with an organisation that plants trees and funds projects that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere!

I love all their designs and homewear bits as everything is so bright and have amazing prints, every time I look at them it makes me happy! I will definitely be buying some bits for friends and family and maybe treat myself! I have my eye on the Tigress Woven Blanket £115 and the Women Print Everyday Bag £30 and maybe a cushion or two! caiandjo.com

d n a t h g i Bright, R

With the New Year gone but resolutions for 2022 remaining, I have been looking at brightening up my space this spring and making sure any new items I buy are wise purchases for me, the planet and, of course, cruelty-free!

BY EMILY COSTER, RETAIL MANAGER

Pela Phone Case Mobile phone cases are so wasteful, especially with frequent, latest tech upgrades. But… I came across Pela, who claim to sell the world’s first compostable phone case. There are so many designs to choose from, so all tastes are covered. And I know they’re long lasting, my last case from them survived for over three years – but now I have a new phone and a new fun case! Once you’ve finished with your Pela case, simply put it in your compost bin – they claim it will take six months to two years to break down, depending on the compost environment. If that sounds a bit long, compare it to a traditional plastics that can take hundreds to thousands of years to break down and still doesn’t disappear but turns into harmful microplastics!

Pela also sell headphone cases, smart watch bands and other accessories so you can keep all your gadgets safe and free from plastic! uk.pelacase.com

n o t h g i R Mat & Nat Vegan Handbags

Mat & Nat have created such beautiful vegan leather goods and all are cruelty free – made from recycled plastic bottles! Each style comes in many different colourways so choosing your favourite shouldn’t be a problem – they look good in every colour. The brand is completely vegan and has been around since 2007. They claim to recycle some nine million plastic bottles annually in the manufacturing of their bags!

They say they care about the welfare of the planet and don’t use leather because they don’t want to hurt animals. Can’t argue with that! This sustainable and ethical brand is now producing jackets, accessories, knitwear and other stuff as well as handbags. uk.mattandnat.com

viva.org.uk 27

a k l a w d l ‘I wou ’ s e l i m thousand H

…and he did, and he was only 14!

BY JESS NAGJI-NUNN

enry Read-Denness is a Viva! Hero. Aged just 14 – and during a global pandemic – he decided to raise £1,000 for Viva! by walking 1,000 miles. Over the course of five months (Feb to July, 2021), he kept a tally of the miles he walked each day, opting to walk the seven miles to and from school and shoe-horned in additional miles during evenings and weekends.

Six months on from his challenge, I caught up with Henry to get the full story. Hailing from Thatcham, near Reading, and vegan since he was 12, Henry credits Viva! with inspiring him to take that plunge to go vegan – after seeing our Instagram and other social media posts.

Originally vegetarian for environmental reasons, following the environmental protests in 2019, Henry was shocked to see Viva!’s exposé of the egg and dairy industries and decided to go vegan for the animals as a result.

So, why walk 1,000 miles for Viva!? To complete his Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award he had to do six months of volunteering, which could be in the form of fundraising: “I realised that Viva! and helping animals was what I felt most passionate about.”

Henry told me the hardest part of his 1,000-mile challenge was definitely the last day. He decided to go out with a bang by finishing with a marathon – on one of the hottest days of the year! After mile 15, his legs started to ache and at mile 20, he had to stop for a rest in the shade before knocking off the final 6.2-miles.

Whenever he felt like giving up (and he did feel like it), it was the thought of donating to such a good cause that kept him going.

Now 15, and having just smashed his mock GCSE exams, he has high hopes for the real things in June.

And then it’s on to sixth form to take his A-Levels.

Henry went to Vegan Camp Out in 2021 and up until then, was the only vegan he knew. What, I

wondered, was it like for him to be surrounded by vegans, to be part of a huge vegan community and … to meet his Viva! hero, Juliet?

“It was really, really good” he gushes, “And BOSH’s after-party was amazing too”.

Despite not being vegan, Henry’s family and friends have been supportive and many were there to cheer him over the finish line at the end of his 1,000-mile mission: “One of my proudest moments!” Any future challenges in mind, I asked. “One day I’d like to run the London Marathon – for sure.”

With our award-winning documentary Hogwood: a modern horror story shortly to be released on Netflix, Henry intends to organise a whole-family screening. He says his mum tried vegan for a little while and after watching Seaspiracy, his stepdad no longer eats fish. And it was his dad who took him to all the talks at Vegan Camp Out and now says he would consider going vegan.

Henry’s hoping that seeing Hogwood might continue to nudge them in the right direction! And as for Viva!: “Just, keep on spreading the message!” he says. And with the money you’ve raised for us, Henry, we certainly will! He raised an incredible £1,110 plus £285 Gift Aid. Thank you.

viva.org.uk 29

JOIN OUR FIGHT TO

SAVE ANIMALS

Our great new ‘join Viva!’ leaflet

l It raises awareness of the work done by our brave undercover investigators l It reveals some of our extraordinary campaign successes l And it states the reality – our investigators need your support to continue

The more people who support us, the more we can do for the animals For five FREE copies to hand to friends or colleagues, email info@viva.org.uk Or ring 0117 944 1000 (Mon-Fri: 9 to 5) 30

life

s k c i p g n Spri

p o h S ! a v rf om the Vi

Spring is here and the days are getting longer, warmer and sunnier! So to raise your spirits even further, here are some Spring picks and new vegan treats to try!

BY EMILY COSTER, RETAIL MANAGER

Jeavons Salted Caramel Milk Chocolate Bar A genuinely gooey, creamy caramel, made from caramelised sugar and all things nice (including a pinch of salt) in a chunky bar of Jeavons’ own, dairyfree ‘milk’ chocolate. This is the real deal folks! It’s taken Jeavons a long time to get it right but it was time well spent because they’ve cracked it! Made in the UK and dairy free. 44g. £1.60

H!p Oat Milk Salty Pretzel Chocolate Bar A sweet, savoury taste sensation!

Deliciously creamy oat milk chocolate partnered with salty, crunchy pretzels. It uses 41 per cent, single-origin Colombian cocoa and is deliciously creamy, free from slavery and has plasticfree packaging. The inner film is made from wood pulp and is suitable for home composting while the outer cardboard can be recycled. Other flavours available are Salted Caramel, Cookies no Cream and Original. 70g. £2.99

Beevive

Rose Gold and Anthracite Grey are new colours from Beevive for their bee revival vials. Attached to your keys or backpack, they are great for little creatures who need a bit of help to get back on their feet! The vial contains sugar water, which you can feed to tired bees and butterflies!

Kabloom Now, for the outdoors and long spring walks, we have Kabloom seeds. They can be ‘thrown to grow’ this year from March ‘til June.

They make great gifts for friends who’ll see the beautiful results this year!

Choose from Edible Flora and Herbs or Wildflowers, that attract bees and butterflies!

Sale!

Check out the Viva!

Shop sale! Lots of items have been marked down, including vegan tees, jumpers, books, accessories and food!

Pick up our newest vegan design Vegan For the Animals on the shop, which features pastel colours perfect for spring.

Wrap up in a cosy, relaxedunisex-fit sweatshirt, made from organic combed cotton with a cute pig lounging on the slogan.

Or choose a unisex-fit, jersey tee in light blue, featuring a cute lounging cow.

Vegan For The Animals unisex classic Jersey tee – cow – light blue £16.99 Vegan For The Animals unisex classic sweatshirt – pig – light pink £25.99

viva.org.uk 31

Poland Live Christmas carp still on sale For several years, Viva! Poland has been protesting against the sale of live carp at Christmas markets with our Bloody Christmas campaign.

Conditions are usually appalling, with crowded fish trying to survive in a few centimetres of filthy, slimy water before customers take them home and kill them however they choose. We have shamed some stores into ending the trade but every year, carp still face shocking abuse in the name of a non-existent tradition.

Because of this, on December 20, now designated as Day of the Fish, Viva! Poland submitted a petition carrying 20,000 signatures to the Prime Minister asking for a national ban on selling live fish.

THE NOT SO IDYLLIC MARKET Viva! activists conducted an investigation into the sale of animals at a large market in Poznań, whose name tranlsates in English as Idyllic. What we saw there was anything but idyllic. Thousands of birds, mostly chickens and ducks, were being kept in cramped cages without water, despite the summer heat. When sold, they were pushed into plastic net sacks, several at a time. There was no veterinarian present, in defiance of the law, and the owner of the market was completely indifferent to our complaints. We have lodged a report with the Prosecutor’s Office.

The Great March for Animals Despite promises of big improvements in Polish animal rights, which include a ban on fur farming, animal acts in circuses, keeping dogs on chains and ritual slaughter – known as Five for Animals – the ruling parties withdrew their support, permanently it seems.

To register our protest, more than two thousand people noisily marched for animals on October 4 in Warsaw in front of the Ministry of Agriculture and Parliament. It had huge public sympathy and members of the opposition party, residents who live near fur farms and members of large animal rights organisations spoke from the platform.

As previously reported in Viva!life, Viva! Poland led the way in introducing a Bill into parliament to ban fur farming which was passed overwhelmingly. It was, however, thrown out by the acting prime minister as industry lobbyists triumphed.

32

life

. . . s r e e t n u l o v Viva!’s vital k you The biggest possible thank you to all of the wonderful Viva! volunteers who have been working hard at vegan events – we really wouldn’t have a presence there without you. All your efforts in seling merchandise and handing out information help our campaigns enormously.

than

• September 8, Plymouth Market. Annie Gibson – Harrison and Simon Eastop – £327.87 raised.

• October 2, Watford Vegan Market. Elior Doani and Eliza Lagast – £300 raised.

• Novemeber 6, Bath Vegan Market. Jo Dixon and Eloise – £160 raised.

• November 14, Great Yorkshire Vegan Winter Market. Kerri Waters and Sue May – £201 raised • November 14, Newcastle Vegan Market. Debbie Patterson – £321.90 raised.

• November 28, Manchester Christmas Vegan Market.

Kerri Waters – £188.50 raised.

• December 5, Gloucester Vegan fair. Dave Provis and Susan Segust – £256.70 raised.

Above left: Elior Doani and Eliza Lagast in Watford.

Above: Dave Provis and Susan Segust in Gloucester.

Left: Annie GibsonHarrison and Simon Eastop in Plymouth

Fancy getting involved? Email merchandise@viva.org.uk

Classifieds PRODUCTS & SERVICES

www.taxreturnonlineservices.co.uk Financial Accounts Preparation • Self Assessment Tax Returns Rental Accounts • Business Tax Advice 5% donation to VIVA!

karen@taxreturnonlineservices.co.uk

GET NOTICED!

To book space at a great rate, see viva.org.uk/advertise-vivalife, email emily@viva.org.uk or call 0117 944 1000 For hundreds of delicious recipes check our Vegan Recipe Club

14 GIFTS

14 Gifts is a Fantasy and Gothic Gift shop in the heart of Gloucester City Centre. We sell figurines, clocks, jigsaws, clothing, band merchandise, purses, bags, incense, and much more. We also sell vegan products and are vegan ourselves.

We stock items from world-leading fantasy artists such as Lisa Parker, Anne Stokes and James Ryman.

Veganism is at the heart of our business as well as our personal lives and we are thrilled to be lifetime supporters of Viva!.

Our physical shop is at 38-40 Westgate Street, Gloucester, GL1 2NG. Our Facebook page is facebook.com/14Gifts Our website is 14gifts.co.uk We are a small family independent business run by ourselves, George and Lizzie and we look forward to welcoming you.

veganrecipeclub.org.uk viva.org.uk 33

TO SO ON

CO MI NG

HOGWOOD GOES

Netflix to stream Viva!’s horror story from March 2022

F

BY LEX RIGBY, HEAD OF INVESTIGATIONS

GLOBAL

or nearly 30 years, Viva! has been shining a light into the darkest corners of the UK’s food production industry, uncovering inherent cruelty in animal agriculture and exposing systemic failings in assurance schemes supposedly synonymous with ‘high welfare’.

The team thought they’d seen it all. Then they found Hogwood.

It started back in 2017 when Viva! uploaded a video to Facebook of the squalid conditions at a pig farm in Somerset. Someone left a comment saying that this dump was ‘like Disneyland’ compared to where they’d been working in Warwickshire and urged our investigators to take a look.

On their first visit to the place, the now infamous Hogwood Farm was nothing like the Fort Knox it is today; with its imposing high steel perimeter fencing, barbed wire, guard dog warnings and heavy-duty padlocks hung from every door. In some ways it was unassuming, its industrial-sized units tucked behind a large farmhouse and gated entry point. But the smell, the fetid stench of ammonia and excrement, that was the giveaway.

A MODERN HORROR STORY Under cover of darkness, two lone investigators left the picturesque backdrop of rural England, stepped inside one of the sheds and found themselves face-to-face with some of the most sickening scenes ever uncovered on a UK pig farm. More than 30 dead pigs were recorded, rotting and covered in flies; hundreds of sows were found confined to barbaric farrowing crates, one heavily pregnant and struggling to make herself comfortable on the barren floor of her pen; and thousands of young pigs

34

life

in the fattening sheds all crammed together, looking for some form of entertainment as they trampled through piles of their own waste. It was overwhelmingly claustrophobic and the boredom had led to grotesque cannibalism – an exceptionally rare and entirely unnatural behaviour for pigs.

Watching the footage back, Viva!’s founder and director, Juliet Gellatley, was deeply unsettled. As one of the largest pig farms in the country, she knew these animals were destined for a major supermarket chain, but which one? In order to find out, she needed the plight of Hogwood pigs to hit the national press and decided to return to the farm herself and film an emotional piece to camera in her own words about the conditions inside: “The first shed I entered was colossal, with more tightly packed pigs than it is possible to imagine. I tried to step carefully through them but they swarmed towards me, keen to investigate my unfamiliar presence.

They nibbled at the shoe coverings I wore for biosecurity and tugged for my attention. They were inquisitive adolescents, about three months old and wide awake, despite the early hour.

“In other sheds, I found sick animals left abandoned in gangways; pig skulls, a jaw and a hacked off lower leg, all left to rot in what looked like years’ worth of filth. A dead, blackened and bloated body of a pig was being pushed and prodded by his cellmates, all covered in excreta. Mothers were giving birth onto cold, unforgiving concrete, locked inside farrowing crates, with little room to move forwards or backwards, let alone turn around. In a skip outside, dead piglets were piled high and riddled with maggots.”

NEGLIGENCE, GREED AND INACTION Soon after, images shaming Britain’s pig farming industry were splashed across the Daily Mirror, kicking off a relentless pursuit for justice. In the midst of the media storm, a tip-off let the team know Hogwood Farm was supplying Tesco and was certified by the Red Tractor assurance scheme. Quite unbelievably, the most recognisable food standards organisation in the country was approving this hellhole.

Following multiple complaints to every stakeholder, including the Government’s Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), action was promised. Their reassurances were meaningless as follow-up investigations in 2018 and 2019 went on to prove. They were more intent on hiding the truth than cleaning up their act. We launched a nationwide campaign against Tesco, with more than 150 demonstrations outside their stores.

More national coverage showing footage of pigs cannibalising their cell mates left the nation aghast but still Tesco wouldn’t act. So, in 2019, Viva! investigators returned for the fourth and final time. They found their way around the oppressive security to install hidden cameras in five separate areas. It was to capture something that had so far been missing – human interaction. Farm owner Brian Hobill had told Channel 4 Dispatches in a film called ‘The Truth About Vegans’, that conditions on his farm were ‘better than most nursing homes’. A film designed to trash Viva! utterly rebounded on its makers.

THE TRUTH ABOUT HOGWOOD Although minor changes around the site were apparent, the majority of pigs remained enclosed in filthy

Hogwood Farm is not alone but a product of intensification in animal farming Left: farm owner Brian Hobill.

Below: presenter Jerome Flynn

overcrowded pens with little or no environmental enrichment, resulting in ear, tail and flank biting. One of our cameras filmed animals screeching in terror as workers kicked them and beat them with metal hand tools.

One of the most distressing clips was of a young pig being bitten and bullied by others in her pen. Covered in lacerations, she endured nearly 48 hours of brutal attacks before the farmer eventually moved her from the pen. Government standards say that sick and injured animals must be isolated in a hospital pen with soft bedding. But not at Hogwood. She was abandoned in a walkway, her wounds left untreated. More national media coverage followed.

Finally, there was action. Tesco was left with no choice but to drop Hogwood while Red Tractor ended its membership to their assurance scheme. Cranswick Plc, one of Britain’s leading food producers, stopped buying from the farm – indefinitely.

Hogwood Farm is not alone but a product of intensification in animal farming, which provides ideal breeding grounds for bacteria and viruses and potential sites of new pandemics. It’s ironic that the Covid-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of the London premier of Viva!’s award-winning documentary, HOGWOOD: a modern horror story. This disturbing and honest look at British pig farming will now capture a huge audience through Netflix (from April), something I don’t think we anticipated but proof that persistence works.

Also streaming on Amazon Prime, Google Play and Apple TV.

viva.org.uk 35

V

biz

Will’s Vegan Store

Shop Vegan

wills-vegan-store.co.uk DISCOUNT free shipping CODE VIVA Will’s Vegan Store launched in 2013 by founder Will Green. This online store offers a wide range of lifestyle items – groceries, shoes and sustainable clothing. Items containing vegan leather, such as wallets, belts, boots, brogues and sandals, are all made out of cereal crops and viscose – a natural material made from eucalyptus trees.

Pretty incredible stuff!

Eden treats

The latest businesses to join our Supporters’ Discount Scheme or to carry a Viva! Vegan Symbol. Join Viva! at viva.org.uk/join to get these great discounts. To claim yours instore, take along your Supporters’ card!

shopvegan.co.uk DISCOUNT 5% CODE VIVA2175902 Shop vegan offers an array of essential items from groceries, mock meat products, confectionery, cosmetics, body care and supplements – the whole deal! This online store is a 100 per cent veganowned and run company, registered by the Vegan Society. Guaranteed peace of mind for vegan cruelty-free, one-stop shopping.

Viva! is proud to work with likeminded people to promote a cruelty-free lifestyle and bring you the latest info on vegan products and services – plus amazing discounts

edentreatcollection.co.uk DISCOUNT 10% off on Hampers (exc alcohol).

CODE Viva!10 Eden treats is the sister company of Eden Café, providing delicious hampers containing 10 items which are carefully selected to suit most tastes and diets. These can be personalised as a Thank You gift, Happy Birthday gift, Christmas gift or a ‘just because’ gift for a loved one.

Viva! Supporter’s Discount Here viva.org.uk

Eden café Clifton

edencafeclifton.co.uk DISCOUNT 10% off at EDEN Clifton (exc Alcohol).

CODE Show supporters’ card instore Eden Café is a restaurant situated in Bristol with an idyllic atmosphere and great tasting food. With a fully vegan menu that uses only seasonal plantbased ingredients, it is hard to resist a quick drink, sit down meal or afternoon tea!

Plant Faced Clothing

plantfacedclothing.com DISCOUNT 15% CODE VIVAVEGAN15 Charlie the founder and creative director of Plant Faced Clothing was on a mission to start a streetwear company which reflected her morals and style.

This ethical fashion brand brings unique streetwear, minus the sweatshop, ensuring all garments have undergone ethical certifications and use non-toxic ink. A perfect, stylish way to bring awareness to a plant-based lifestyle.

Want to partner with Viva! to offer your vegan products and services to new audiences?

See viva.org.uk/resources/businesses or email business@viva.org.uk 36

life

Tranmere – Viva! Rovers Our teaming up with Tranmere Rovers football club during Veganuary led to an interview with Juliet Gellatley on BBC Radio Merseyside, listen here bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0bfwms3. The club shared content on their social media channels to educate fans of the benefits of a vegan diet and encourage them to take part in the January campaign. Players and staff will have access to Viva!’s Sports Resources, while football fans are being given access to Kicking Off Veganism Properly – Viva!’s football webpage.

media

LIFE

Viva!’s media blitz for the animals

BY TONY WARDLE, EDITOR

Independent covers turkey exposé Viva!’s most recent investigation into UK turkey farms (see page 10) was published in the Independent in the lead up to Christmas. Hook2Sisters, who own this Leicestershire farm did all they could to prevent its publication. You can read it here: independent.co.uk/news/uk/homenews/turkey-christmas-supermarketdead-b1978453.html. Plant Based News covered it under the headline Footage Shows ‘Depressing’ Scenes And Bird Flu Risk On Turkey Farm.

Viva!’s health coverage Resident health expert, Dr Justine Butler, has had several features published on her warnings about bird flu (see page 14), including London Post, Vegan Food & Living and Plant Based News. Other topics covered by Justine included the five fortified foods that can slash your risk of vitamin D deficiency this winter, published in Newscabal, The Stars Post, ToysMatrix, Express.co.uk, msn.com and Brinkwire. Her article ‘B12 – What Every Vegan Needs To Know’ made Plant Based magazine.

Vegan Food & Living published a string of features by talented Viva! staff, Justine Butler, Lex Rigby, Veronika Charvátová and Maryanne Hall. Siobhan Dolan’s feature on Christmas without turkey made it into Closer magazine.

Burgers in, COP26 out Viva! added its voice to the calls for a plantbased food revolution at the COP26 summit in Glasgow, which was reported by The Daily Brit, Glasgow Times, PETA Australia, London TV, Knews, Vegan Food UK and Plant Based News.

Our Viva! La Burger van tour also made headlines in the Liverpool Echo, Liverpool TV, and msn.com.

TV ad coverage starts

Viva!’s great TV advert is gaining coverage before it’s even launched, in Totally Vegan Buzz, Vegan Life and Plant Based News.

Can’t wait to see the media response when our advert finally airs!

…and the rest!

Kerri Waters, Viva! Farming Coordinator, was live on GB News TV on December 3 calling on the government to introduce major subsidies to encourage UK farmers to move away from meat and dairy production and towards plant-based, vegan farming. You can watch her here youtube.com/watch?v=ORKbSE80CJI Vegan Recipe Club’s newest recruit Pia Werzinger – Food & Cookery Social Media Coordinator – attended a Veganuary Facebook event hosted by the World Vegan New Year Market and was interviewed by one the organisers. Listen here: facebook.com/1364747654/videos/683238229 694640 Pia has also started with a bang in developing VRC’s social media presence.

viva.org.uk 37

Registered Charity No. 1122303

/DeanFarmTrust /deanfarmtrust.org.uk @dean_farm_trust E. info@deanfarmtrust.org.uk

Visit Lenny

Lenny and his sanctuary family would love to meet you this summer. Visit our website and sign up to our newsletter for event dates and more details

www.deanfarmtrust.org.uk

38

life

Please help promote compassionate living

‘WE WON’T LET YOU FORGET’ Viva! tells COP26 delegates F

BY WILL SORFLATEN, SENIOR CAMPAIGNER

or two weeks in November, world leaders met at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) to listen to the science and make plans to take action on the climate crisis to protect life as we know it.

No one, however, our government included, was prepared to mention the elephant in the room – animal agriculture, one of the leading causes of the climate crisis. The University of Oxford recently found that beef consumption in the Western world needs to be reduced by 90 per cent and dairy by 60 per cent just to stand still and avert the worst effects.

Animal agriculture has got to go – it’s what Viva! has been saying for decades and highlighting since spring 2019 with our Vegan Now! environment campaign.

Politicians were clearly too scared to even mention meat and this denial of the facts led to some completely unachievable goals.

IMPOSSIBLE PLEDGES World leaders congratulated themselves on securing a zero-deforestation deal, which even Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed up to it. How can leaders possibly halt deforestation when they ignore its primary cause – animal agriculture? (See Tony Wardle page 24).

The same paradox applies to the USA and EU’s pledges to slash methane emissions by 30 per cent – without a single mention that animal agriculture pumps out a third of it. We guessed this would happen and so, for the duration of COP26, we commissioned huge billboards in Edinburgh City Centre, Edinburgh and Euston railway stations, Brent in London, plus A6 posters in Glasgow, all of which made the clear link between animal products and our future.

GLASGOW OUTREACH We held two outreach events in Glasgow, the first being on World Vegan Day. We gave out vegan sausage rolls and engaged with people in the street, explaining how going vegan is the single biggest change we can make to protect the planet.

Later, we unfurled our Vegan Now! banner at the iconic George Square, handed out leaflets and gave interviews to the media, including BBC Glasgow and the University of St Andrew.

BURGER TOUR 2.0 Following the success of our burger tour in July, 2021, we then headed to York, Leeds and Liverpool to hand out more vegan burgers and talk about the impact of eating meat on our world. Vegan meat company, Taste & Glory, kindly provided over 400 delicious patties. We talked to hundreds of people, half of whom had never before eaten a vegan burger. They went away with our Vegan Recipe Club cards and V7 programme, to make going vegan for one week dead easy.

MARCHING EVERYWHERE We ended COP26 by marching in Bristol on November 6 as part of global marches for climate justice, Viva! also had an eager presence at events in 17 cities across the UK. The climate and environmental crises are not going to go away and we will continue and intensify our actions to bring about essential change.

Thank you to all the volunteers who made our actions so successful. And a huge thank you to Taste & Glory for their great support for our second burger tour.

viva.org.uk 39

vegan BOOK CLUB

BY EMILY COSTER

Baby Loves Vegan: An ABC of Plant Food Volume 3 – Jennifer Eckford Let your little ones learn about plant power as they say their ABC with this first alphabet book. A is for Avocado, O is for Organic and T is for Tofu in this beautiful book designed to teach very young children the basic concepts of veganism.

Baby Loves is a new range of giftable, preschool ABC books that taps into the things that matter. Stunningly illustrated with a cut-to-white aesthetic, each pocket-sized book is a perfect introduction to a key topic for babies and will inspire and inform little animal lovers everywhere. Suitable for 1 year + £8.99

This Is Vegan Propaganda: (And Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You) – Ed Winters

One Pot: Three Ways: Save time with vibrant, versatile vegan recipes – Rachel Ama

Rachel Ama’s second cookbook, One Pot: Three Ways offers ways to use leftovers and save time to create flavoursome vegan food.

With over 80 new recipes inspired by her Caribbean and African roots, Rachel puts flavour and flexibility at the heart of your kitchen.

Rachel Ama is reframing vegan cooking.

You can create a veg-packed centrepiece dish in one pan/pot/tray and then choose from three different flavoursome ways to serve it up – with just a few ingredients or transform it into something else entirely. One pot, three choices!

Rachel creates her recipes by moving through ‘stations’ in the kitchen, weaving together fresh ingredients, pantry staples and, very importantly, the ‘flavour station’, where she adds spices, dried herbs and those all-important sauces that can bring each dish to life. Sticky Miso Oyster Mushrooms, JerkSpiced Lentils or Roasted Cauliflower Curry are just three of the gorgeous one-pot dishes you can play with and vary. £22

Ed Winters’ debut book tells you everything you wanted to know about veganism and how it’s a choice we can all make to help alleviate today’s most pressing issues. Ed Winters (AKA Earthling Ed) is a vegan educator, public speaker and content creator who is widely known for his viral debates and speeches.

This Is Vegan Propaganda is based on years of research and conversations with slaughterhouse workers and farmers, animal rights philosophers and environmentalists. Ed Winters will help you to understand the scale and enormity of the issues surrounding our diet. It is empowering! £14.99

No-Bake Vegan Desserts: Incredibly Easy Plant-Based Cakes, Cookies, Brownies and More – Christina Leopold This delicious cookbook features over 60 recipes, including Cookie Dough Cheesecake, Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream, Coconut Milk Chocolate and Chocolate Chip Cookies – all vegan!

Whether you want cakes, tarts, candies, cookies, brownies or even donuts, Christina Leopold’s recipes are a breeze to whip up. These delectable plant-based sweets are naturally sweetened and there are gluten-free options, too. From Creamy Pistachio Ice Cream to the Fudgiest Chocolate Brownies, it’s easy to indulge your sweet tooth without ever heating up the oven. £16.99

All Viva! Vegan Book Club choices are available from vivashop.org.uk/books Tel: 0117 944 1000 (Mon-Fri, 9am to 5pm) 40

life

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9 “No, I’ve been vegetarian since my early 20s, I thought I would just cut down on meat and then I found after a break from it, that it made me ill so I gave it up.

I carried on eating fish but then, of course, I recognised that our fish stocks are seriously imperilled – and that’s an understatement of enormous magnitude, many are on the brink. It became clear that eating fish was unsustainable but in any case, I had never toed the line that fish didn’t feel pain and all that nonsense.

“However, it was factory farming that finally pushed me from vegetarianism to veganism, after I’d been to an indoor, zero-grazing dairy unit. It was spick and span, remarkably clean and none of the animals was being obviously abused but they never went outside. They did three daily lactation cycles and had their calves taken away instantaneously after birth. I’d never been to one before and it was as close to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World as I could ever imagine, which I’d read as a 14-year-old.

“I got in the car after spending the day there and that was it – game over. I knew I couldn’t trust myself or food labelling claiming good quality, organically produced, animal-husbandry-friendly dairy products. If I’m not in control of myself, how am I going to be in a position to ask people to do something which I think is a better idea?”

I know the feeling well as Viva! investigated dairy farms supplying Cadbury, one of the biggest names in the world, and went into several of their dairy farms and every one was zero-grazed – animals that never see a blade of grass.

Why, I asked Chris, do people still see farming as some kind of rural idyll – a cognitive dissonance where we are encouraged to love our pets, respect wildlife but do anything we like to farmed animals?

“We’re conditioned to see a dog and a cat as a companion animal but a pig as something we eat. It never worked for me. We know that pigs are exceptionally intelligent animals so to try and pretend that they don’t know what’s happening to them in those often horrendous farmed conditions is nonsensical.

“Again, it’s one of these cultural conditioned things – fish don’t feel pain so they don’t matter. People are justifiably upset about East Asian people eating dogs as it’s a complete affront to our sensibilities – dogs share our lives, share our beds, share our food, share our love.

The idea that we would kill them and eat them is horrendous. Frankly, folks, what’s the difference between a dog and a pig? You tell me! It’s utter nonsense.

“The difference is that most farming is hidden. If it wasn’t for people like you showing what’s really going on behind those closed shed doors, then they would carry on blissfully ignorant.”

Chris Packham is one of the few prominent people to have publicly opposed the badger cull and has been brilliantly outspoken in his condemnation – and has earned my respect and deepest and most sincere thanks.

I had to ask him how the government’s continued determination to carry on the slaughter affected him. He didn’t hold back.

“I feel an enormous sense of shame and a colossal sense of failure but then it’s only adding to the colossal sense of failure that I manifest when I tell you that since 1970, when I remember Pelé nearly scoring against Gordon Banks, on our first colour television, that we’ve lost nearly 70 per cent of the world’s wildlife. Just 10 years

We’re conditioned to see a dog and a cat as a companion animal but a pig as something we eat. It never worked for me later, I was a fledgling active conservationist and by 1990, I was trying to drive conservation as hard as I could.

“We’ve lost all those animals, we’ve lost 90 million birds from the UK countryside; 95 per cent of our collared doves, in some areas, 97 per cent of our hedgehogs – Mrs Tiggy Winkle for goodness’ sake! UK conservation as a whole will carry the badger cull as a terrible tattoo of failure for a long time. It persisted because it became a political decision, not a sciencebased one.”

How does that make you feel, I asked, that government bowing to the pressure of an agricultural lobby rather than looking at the science and by so doing, being prepared to massacre our beloved wildlife?

“It’s absolutely sickening,” Chris replied. “I was 

viva.org.uk 41

brought up always to question authority, politely and democratically, but consistently challenge it. It was really clear to me as a young teenager that anyone who had a vested interest in either keeping things the same or making them worse was someone to be feared. Again, with my magic wand, I would make one change both here and in other parts of the world – I would ban lobbying.

“We should elect people who are informed by other people who are qualified to give them best advice and it should be entirely independent. They should not be having their ears bent every five minutes by someone who has a vested interest in making large sums of money out of perpetuating suffering – and perhaps endangering our planet and our own species.”

As agriculture has become ever-more multinational, there is the old thorny question of whether we should work with global corporations and the political system or whether we should be looking for a revolution to produce a new world order?

“I haven’t seen a revolution that has ever gone particularly well, to be quite honest, so I’m really hoping that that isn’t going to happen. Even when we’ve talked

Photo © @ne3d

At what point are enough of us going to pull our heads out of the sand and say, ‘We can’t put up with any more of this’

42

life

about velvet revolutions, there’s always been a metal fist inside the velvet glove, and it hasn’t gone well. I’m up for conversation, creative progress and democratic change.”

And so we come back to the role of the individual. I wondered how important Chris thought it was for people to go vegan or at least start down the path that leads there.

“You’ve made a conscious decision to change, you’ve changed your mind. The collective impact of that is that a lot of other people have changed their minds and that’s having an impact on the market. A few years ago, there were hardly any plant-based milks but now there is sustained growth every year. That’s because people here at Vegan Camp Out, people like you and I, are making those decisions and are having an impact. That has to build our confidence that we can make a difference.

“I don’t trust (I was going to say anyone) but I don’t trust the majority of our governors, from local councils through to global conglomerates of politicians, to make those decisions for us because I consistently see them either not making any decision at all or making the wrong one. What’s quite astonishing to me is that they continue to get away with it. Then again, I can’t stand people getting away with essentially a crime and that’s what gets me out of bed five minutes earlier every day!”

You must be getting up very early then, I said. Chris laughs and says, “I try!” But what is it that he hopes for – how does he envisage Britain in, say, 20 or 30 years’ time?

“Conjuring a vision like that over the last few years has become increasingly frightening, if I’m honest with you. Significant opportunities have come and been lost.

We’ve had a global interruption with Covid-19, which has set us back, but now we need to pick ourselves up, think about how we address some of the urgent issues confronting us but in a new way, because the world has changed post-Covid.

“It is something we should have seen coming but none of us really did. We got a vaccine in less than a year and whenever we’ve been confronted with really significant problems, we’ve come up with solutions. We have that capacity. We’re really good at cure but we’re rubbish at prevention.

“Every day I see our species hurting. I see Australia on fire, North America on fire, Cyprus and Greece on fire. I see people losing their lives, their livelihoods. I see vast swathes of forest being burned. Then I see the flooding, cars floating past in London and I think, ‘Hold on people, it’s not just over there, it’s here and we’re all part of it.’ At what point are enough of us going to pull our heads out of the sand and say, ‘We can’t put up with any more of this. We’re going to change now.’ And that’s what I think will happen. I think it will get to a point where we’re sufficiently uncomfortable and change will happen.”

There is something remarkably solid about Chris Packham’s views and motivation – it’s as if the science he sets so much store by has set up home in him and when he talks, he talks fact not opinion.

I look at so many privileged TV presenters – and Richard Madeley immediately comes to mind – angrily interviewing an Extinction Rebellion activist for holding up traffic and delaying people. I think to myself that the world and all its inhabitants are in serious trouble and Madeley has never once spoken out about it and yet here he is, trying to demolish someone who is trying, essentially, to save the planet. I think to myself – ‘thank god for Chris Packham!’

With you on the journey

Just

£2.75

inc P&P

Vegan recipe service

0161 257 0887 vforlife.org.uk/shop

Virtual vegan lunch club

Lifestyle support

0161 257 0887 | vforlife.org.uk |

VfLUK

@VfL_UK

V for Life is a charity registered in England and Wales, number 1120687

MAKE SURE YOUR ENERGY SUPPLY IS ANIMAL FREE There’s a secret, shameful ingredient in the electricity that goes to millions of British homes.

Animals and animal by-products.

They can come from factory farming – animal slurry and body parts. Four of the big six energy companies and four of the leading green energy companies all have animal waste in their fuel mix.

If you care about animal welfare, this will matter to you.

To nd out if your supplier is a ected, visit ecotricity.co.uk/viva.

We’re the only energy company in the world certi ed as vegan by both the Vegan Society and Viva!.

No animals are harmed in the making of our power.

VIVA! WILL RECEIVE A £60 DONATION WHEN YOU SWITCH YOUR ELECTRICITY AND GAS 0808 123 0 123 (quote VIVA) ecotricity.co.uk/VIVA