Viva!Life Issue 82 | Winter 2022

Published

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

ON EVERY FRONT

Viva! has four sections which are displayed on our 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

Fri, 9 5) or join online at viva.org.uk/join

Not long after Viva! launched 28 years ago, a generous donor said that one reason she loved to support us was because we punched well above our weight Although now constantly growing, we are still (comparative to the meat industry!) small and guess what? We’re still punching above our weight!

We have launched so many initiatives in the last quarter, including our undercover investigators’ shocking exposé of what’s called zero grazing Dairy cows are kept in filthy sheds for their entire lives and denied all that’s natural to them, their babies and even grazing (page seven). Over the coming months, we will be exposing this cruel trend towards intensive dairy farming and the headline names that are funding it

On page 10, I am delighted that we get a look behind the headline achievements of my friend and Viva! Patron, Heather Mills, to discover the real person She really has had an incredible life and there is still a lot more to come

We have long criticised the RSPCA for its promotion of meat, fish and dairy, even when they come from factory farms. An RSPCA former branch trustee, Martin Whybrow, has tackled the organisation head on, demanding to know how they can justify their position On page 12 he reports on the outcome.

Our Viva! La Burger Tour No3 has successfully taken burger tasting to the East of England, while talking to consumers about the environmental imperative of changing to a kind diet (page 14) Long queues formed everywhere we went while staff and volunteers chatted into receptive ears. A huge success!

Some schools encourage their young students to rear and care for farmed animals before sending them off to slaughter. It is designed to stamp out natural care and compassion and erodes young people’s innate kindness, preparing them for a life as meat eaters It is unacceptable and with the aid of Boris, a rescued pig, we are doing all we can to stop it (page 17)

There is a desperate need to act quickly to rescue global wildlife from further catastrophe and so we went on the road with our Wildlife Week of Action, offering people an effective rescue plan a change in their diet Equally successful was our Freshers’ Fair Week, in which we spoke to new university students about their role in a troubled world (page 26) And we extended our hand to livestock farmers to help them transition to new forms of agriculture with surprising results (page 40).

A brilliant idea that has shot around the world is our campaign for restaurant menus to carry a carbon count for each of the items on their menus (page 25). This simple idea has caught the global mood and we will be pursuing it

And lastly, after long and tortuous negotiations, our multi award winning documentary, HOGWOOD a modern horror story is now being streamed on Netflix and can be viewed free of charge for those with an account. View it, tell your friends, tell your relatives and then view it again to get it into the top 10!

Yours for the animals

Juliet Gellatley

Founder & International 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

Viva! Founder & International Director Juliet Gellatley

EA to Directors & Publications Manager Jess Nagji Nunn

Editor Tony Wardle

Managing Director & Head of Campaigns Laura Hellwig

Head of Investigations Lex Rigby

Head of Communications Faye Lewis

Public Relations Manager Rachel Stone

Campaigns & Outreach

Rory Cockshaw, Jasmine Clark, Dani Lawton, Jo Dixon, Kerri Waters

Head of Research Dr Justine Butler

Viva! Health Veronika Prošek Charvátová

Office Manager & Supporters’ Liaison Laura Turner, Beata Rzepecka Wilk, Renata Rzepecka

Bookkeeping & Legacies Administrator Carla Sheppard

Merchandise, Business & Events Emily Coster, Charlotte Heath, Lucy Constable

Food & Cookery and VRC Maryanne Hall, Pia Werzinger

Company Ltd

i Zaldívar,

Haines, Jeremy Ludlow, Thilak Kumaraswamy

Rigby

lifelines Caring Doctors

‘End factoryfarming!’

First we had Caring Vets, then Caring Farmers and now we have Caring Doctors “A disaster for people, animals and nature”, said Caring Doctors talking about factory farming in their launch manifesto, which 150 doctors signed up to in the first two weeks of the initiative

Their aim is to make healthcare workers aware of the damaging consequences of the sky high consumption of meat and dairy Founder Patrick Deckers, an orthopaedic surgeon in Limburg, Holland, made clear society’s ridiculous contradictions

“It is strange that patients with colon cancer can order beef sausage in the hospital restaurant when we know that red meat can cause cancer Meat contains many harmful substances and there’s a range of diseases that are partly the result of a diet animal protein, including obe cardiovascular disease, diabe osteoporosis and neurologic problems

“Meat and dairy contain a saturated fats, but also dioxin and microplastics These harm substances are also found in foods, but to a much lesser e

After a huge amount of work behind the scenes, Viva!’s multi award winning documentary, HOGWOOD a modern horror story, was premiered on Netflix on October 15, 2022

Joining the world’s largest streaming service will allow HOGWOOD to reach millions more people and drive home the fact that we need to end factory farming before it ends us

It was your donations that enabled us to produce this truly memorable film and we thank you sincerely for that Between us, we have now ensured that HOGWOOD can be seen around the world.

It’s important that as many people as possible view it and you can help with that. Watch HOGWOOD and tell your friends, family and neighbours about it You could even hold a ‘watch’ party! And, of course, give it a ‘thumbs up ’ on Netflix.

We are looking at showing the film mid to late January in Leicester Square and it will hopefully be introduced by the narrator, Jerome Flynn depending on his availability We will also be showing it at Clevedon’s famous Curzon cinema

Greggs vegan reward

Greggs has announced it’s giving its customers a free Vegan Sausage R Vegan Sausage, Bean and Cheeze Melt, accompanied by a regular hot until January 2023, in return for downloading their vegan menu app.

Greggs have also expanded their vegan range with a Vegan Hot So Fried Chicken Baguette sandwich. Selling at £3.40, its filling is vegan c goujons, vegan cheddar slices, red onion and chipotle chilli sauce

He also raised fears about of animal products in creatin potential new viral pandemic

Read all about it

Vegan Sustainability is a new, free, online quarterly magazine for vegans and non vegans worldwide who are interested in the environment and sustainability t i bilit

lifelines

Farmers

fighting to the death

The slaughter of up to 17 million mink was ordered by the Danish government in November 2020 after a mutated Covid variant was found in some farms in the north of the country After the order was given, farmers appeared on TV in tears over the loss of their livelihoods, blocked streets with tractor protests and upsetting images of mass graves in the Danish countryside, filled with slaughtered animals

A political furore followed and it was declared that there was no legal justification for prime minister Mette Frederiksen’s decision and mink farmers were awarded $3 billion in compensation. To avoid a vote of no confidence, Frederiksen has called a general election for this November

THE IRISH TOO

The Irish Farmers Association also sent tractors into battle, this time on the streets of Dublin, in a protest against the government’s Climate Action Plan Farmers have no intention of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the 22 to 30 per cent demanded

AND THE DUTCH

Tractors were also the battle wagons of Dutch farmers as they demonstrated against government plans to cut agriculture’s nitrous oxide and ammonia emissions by 50 per cent. It ended in running battles and agriculture minister Henk Staghouwer was forced to resign Saving the world is not going to be easy!

Markets aren’t always right

As veganism grows, so does the intensification of farming and meat and dairy production, driven by investment companies. Between 2015 and 2020, global meat and dairy companies received more than US$478bn in backing from 2,500 investment firms, banks, and pension funds, most of them based in North America or Europe

Meat production could increase by a further 40m tonnes by 2029, to hit 366m tonnes of meat a year, with the biggest producers being China, Brazil, the USA and members of the European Union

In Brazil alone, 175m hectares is dedicated to raising cattle, an area of land about equal to the entire agricultural area of the European Union So much for ‘markets’ always being right

Hooray for Haarlem

In what may be a world first, the city of Haarlem in The Netherlands is set to ban most meat ads from public spaces because of its climate impact The proposal is drafted by the Green Party and is opposed by the meat industry because they say it stifles free speech Interesting, given that the EU meat industry attempted to ban vegan foods from being called steaks, burgers, sausages or milk!

“We cannot tell people that there is a climate crisis and then encourage them to buy products that are part of it,” said Ziggy Klazes, a green councillor “Unacceptable violation of entrepreneurial freedom,” said the right wing BVNL party

New

–

brewed milk

A new animal free milk promising to be more sustainable than dairy but with near identical taste could hit supermarket shelves in the next two years It is the development of Australian company Eden Brew, whose founder, Jim Fader, says he’s found a way to replicate the process of making milk that happens inside dairy cows It involves inserting synthetic cow DNA into yeast to form a protein known as a casein micelle, the ‘essential building block’ for cow ’ s milk These proteins are then brewed, filtered and dried ready to be rehydrated and turned into animal free dairy products It will be brewed centrally then shipped to dairy companies across the world, who will rehydrate and sell it in the usual way.

ZERO GRAZING THAT SHAMES US ALL

Zero grazing is the latest twist in intensive dairy farming that takes cruelty to a new level It stems from precisely the same logic that led to pregnant sows being held in tiny crates for almost their entire lives this cruelty ended only by persistent campaigning by animal rights organisations So here we go again!

Dairy cows have already been denied the right to mother and rear their babies and this new system imposes yet more welfare insults upon them they are denied the right ever to go outside, to graze on grass, to socialise, to feel the elements or the warmth of the sun Instead, they are fed ‘cattle fodder’ while crammed into huge confinement operations that reduce them to nothing more than production units. We know because Viva!’s investigators have been inside several of these shameful places.

The already short and gruelling lives of dairy cows are made even more hellish by artificially lit, cramped conditions while being denied anything that is natural to them. As with other dairy systems, any mother baby bond is not permitted as every mother has her baby taken away within 48 hours of birth. One of the farms our investigators visited shows no glimmer of guilt and openly refers to the system as ‘snatch calving’, where the calves are taken the moment they’re born It’s impossible to justify it, to excuse it or to sanction it as this incomprehensible cruelty is nothing less than torture

The outcome is entirely predictable for all the animals involved increased stress, higher rates of disease and more suffering in a broken system intent solely on producing higher milk yields and increased profits.

The UK is the thirteenth largest milk producer in the world, churning out 15.2 billion litres in 2021. This huge volume puts incredible strain on cows, with the average yield per animal having risen from 4,100 litres in 1975 to 8,200 litres in 2021 a daily output of 27 litres (48 pints).

As the global human population continues to grow (estimated to reach 9.5 billion by 2050), there has been

a disturbing rise in the number of zero grazing units, hoping to cash in on an increased demand. Despite this increase, it is reported that consumption in the UK is on a downward trend minus 1.6 per cent this year and forecast to decline by two per cent next year (Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board AHDB) Arla, the UK’s biggest producer, blames vegans for the decline We can live with that! In the US, dairy sales are starting to collapse too

The zero grazing model originated in the US, with the introduction of ‘mega farms’ but it is increasingly being adopted here and in Europe The percentage of Danish dairy cattle being permanently locked indoors increased from 16 per cent to 70 per cent between 2001 and the present. It’s a similar story in the Netherlands less than 10 per cent in 1992 to almost 30 per cent now It’s estimated that between eight and 16 per cent of the UK’s 8,040 dairy farms are now zero grazed Viva!’s investigators went inside three of the largest in the country and their shocking findings confirm that these large scale, factory dairy farms must be banned. 

B Y F A Y E L E W I S , H E A D O F C O M M U N I C A T I O N S

Viva! exposes the abject cruelty that is zero grazing

They say that the first thing to hit you is the sheer size and scale of these ‘farms’ their massive, steel framed buildings and towering feed silos casting a dark shadow across the surrounding countryside These places are monuments to round the clock misery and no one could view them objectively and see them as natural

The story was the same on each unit row upon row of abused, malnourished, skeletal cows forced to produce unnatural quantities of milk, many lame from the excessive size of their udders, separated from their babies after birth. There were between 1,300 and 2,500 dairy cows in each place

Three times a day these poor animals are taken to the sterile, mechanised milking parlours, where machines suck the milk from their already swollen udders. Forced impregnation continues every year to keep the milk flowing even while they’re nourishing a growing baby inside them Of course, malnutrition is inevitable as is exhaustion, disease and heartbreak Their lives are a relentless regime lined up in rows, standing on concrete, excreta washed away from around them while their bodies slowly die

Control, surveillance, the replacement of natural rhythms by timed feeds and lack of any meaningful interaction between animals is how they have to live There is no empathy, just battery farming on a huge scale for dairy cows There is no hope, no end in sight for these poor mothers other than the day they are taken to the slaughterhouse

In one instance, during the investigation, a mother lay on the ground, barely able to raise her head, depressed and in pain, while behind her a pool of her own diseased, vaginal discharge oozed onto the concrete This is simply collateral damage, as is mastitis, bacterial infections, increased lameness and depression all more prevalent in zero grazing outfits, according to the European Food Safety Authority

Over the years, we’ve shattered the myth that animal farming is some kind of rural idyll but these industrialised behemoths pedal cruelty and suffering on a mass scale Zero grazing farms are a bleak insight into the kind of future most dairy cows will face if we don’t stop them.

One of the worst sights was the sheer number of calves separated from their mothers, feeding from mechanised bottles, utterly devoid of any kind of mothering or nurturing their eyes so sad and innocent. Fresh grass and rolling hills so close to where they are imprisoned simply adds insult to injury.

g farm in Cheshire, the workers openly talk about the practice of ‘snatch calving’ the second the calf is born he or she is snatched from the mother: a disgusting, twisted violation of motherhood

Following this emotional separation, newborn calves are placed in isolated hutches where the law allows them to be confined for the next eight weeks, when they are supposed to be moved to a nursery to play and socialise with other calves During our investigation we found 12 week old calves confined in isolation in violation of the law

As demand in the UK decreases, producers attempt to extract every penny of profit they can from their herds, throwing welfare to the wind as if it was of no consequence It is hard to understand the mentality of those who originally conceived such places and those who now operate them. They have been calloused and hardened to suffering but we haven’t We have them in our sights and will do everything we can to ensure as many people as possible see the reality that is camouflaged by the sickening slogan ‘The best animal welfare in the world’

Their forever home! These stinking barns are where dairy cows will live out their entire lives No fields, no grass, no grazing never again allowed to behave like cows

A LIFE IS A LIFE

Birmingham billboard campaign causes controversy with trophy hunting images

Viva! billboards caused Birmingham residents to stop and think when they were confronted with images of farmed animals as trophy kills They were the result of a collaboration between Viva! and award winning advertising giants, McCann, whose creative artwork highlighted the hypocrisy of animal slaughter The designs went up in central Birmingham on World Day for the End of Speciesism (August 28, 2022)

The photo campaign featured a series of images in the style of infamous trophy hunting photographs, which always elicit a huge response The death of Cecil the lion, for example, caused global outrage when he was hunted and killed by an American dentist who paid $50,000 to shoot him with an arrow. An onslaught of people, including celebrities and public figures, used whatever platforms they had to register disgust at the murder of Cecil while remaining tight lipped on the everyday killing of millions of animals for food.

To be vehemently enraged at the death of a lion while still eating meat is a blatant example of speciesism: the practice of treating members of one species as morally more important than those of a different species Speciesism is heavily ingrained in our society but Viva! encourages people to think twice about it, the first step to eradicating it

Capturing this hypocrisy, the artwork replicates traditional trophy hunting images but instead of showing the usual victims of rhinos, zebras and lions, they are replaced with cows, pigs and sheep. These eye catching designs started conversations and challenged people to reconsider why they don’t treat all animals with similar respect

We featured them strongly on Viva!’s social media accounts to an audience of many thousands

B Y R A C H E L S T O N E , P U B L I C R E L A T I O N S M A N A G E R

The one and only Heather Mills

Heather Mills is one of those people who is endlessly positive and doesn’t like looking back because there’s still too much to do! This drive has seen her succeed as a model, businesswoman, athlete, campaigner and vegan influencer and she is a patron of Viva! She was, of course, also married to Paul McCartney

I don’t want to dwell on this, as there is far more to her life, but events surrounding the divorce had a monumental impact Thousands of ‘news’ stories were published about her, nearly all spiteful, made up, insulting and cruel and much of it of a sexual nature Paparazzi parked permanently outside her house while the police looked the other way and she was even assaulted by a photographer

I’m old enough to remember that Paul’s first wife, Linda, also came in for some pretty disgusting attention from the press so the only lesson you can draw from it is never marry a Beatle

When the onslaught was at its height, I picked Heather up from Bristol Temple Meads station to drive her to our fundraising dinner on Clifton Downs. Traffic made it a slow journey and so we chatted I had recently finished a four part series on sexual harassment in the workplace for BBC2, in the course of which I had interviewed some 30 women (and a couple of men) who had experienced it

There was a commonality about their experiences and the impact it had on them and I was alarmed to identify similar traits in Heather confusion, doubt, self blame and a feeling of powerlessness The difference was that she had not been sexually harassed by a work colleague but by the media establishment of an entire nation.

As she was about to address our dinner guests, I said: “You don’t have to do this!” She politely ignored me and stood at the mic Her speech was fluent, flawless, entertaining and humorous and was met with thunderous applause To use a hackneyed old phrase, I was gobsmacked.

Because of shared childcare arrangements, Heather couldn’t escape the frenzy entirely but commuted to Austria for half the week for some 10 years But what do you do when you’ve split from a national icon go wild, bedeck yourself in jewelery and fine clothes to show you don’t care? Not Heather she bought a factory in Corby! And for me, that just about sums her up nothing pretentious just a grand plan to initiate and taking over Redwood Foods was the first step in building a global vegan food brand Today, it’s called VBites, has grown enormously and its 130 products sell to 24 countries

As part of this expansion, Heather bought

B Y T O N Y W A R D L E ( I N C L U D I N G I N T E R V I E W S B Y V I V A !

P O D C A S T P R E S E N T E R S , F A Y E L E W I S A N D L E X R I G B Y )

Heather Mills the fastest disabled woman on skis with the three gold medals she was awarded

the enormous, 300,000 square foot ex Coty factory at Seaton Delaval in Northumberland to try and establish a plant based manufacturing hub, which even Boris Johnson was interested enough to visit when prime minister Heather invited me to speak at the opening and confided that she had sunk everything she had into it “What happens if it all goes pear shaped?” I asked. “I’ve got a campervan parked around the back,” she laughed As she was hurried away to an interview, she looked back with half a smile on her face: “I mean it!” And I believed her because fear just doesn’t constrain her.

This wasn’t her first business venture, however As a young woman, she had started a bra company whose products offered support to the big busted and which she eventually sold at a very tidy profit, so she’s pretty business savvy

Heather is also a superb skier and that love began in the former Yugoslavia

“I was out there with my then husband’s ex wife and kids (I got on better with her than I did with him) and we all went skiing and I loved it I came back home, divorced, then returned to Ljubljana to ski and got a bedsit. My friends were Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian, all in love and enjoying life and then the Serbian tanks rolled in and everything fell apart I ferried some of them across the border beneath the guns of the tanks and I got through simply because I had British registration plates on my car.” Heather was just 22!

This incursion led to an appallingly cruel war and Heather became involved in setting up a refugee crisis centre in London and in Yugoslavia She began campaigning against landmines, having seen the impact her mother’s leg amputation had had

In an almost unbelievable twist of irony, Heather came back to England “I crossed a street in Kensington and a police motorcycle crashed into me, chopped off my leg, crushed my pelvis and punctured my lung ” If a doctor had not been passing at the exact moment, she would almost certainly have died

There followed months in hospital, while she was put back together like a Meccano set and with a stump that would not heal After two ‘revision’ amputations slicing off a little more of her stump to effectively start again Heather discharged herself and headed off to the Hippocrates Institute in Florida on the recommendation of a friend, with its vegan ethos, wheat grass, raw sprouts and garlic poultices

“When I first saw the food and tasted it, I thought, ‘this is disgusting’ because I was a sausage and mash Geordie girl but when you’re in the state I was, you’ll try anything Incredibly, I came back home after about seven weeks and was walking on a prosthetic leg.”

The first prosthetic she received wasn’t suitable: “I was too

impatient After just seven weeks, your leg’s too big and I had to ask them to change the socket The technician said he couldn’t and they’d have to bin it I was shocked because it must have cost a huge amount of money

“I discovered there were about 67,000 amputees in the UK at that time and many had spare prosthetics in the cupboard. I started a scheme to get hold of them and have them recycled and updated in prisons It came as a shock when they were sent to my house and I had arms and legs sticking out of all the cupboards and drawers Anyone who came to dinner must have thought I was Hannibal Lecter!”

But it worked and truckloads of prosthetic limbs were transported to the Zagreb Prosthetic Institute and some 27,000 people had their lives improved Working with the United Nations, that number turned into hundreds of thousands In 2002, now married to Paul, the couple were honoured with the UNA USA first Global Humanitarian Action Award for work on focusing world attention on the problem of landmines.

Much of Heather’s history has been covered in the media and in her own books, A Single Step and Out on a Limb so the facts are pretty well known it’s the Heather behind the facts that interests me.

Her upbringing in Washington, Tyne and Wear, was tumultuous: “My dad was abusive and violent and my mother ran away and left us all when I was nine she simply didn’t have anywhere to take us so we were left to cope by ourselves I was just relieved that she’d escaped the violence ”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 42

Heather flat out at over 100mph in her record breaking run

I wanted to counter the bullsh*t that if you ’ re vegan you ’ re weak and feeble and so I decided on a down-hill speed record

Martin Whybrow and Animal

Rebellion in their peaceful occupation of the RSPCA’s Horsham headquarters

RSPCA Part of the problem not the cure

Former RSPCA branch trustee, longstanding Viva! supporter and animal rights activist, Martin Whybrow, looks at why the RSPCA needs to change

What’s not to like about the world’s oldest and largest animal welfare charity, the RSPCA? Well, rather a lot, it turns out

The charity is nearing its 200th anniversary and somewhere over the years it has lost its way The founders were courageous individuals, breaking new ground, and the Society desperately needs to rekindle that spirit.

The RSPCA has a lot of critics among individuals and animal welfare organisations (not least Viva!, which has long been on its case) but who really should be allies The fact that it is impossible to imagine the RSPCA taking part in the National Animal Rights March is a reflection of the problems.

On the ground, the Society does a lot of good work in countering animal cruelty and rescuing wildlife, which is why I was a trustee of my local branch for four years This was in spite of its central policies, which involved me spending time defending my involvement, particularly to fellow vegans

The facts are that the RSPCA is propping up the meat, dairy and fish industries; it does not advocate for a plant based future which, as we know, is essential; and its woeful RSPCA Assured scheme provides a gloss of respectability for these deeply damaging industries. Despite what many people think, the ‘Assurance’ scheme label is carried by meat from factory farmed animals and not just free range

The scheme charges hatcheries, farms, hauliers and abattoirs an annual membership fee and it also charges food manufacturers a licence fee to use the RSPCA Assured label Income from the scheme for 2020 was over £3.6 million.

I hadn’t realised just how low the bar was set until I looked into one set of its standards: RSPCA Welfare Standards for Meat Chickens [sic] (last updated July 2017) The 96 page document states: “As a guide, flock sizes should not exceed 30,000 birds for indoor systems and 15,000 for free range systems ” That’s bad enough but note the words “as a guide” the policy documents are full of such vague phrases

However, on density of birds, the document is clear. For indoor chickens, to gain the RSPCA Assured certification, farms are able to have up to 19 chickens per square metre For free range, the indoor space specification is 13 chickens per square metre (just try and visualise that!) As the document states, the latter figure is required by law so in other words, the RSPCA does not even demand higher standards that the legal minimum in this instance

The low bar is also reflected in the fact that the majority of Scottish salmon farms are RSPCA Assured, contributing to the green wash around a toxic industry that is a disaster for animal welfare, human health and the environment. (Viva!’s exposé of Scottish trout and salmon farming revealed the devastating impact that lice have on most farms). This isn’t mentioned in its adverts for farmed salmon when it says: “How many farm animals do you know with their own Olympic sized swimming pool?” This obscene marketing hype ignores the fact that these animals would naturally swim thousands of miles every year in open water

There is also the biodiversity crises. It is impossible to meet targets needed to limit global heating without the shift to a plant based food system Already, millions of humans and animals are suffering and dying from the effects of extreme climate Meat farming is a major contributor but is also the main, or a leading, cause of deforestation, biodiversity loss and water shortages

How can a charity that aspires to end all animal cruelty operate policies that contribute to animal welfare abuses and the destruction of wildlife?

The latest group to have the RSPCA in its sights is Animal Rebellion. I was one of three representatives to travel to the RSPCA’s palatial corporate HQ in Horsham earlier this year where we met two senior managers to press for the RSPCA to publicly support transition to a plant based food system.

One of those alongside me was Jane Tredgett, a former vice-chair of the National RSPCA and former board member of RSPCA Assured, who has been fighting for years for the RSPCA to ditch its support for animal farming.

We spent two hours in a friendly conversation, sitting in the canteen area of the HQ – a canteen that, by the way, isn’t plant-based. Employees can spend their working days seeking to improve animal welfare and then come and eat animals in their lunch break.

We wanted the Society to make the RSPCA Assured scheme redundant as part of the transition to a plantbased future. It seemed clear that if the Society doesn’t change it will die. Volunteers and members are growing older and branches are struggling as a consequence. The HQ has already been sold as part of widespread costcutting and surely it cannot attract young people when it is so out of touch with what a cruelty-free world should look like.

When it finally arrived, the corporate reply wasn’t worth the paper it was written on: “We are members of the Eating Better Alliance and we call for government and intergovernmental action on reducing farm animal numbers, and run an Eat Less and Eat Better campaign. We identify animal agriculture as a leading cause of the climate crisis –though our priority is of course on animal welfare.” As though the climate crisis and animal welfare are mutually exclusive! Despite this, they’re not telling people to stop eating meat.

And as for RSPCA Assured? “Following a recent review we have set out a programme to ensure it reaches a higher proportion of farm animals.” It hardly suggests that the RSPCA is planning to raise its required standards –how underwhelming is this?

As the next phase in Animal Rebellion’s campaign, more than 40 individuals occupied the RSPCA’s HQ on May 8, 2022, with Jane Tredgett again present –a former RSPCA animal welfare officer who quit because she could not support its policies.

It was a peaceful occupation and we even brought vegan food for some of the staff. Despite police being present at Horsham station and at the RSPCA HQ, we were there for a full working day, spreading our message to staff and generating local, national and social media coverage.

Other actions will follow, alongside Animal

Rebellion’s major actions to stop the dairy industry, and we are really hopeful that the RSPCA can be dragged into the 21st century. It has to realise that the climate and biodiversity crises are here now and it can no longer bury its corporate head in the sand. It also has to end its complicity in animal farming, not propping it up.

Insiders claim there is a change of culture within the RSPCA and new senior staff are working for change from the inside. It is pressure from everyone that is likely to ensure that change will happen.

Just imagine how powerful it will be to have the world’s oldest and largest animal welfare charity advocating for a plantbased future.

The RSPCA offers the public ‘assurances’ about the state of fish in over 70 per cent of Scotland’s lice-ridden trout salmon and trout farms

It has to realise that the climate and biodiversity crises are here now and it can no longer bury its corporate head in the sand

BURGERS BACK ON TOUR

with their new smash hit

…

Eating the Earth

B Y J A S M I N E C L A R K , E N V I R O N M E N T C A M P A I G N E R

Right: Pop up stands placed around the van to raise awareness of how important wildlife is for humanity’s survival Below: the Viva! La Burger tour van

Viva!’s third, Viva! La Burger Tour wowed six cities with our vital new wildlife campaign Eating the Earth! With its wonderfully eye catching campaign branding, our burger van headed out around the East of England with a very clear call to action choose vegan to save the world’s wildlife! Queues of people heard the message as they waited for their delicious, free, Moving Mountain burgers and learnt just how tasty and kinder to the planet vegan alternatives are

We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, with one million species now under threat Viva!’s Eating the Earth campaign reveals that at the heart of this critical problem is a massive global demand for meat, dairy, fish and eggs. The amount of land needed to feed the livestock involved is extraordinary 83 per cent of the world’s farmland, to be exact.

People were shocked to learn about the devastating consequences their diet has on the planet and its wildlife, some saying that as animal lovers, they could not continue to justify eating meat and dairy

Alongside our striking burger van, we had an arsenal of poignant campaign materials to hammer home our key campaign message, that eating meat, dairy, fish and eggs is the number one driver of wildlife extinction It was hard for passers by to miss our hard hitting campaign film which we projected on the side of an imposing video van. The film encouraged shoppers to focus on the absurdity of eating meat and dairy when the world is facing climate and ecological crises.

These alarming, but crucial, campaign messages resonated with many of those with whom we talked, opening their eyes to the deadly reality of eating meat

and dairy. Terry, from Southend on Sea, expressed amazement that we were talking of things he never knew even existed People found our message that we are now in the sixth mass extinction extremely worrying

While the information we impart is certainly concerning, we make sure in all our conversations to stress that there is a simple but positive solution to both disappearing wildlife and our collapsing planet Importantly, this solution also alleviates the suffering of farmed animals across the world. And it’s so simple go vegan! It was Terry’s first ever taste of a vegan burger but it wouldn’t be his last they will now become his first choice!

The six cities we visited were Southend on Sea, Ipswich, Norwich, Cambridge, Peterborough and

Leicester All but one were new locations for Viva!, allowing us to reach new audiences and, with the coverage from local media, present vegan foods in a positive light

In all venues, the queues never seemed to end and people loved the campaign (and the burgers) and at times lined almost the entire high streets. With the free sample burgers, many had their first taste of vegan food and were introduced to the benefits of a vegan lifestyle.

Over the six days, we handed out around 1,500 burgers and had countless conversations about wildlife loss, a collapsing environment, farmed animal abuse and the one thing that can solve it all veganism. We also helped people along on their vegan journey

A sign of the times was that people were overwhelmingly positive; loving the information we gave them and loving the burgers, with many declaring them to be better than meat burgers We even bumped into our good friend Hench Herbivore, who highlighted how veganism is really a no brainer: “We gain, the planet gains and the animals gain”

This burger tour was carried out during one of this year’s sweltering heatwaves, a glaring example of what we were telling people about the climate catastrophe and a taster of much worse to come It provided the backdrop to many of our conversations.

With a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions coming from animal agriculture, the need for immediate diet change is self evident One woman from Southend on Sea told us how, after eating meat for most of her life, she now intends to switch to plant based food for the sake of her two grandchildren and their future.

If the ‘why go vegan’ is obvious, the ‘how to do it’ is less so and this was a big focus of the tour. Staff and volunteers shared examples of simple swaps available on the market using our ‘Burger Swap’ board listing a range of burgers, who makes them and where they can be bought

Local press latched on to our innovative campaign, with 11 different titles covering it Suffolk News thought that parking a vegan van in the middle of Cornhill (essentially the town centre) was a ‘bold’ move We pride ourselves on being bold, with street actions that grab people’s attention and help to bring about change

In every city we were joined by passionate and essential volunteers, who provided the necessary numbers needed to talk to so many shoppers. A big thank you to them!

Right: Members of the Norwich public enjoying their Moving Mountains burgers

Left: Ipswich couple learning about the positive impacts vegan food has for the world’s wildlife

Left: Viva! environment campaigner showcasing our promotional posters

Charity

Boris is a Pig

Boris is a handsome chap who loves apples and charms everyone he meets. He lives at Millington’s Magical Barn sanctuary where he has other pig mates. But it could have been very different!

In September 2021, Boris was just a piglet when he arrived at Kingsmead School near Taunton Not intended as a companion, he had been bought by the school to be raised by its pupils so they could “learn where meat comes from” Understandably, the children fell in love with Boris and formed close attachments

But in June 2022, many were devastated when the school announced that Boris would be heading to the slaughterhouse to be killed for meat It sparked a local campaign to save Boris, spearheaded by Viva! supporter and vegan activist Paul Youd (featured in the last edition of Viva!life for his long distance, fund raising running). Working with fellow activist, Kevin Doherty, Paul raised a wadge of money and at the eleventh hour, when the slaughterhouse beckoned, school headmaster Mark Williams agreed to sell Boris to the pair for £500. Taunton couple Rhi and Matt Swain took Boris in before a forever home was found at Millington’s, where he will live out the rest of his life

Boris is not an isolated case there are over 120 school farms in the UK, many with animals who will end up being killed for meat Inspired by Boris’s story, Viva! has launched a petition to ban schools from farming animals

It is stating the obvious to say that this practice causes huge conflict and anxiety in children, who are encouraged to care for animals and then have that bond brutally destroyed It is a calculated attempt to eliminate their feelings of compassion and their innate desire to care by presenting the ‘real world’ as inevitable.

Of course it causes distress and confusion over the morality of killing animals for food and needlessly takes the lives of animals but it also lies to children Some 85 per cent of animals farmed in the UK are confined in stinking, overcrowded factory farms and none who are killed for meat are farmed as they are in schools. It does not teach children where their food comes from but presents a cruel fairy tale

The practice clearly encourages meat consumption when the science tells us that meat is linked to serious diseases such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers Processed meat, such as bacon and sausages, is a Group 1 carcinogen (the same category as tobacco smoking and asbestos) and red meat a Group 2A carcinogen, meaning it probably causes cancer too.

We now know beyond doubt that animal agriculture is responsible for around 20 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions and is a main cause of global wildlife loss and environmental destruction. As young people are the driving force behind attempts to save out collapsing planet, encouraging them to think that eating animals is normal is not only misguided and destructive, it is a betrayal of their future.

B Y R A C H E L S T O N E , P R M A N A G E R

wiLDLiFe A TIME FOR ACTION

Environment campaigner, Jasmine Clark, reports on a nationwide week of events that put wildlife centre stage

In front of vegan restaurants, in town squares, at food festivals and from our dining room tables, Viva! supporters rallied together and took action to help save wildlife and end animal suffering this September

Vegan groups across the UK got involved from Glasgow city’s streets all the way to rural Redruth in Cornwall to celebrate vegan food and show how it is a key solution to the climate and ecological crises that face us

In Stoke on Trent, animal rights activists made that connection while handing out a variety of free vegan food samples, including Applewood Vegan Smoky Cheese Alternative and meat substitutes from Aldi’s extensive Plant Menu range. Vegan food samples were a popular focal point of most stalls

In a Cornwall village, Marie and her partner held not one but five outreach events, all with a different theme, to showcase the amazing diversity of vegan cuisine They held a pizza night, summer picnic, a curry night, afternoon tea and ended with a plant based BBQ Attendance was phenomenal, with word of mouth drawing in the curious who wanted to try vegan food for the first time many asking for the recipes!

Inspired by the reception these events received, the couple have set up a Facebook page and website called ee vegan food great education ure on our planet

Viva!’s Wildlife Week of Action brought together seasoned activists and newcomers, who had never before got involved in public outreach In Cambridge, supporters Ben and Luong held two stalls one in collaboration with Resist Vegan Kitchen, who supplied excellent food samples for their event Ben was a newbie but found it all so positive that it encouraged him to plan a Veganuary push for his workplace.

Stratford upon Avon’s event gained traction in local newspapers after holding a stall as part of the annual food festival, impressively putting vegan food and activism on the map in a historically meat and dairy heavy area The stall got a lot of footfall and positive responses, with Mayor Gill Cleeve, herself a passionate vegan, getting involved and helping to raise awareness of the impact meat and dairy are having on wild animals.

Viva! staff joined with local volunteers to help change hearts and minds of Bristolians by giving out cheese samples with some rdinarily positive results Other elping to empower the public this Week of Action included ool, Coventry and Scarborough, all utilising Viva!’s cks and support materials e was also an active, daily online presence to ome our crucial messages After asking people to e door droppers (posting leaflets through oxes) there was a surge in requests for packs of ting the Earth leaflet the week didn’t stop there! We were busy ng on the ‘why’ it is vital that we make the switch gan diet on Viva!’s social media channels, using ching infographics and sharing the heartbreaking of wildlife threatened with extinction due to dairy, fish and eggs demand week of action brought activists from all walks of ether and showcased that with empowering es and good food the public are receptive to talking veganism Together we will continue fighting for the and all the animals who reside on it.

Top: Stratford upon Avon outreach stall at the town’s food festival Middle: Bristol stall staffed by volunteers ready to talk to the public Bottom: Coventry’s outreach stall giving away free vegan cheese samples

Here’s to a

Merry Viva! Vegan

Of course we want you to have a wonderful Christmas this year so we ’ ve created the perfect festive spread as a contribution! All the recipes are gluten free (or gluten free adaptable) so everyone can enjoy our tasty suggestions These recipes are merely a sample of what we have to offer so if you’d like lots more side dishes, starters, mains or desserts then visit veganrecipeclub org uk/christmas for inspiration

We can’t wait to hear how much you like our brilliant Rebel Recipes’ Squash, Chestnut and Hazelnut Roast Wreath full of all the best veg, chestnuts and fresh herbs There’s a baked cauliflower steak recipe which is perfect as either a main or as a side dish and it’s a real crowd pleaser!

Squash, Chestnut and Hazelnut Nut Roast Wreath

A fantastic centrepiece for your festive feast squash, chestnut and hazelnut roast wreath, packed with flavour and looks amazing, too

GUEST CHEF RECIPE REBEL RECIPES

REBELRECIPES.COM

PREP TIME 20 MINUTES

COOK TIME 40 MINUTES

SERVES 10 12

l 2 large onions, roughly chopped

l 2 tbsp olive oil

l 4 cloves garlic, minced

l 1 small squash or ½ butternut squash, peeled and cut into small cubes

l 100g mushrooms, finely chopped

l 2 big handfuls of kale

l 300g hazelnuts

l 4 tbsp pine nuts, toasted or pumpkin seeds

l 4 tbsp sunflower seeds, toasted

l 180g chestnuts, chopped

l 2 tbsp tamari (or soy sauce)

l 4 tbsp nutritional yeast

l 2 tbsp vegan Worcester sauce

l 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard

l 1 tsp sea salt

l Zest of 1 lemon

l Black pepper

l 1 tbsp maple syrup

l 2 tbsp fresh thyme, chopped

l 3 tbsp olive oil

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

2 Add onion and oil to a medium pan and fry gently on low heat until soft and browning (around 10 minutes)

3 Add garlic and fry for a further minute

4 Add squash and mushrooms and fry for 10 minutes until soft Stir in kale and turn off heat when wilted.

5 Toast hazelnuts, sunflower seeds and pine nuts in a dry pan until slightly golden Add to a food processor and pulse a few times

6 Now add them to the pan along with all the remaining ingredients except the chestnuts Stir to combine

7 Chop chestnuts roughly and add them to the pan

8 Stir everything to combine

9 Transfer mix to a medium greased bundt tin I used a silicone one as it’s easier to remove the nut roast

10 Press mix down firmly into the tin

11 Bake for 40 minutes until a little brown on top

12 Allow to cool then carefully flip onto a plate

13 Top with vegetable crisps, herbs, etc.

The Hazelnut Roast Wreath is the creation of Niki Webster, an award winning blogger, cookbook author and podcast host The wholesome simplicity, vibrancy, flavours and colours of vegetables is what first inspired her

Niki launched her blog, Rebel Recipes, in 2015 and it’s been an international triumph ever since, spawning four superb plant based cookbooks Rebel Recipes, Be More Vegan, My Vegan Year and Rainbow Bowls Follow Niki on Instagram

@rebelrecipes or via rebelrecipes.com

B Y M A R Y A N N E H A L L , F O O D A N D C O O K E R Y M A N A G E R

Cauliflower Steaks

These cauliflower steaks are delicious and great as a main or a side! If serving as a main, spice them up with toasted pine nuts

PREP TIME 15 MINUTES

SOAKING TIME 4 HOURS

COOK TIME 60 MINUTES SERVES 4

Coating

l 90g plain flour (use gluten free if needed)

l 90g cornflour

l ½ tsp baking powder

l 1½ tbsp smoked paprika

l 1 tbsp garlic powder

l 1 tbsp onion powder

l 1 tbsp dried thyme l 1 tbsp dried rosemary l 2 tbsp nutritional yeast l 1 tsp salt

Other Ingredients

l 2 large cauliflower

l 1 litre soya or almond milk

l 2 vegan stock cubes, dissolved in a very small amount of boiling water

l Decoration: toasted pine nuts (optional)

1 Cut each cauliflower in half and carefully remove any leaves and big stalks (you need the cauliflower to hold together)

2 Mix plant milk with the stock in a large saucepan or bowl and soak cauliflower steaks for four hours ideally overnight

3 Preheat oven to 180˚C/350˚F/Gas Mark 4

4 Mix all ingredients for the coating in a large mixing bowl

5 Grease a large baking tray and heat in the oven for a couple of minutes

6 Dip each piece of cauliflower into the coating mix until well covered then place on pre heated baking tray

7 Bake for 60 minutes, turning frequently to ensure all sides are evenly cooked If isn’t browning, spray or coat with a little oil and return to the oven

8 Sprinkle with toasted pine nuts and serve as a main or side dish.

Puff Pastry Swirl with Baked ‘Camembert’, Rosemary & Thyme

This swirl provides the ultimate indulgence! Gooey ‘Camembert’ encased with golden puff pastry, fresh herbs and syrup tear, share, dunk and enjoy

PREP TIME 15 MINUTES COOK TIME 30 MINUTES SERVES 4

l 2 sheets ready made vegan puff pastry (Jus Rol offer a gluten free one)

l Syrup (eg maple or agave)

l 2 tbsp fresh thyme, stalks removed and finely chopped

l 2 tbsp fresh rosemary, stalks removed and finely chopped

l 1 wheel vegan ‘Camembert’ (we used Nurishh, available in most big supermarkets)

l 1 clove garlic, sliced

l Olive oil

l Salt

l 1 tbsp soya milk mixed with 1 tbsp syrup for glaze

1 Preheat the oven to 200°C/390°F/Gas Mark 6.

2 Unroll one sheet of puff pastry, leaving it on the paper it came in Brush all over with a light coating of syrup then evenly sprinkle with a little less than half the rosemary and thyme (remainder will be sprinkled on the finished swirl) Add a light dusting of salt

3 Roll pastry back into a log and slice it lengthways Repeat this process with the second sheet of pastry, leaving you with four long slices of pastry, layers exposed

4 Line a large baking tray and then place the lid of the ‘camembert’ box in the centre (as a guide to spacing) 5 Twist up each individual slice of pastry (four in total) and place them around the ‘Camembert’ box, spiraling outwards Leave a little space between each one as they will expand 6 Remove the box from centre of the swirl and replace with the actual ‘Camembert’ 7 Insert garlic slices into the top of the ‘cheese’ 8 Brush swirl with the soya milk/syrup glaze and sprinkle with remaining fresh herbs.

An option is to drizzle with a little olive oil

Bake in oven for 30 minutes or until nicely golden. If swirl browns too quickly, cover with foil and return to the oven 11 Serve immediately, dipping the puff pastry into the melted ‘cheese’.

Wet ingredients

In a large jug, whisk all ingredients well and set aside.

Just before putting the cake into the oven, add wet ingredients to the dry and thoroughly combine without over stirring This is your cake mixture

Assembly/cooking

Pour half the cake mixture into the bottom of the lined cake tin and spread evenly

Place raspberries over the mixture, evenly spaced

Add blobs of jam over the raspberries and vegan white chocolate, if using

Pour the other half of the cake mixture over, covering the layer of raspberries

Evenly sprinkle flaked almonds over the top of the mixture

Place in the oven and bake for 30 40 minutes Check after 30 minutes to see if a knife/skewer comes out clean. If not, cook for a further 5 10 minutes

Leave to cool before serving.

COP27 WHAT’S IN A MEAL?

The annual United Nations Climate Change Conference is where world leaders come together to discuss solutions for tackling the climate crisis and to see if they’ve made progress on their past promises This year it is COP27 and will be held in Egypt from November 6 18 And guess what the elephant in the room, that everyone ignored at last year’s COP26 in Glasgow, is still trumpeting to deaf ears!

The Conference of the Parties has for years been heavily criticised for ignoring one of the root causes of the greenhouse gases (GHG) that fuel the climate crisis; animal agriculture, which contributes around one fifth of all global GHG emissions. Last year was no exception. The UK government boasted that they were making pioneering changes to the food served at the conference by sourcing most of its ingredients locally and seasonally and listing their carbon footprint on the menus.

Yet only 40 per cent of the food on offer was plant based and the most damaging of all foods, carbon intensive beef burgers, were still being offered On the conference agenda, talks dedicated to food sustainability and how to transition to a plant based farming system were almost nonexistent

This lack of political action at the same time as our life supporting systems teeter on the edge of collapse, is insanity and was never going to go unnoticed For precisely this reason, Viva! marched for climate justice in Glasgow and shouted out loud from billboards across the nation of the pressing need for change

Of course, Viva! is not alone in calling for greater attention to be focused on plant based food and there has been growing momentum in the run up to COP27, with 165 civil society groups signing a letter to the United Nations COP27 Presidency, asking them to ensure sustainable catering will be offered this year On the surface, this year does look more promising, with the first ever Food Systems Pavilion being held

Concentrating on food for the people and the planet, its aim is to “focus on actions, strategies, and solutions across the entire food value chain that have the potential to drive the transformation towards healthier, more resilient and more equitable food systems ” Co hosts

Just about everything, says Jasmine Clark, environment campaigner

Viva! staff and public making a show outside Bristol City Council offices

include Clim Eat, The Food and Land Use Coalition and The Good Food Institute

Incredibly, the Food Systems Pavilion website still doesn’t talk explicitly about plant based food, instead using buzz words such as ‘climate smart’, ‘sustainability’ and ‘nature positive’ Viva! argues that the only way to meet carbon reduction goals is by adopting a vegan diet, and we are supported by a welter of science Yes, co hosts do include groups such as The Good Food Institute, who do advocate for investment in plant based and lab grown protein, but I think the whole discussion process needs to be taken with a pinch of salt I say this partly because the climate summit has taken sponsorship from Coca Cola, one of the world’s top plastic polluters and whose emissions last year increased to 5 17 million tonnes of CO2e

With each year that passes, and essential action is delayed or ignored, we move closer to a catastrophic system collapse which will bring irreversible impacts that threaten the Earth’s ability to sustain human populations As of now, we are way off track in meeting our obligations

In December 2015, signatories to the legally binding Paris Agreement (of which the UK government was one) undertook to almost halve their GHG emissions by 2030 in order to reach ‘net zero’ by 2050. In fact, global emissions are still on the rise and experts insist that this essential shift cannot happen without moving to a vegan diet.

In its latest Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) makes it blindingly clear that we need to shift our dietary patterns away from exploitative livestock agriculture and towards a more sustainable approach that supports our nutrition and health as well as global biodiversity and the environment In their report, they highlight that plant based alternatives are essential in adapting our diets and to mitigate against the current levels of damage

agenda

change

If there is to be any hope whatsoever of fulfilling our obligation in the Paris Agreement, to limit global warming to no more than 1.5°C above pre industrial levels, vegan food needs not only to be on the agenda it needs to be at the forefront of change.

The present mealy mouthed approach to an impending global catastrophe by investors, governments and institutions has to change and they have to act together on a global scale for the sake of the planet and our future survival, before it’s too late

Will this finally be the year where vegan food is put on the table at a COP conference? We’ll have to wait and see but its importance is not simply the food itself but the message it communicates to delegates Plant based foods are our future!

Above: wherever we went, people were left in no doubt about what is needed to save the planet Below: our stunning billboard is so powerful it cannot be ignored

Vegan food needs not only to be on the

it needs to be at the forefront of

IS THE NEW CALORIES Carbon

Viva!’s carbon count menu trial a huge success, reports Jasmine Clark, environment campaigner

If it’s sensible to list the calorie count of each meal on restaurant menus then it’s even more important to list the impact each meal has on the climate crisis And so that’s what we did with our carbon menu trial, which has been splashed across the media at home and abroad as we pressurise the government to make this a legal requirement

We are already experiencing the life threatening impact of global warming as this summer showed Not one, but three unprecedented heatwaves disrupting life roads buckled, infrastructure ground to a halt, rivers ran dry, heat records were broken and lives were lost. Including carbon counts on menus is a simple yet powerful step to help consumers make an informed choice but it also raises awareness of which foods are the most damaging something the Government has done its best to obscure And the answer, of course, is meat, dairy, eggs and fish!

We partnered with My Emissions (a leading provider of food carbon emissions data) to support a local Bristol restaurant, The Canteen, in calculating the carbon footprint of their menus A spokesperson for The Canteen said: “The reception has been incredibly positive, with many customers asking why everyone doesn’t do it” In fact, the feedback has been so positive that The Canteen has decided to extend their menu trial

The media response was extraordinary, showing that there is a growing appetite for accessible environmental information. Over 90 titles covered the menu trial and the petition we have launched calling on the government to make carbon counts on menus mandatory has had the signatures flooding in

Coverage included print, national radio, podcast and online articles Major name that shared our story included BBC Radio 4, Vegan Food & Living, MSN UK, the Daily Mail, Independent and Yahoo News Reports honed in on vital parts of the campaign, such as diners being shocke to see that emissions of a beef burger can be up to 10 times that of a vegan burge revealed the positive impact diners can have just by mak simple switches to their diet

The story spread across the globe, being picked up by Forbes India, Yahoo Canada, Euro News and the International Business Times, along with many others While our campaign focused on changes to UK menus, the simplicity of it resonated with onsumers worldwide as the climate crisis needs global olutions and responses.

Important conversations were triggered on social media by the campaign, with Instagram influencers Food itness Flora (116k followers) and A Voice of Vegan 12 5k followers) attending The Canteen and posting heir experiences online Comments such as, “Love this dea!! It’s genius” appeared on their posts Others who upported the campaign and shared the petition included lant Based News, Vegan Future, and samanthahadadi, social media influencer with 43.4k followers.

Our petition continues to gain traction online and in he court of public opinion. Carbon counts are clearly eeded and wanted and we will continue to put the Government under pressure to do the right thing for the lanet and our future

VIVA!’S

INFLUENCING THE NEXT GENERATION Freshers’ Tour

Throughout September and October, the Viva! team and I spent long and fruitful days at the universities of Reading, Bristol, Cardiff and Bath, culminating in a double whammy, two day event in Oxford. The results left us feeling more optimistic than ever about the vegan movement.

It feels like no time has passed since I was a nervous, newly vegetarian fresher myself, bouncing between stalls at my own university’s Freshers’ Fair, clutching tote bags full of branded pens, pamphlets and Percy Pigs I would never have imagined that three years later I would not only be a vegan but would be one of those people standing behind stalls at Freshers’ Fairs chatting to people and handing out freebies

Times are changing! Students are up to six times more likely than their parents to be vegan and on the Viva! Freshers’ Tour, I saw why. Almost without exception, young people are wracked with concern about the climate and the rapid decline of biodiversity, which is why our Eating the Earth campaign struck a chord with so many hearts and minds.

Many were also experiencing their first taste of culinary independence and so hordes of students lapped up our Vegan Recipe Club app and our guides on cheap, easy and healthy plant based foods

Wherever we went, our giant ‘Free Vegan Food’ sign was hoisted over the stall and hordes of students could not resist it It seemed that many were already vegetarian, pescetarian or were trying to cut down on meat, dairy and eggs A sense of impending environmental doom was at the forefront of their concerns, although empathy for exploited animals was also high on their list

One of the most memorable was a bloke, not yet vegan but who had cut out meat, fish and milk because of the ways animals are treated. But… he was stuck on eggs We handed him one of Ben’s Cookies vegan, deliciously egg free

and double choc and politely explained how the egg industry exploits and kills chickens down to the gassing of young males He swore and then added: “Mate I can never eat eggs again!”

Another, admitting that he was more likely to remain a carnivore than become vegan, ended up confessing that he was quite persuaded b I’d laid out. He took away a cookie and library of Viva! materials for further rea

We had thousands of individual conve like these, helping movers and shakers o generation to get that much closer to veg

B Y R O R Y C O C K S H A W , V I V A ! C A M P A I G N E R

Left: Rory Cockshaw

The Viva! team ready for a full on day at Cardi University

‘Take me to your leader!’

I’ll do my best, says Tony Wardle, but I’m not sure I can find one

The contest to elect a new prime minister was an irrelevance to most of us but we do now have a new leader whose role it is to well, lead, presumably Ending smart motorways, as Ms Truss promised, isn’t high on my agenda but climate change, the environment and pandemics are Motorway management is a bit esoteric by comparison

I’m going to try and keep track of all that’s happening in real time but her direction of travel is already crystal clear it’s a case of ‘The Pandemic is dead, long live the Brexit.’ A bonfire of regulations that was promised at the time of Brexit was put on hold while Covid 19 was tackled. But now the Draculas of deregulation have joyfully emerged from the dark to celebrate, Sir John Redwood and Professor Patrick Minford amongst them.

But just a minute everything has suddenly changed, including the chancellor, and back into the free market crypt they’ve crawled

You don’t need me to tell you that the world is in a state The UK has made a binding agreement to limit global warming to no more than 1 5ºC above pre industrial levels and reach zero carbon by 2050 and just about every scientist who ever donned a mortar board says we’re not even close to meeting that commitment In fact, the UNFCCC reports, even as I’m writing, that we’re on track to hit 2.5ºC. And on the same day, a report from the analytical Systems Change Lab says that maximum meat consumption should be no more than two burgers a week at most Truth is, I’m tired of constantly quoting the world’s 

big scientific institutions, who all agree that we are in the mire up to our necks and have but a few years to sort ourselves out before Armageddon beckons And they all agree that slashing livestock for meat and dairy is essential to solving the problem of global warming, environmental collapse, wildlife loss as well as improving human health. And the government knows it too but as my mum used to say: “There’s none so deaf as those who don’t want to hear.”

There is now a chorus of voices who are singing in almost perfect harmony that livestock numbers have to be slashed Even old established institutions, such as the RSPB and the National Trust, have begun to reach for the song sheet even if they haven’t yet fully found their voices. The odd man out is the RSPCA, which is still promoting farmed fish, meat and dairy, blindly ignoring the millions of wild fish who are slaughtered and the wildlife that is devastated just to provide food for captive animals under its (laughable) Assurance Scheme (see page 12)

bunker, refusing to surrender, refusing to face reality, while Berlin collapsed around him It is the entire planet that is now beginning to collapse around us and yet still they refuse to cry ‘surrender’ and abandon policies that are killing us

Instead, Ms Truss has decided that there’ll be no ban on fur, foie gras or the trophies from hunting. There will be a rescinding of regulations that protect the environment, employment, nature, animals and wildlife, fracking will be resumed and new oil wells will be drilled in the North Sea. That’ll do the trick!

The cheapest and quickest route to clean energy is to build onshore wind farms! Oh, but they’re banned (probably), as are solar farms And as for insulating people’s homes that doesn’t seem to be a goer either. On the other hand, she could just get Sir Simon Rattle to conduct a new requiem.

It’s not surprising that young people (mostly) are despairing and are taking direct action on the streets under a variety of banners Their cause is absolutely just, even if you disagree with their methods The gutter press and its billionaire foreign owners are rubbing their hands together gleefully because they have new enemies to vilify

“Selfish eco zealots” “Poundshop anarchists” “Poshos with no real world problems”. Ms Truss’s new home secretary, Suella Braverman, has joined their chorus with an unhinged outburst that tops them all, “Guardian reading, tofu eating wokerati”, part of the “anti growth coalition,” which seems to include everyone but meat eating, Daily Telegraph readers

The planet is disappearing down the plug hole and this is a politician who’s supposedly going to save it! Her answer is to drive through legislation that will outlaw virtually all demonstrations and strikes

And again, bang on cue, WWF have just reported that almost 70 per cent of the world’s wildlife has disappeared since 1970 This is a staggering figure and identifies the kind of collapse that precedes an irreversible global disaster And how did our new leader respond? She didn’t, not a dickie bird and nor did the prince over the water, Keir Starmer How can anyone pretend to offer leadership to a nation when they don’t even understand the basics of life on Earth?

It is no coincidence that just about every environment secretary for the past 12 years has been a climate change denier and an encourager of meat consumption, and that includes the current occupant, Ranil Jayawardena According to the website They Work For You (who keep track of how MPs vote), Jayawardena has “consistently voted against measures to prevent climate change,” as well as resisting any support for renewable energy projects.

During the leadership circus, Rishi in waiting joined the ‘we love meat’ crowd by saying: “I’m not going to tell people to eat less meat!” This happy clappy, meat supporting cabal isn’t just about politicians genuflecting to their supporter base (although it certainly is that), it is a betrayal of me, you, our children and everyone’s future.

When my 20 year old sons ask what’s the point of slaving away to get degrees when they may not even have a future, what do I tell them? The truthful answer would be that they have been utterly sold out by self centered, privileged, career politicians who pretend to lead us but who really should be charged with treason and locked up in the Tower of London

They remind me of Adolf Hitler, hiding deep in his

Just a minute Oh dear, she’s suddenly out, having breached the ministerial code Whoops, and its all changed again! Rishi’s no longer waiting he’s got the top job Another one who has mostly voted against measures to prevent climate change, has given oil and gas companies big tax breaks and is going to pump the North Sea dry of gas He has banned fracking, however, but only because it’s uneconomic, I suspect. New Environment Secretary Jayawardena has been handed his P45 as has climate change denier, Jacob Rees Mogg. Rishi deserves a big kiss if only for that!

Oh, but hang on, tofu hating Cruella de Bravermann has been forgiven and is back in post

So who de we now have at the environment? Théresè Coffey! As ex Health Secretary, she’ll try to reduce meat consumption, won’t she? “What next … No spag bol?” I think that’s a ‘no’

But sadly, there’s more. The deadly strain of H5N1 bird flu is not contagious and the only people who have caught it have been in direct contact with poultry but the death rate is a terrifying 53 per cent Two years ago, there was one outbreak of H5N1 in UK poultry; this year it is well over 200 and growing With viruses constantly mutating in all factory farms, it doesn’t take much of a change to make H5N1 contagious, human to human, and Despite having been warned with Covid 19, our leaders have done absolutely nothing to try and prevent it

The only postscript I can think of is that we, as an electorate, voted this lot into power the last time opting for a jolly, big blond buffoon with an outsize ego and a history of utter incompetence Maybe we get what we deserve.

It is no coincidence that just about every environment secretary for the past 12 years has been a climate change denier and an encourager of meat consumption

lifestyle

The Cheeky Panda

I’ve recently been switching my household products to more sustainable options and The Cheeky Panda popped up Certified B Corp (environmentally friendly), their products are claimed to be vegan, made from ethically sourced bamboo and are carbon balanced!

I normally avoid wipes as they clog the environment but these are super soft and biodegradable Strong and handy, I now keep some everywhere They are dermatologically tested, say cheeky Panda, who claim that bamboo is naturally hypoallergenic ideal for sensitive skin!

Their toilet paper is great too super strong and with minimal plastic free packaging. They also sell plastic free bamboo straws, wide enough for bubble teas! Prices range from £1 £39 99 and can be found at Waitrose, Holland & Barret, Planet Organic and Ethical Superstore cheekypanda.com

Things I’ve been loving this month

… bamboo products, recycled plastic hammocks and vegan Lush

B Y E M

The One and Only Lush

Is Christmas complete without a vegan gift from Lush? I don’t think so! Whether a classic bath bomb, scrub or a moisturiser they all make great presents! There is a vast range of products and prices so you can go small or splash out on the amazing 12 Days of Christmas for £75 It’s vegan, cruelty free and includes bath bombs, shower gels, soaps, lip scrub, bubble bar and shower gel someone will definitely smell amazing this winter!

There’s also a limited edition vegan Snow Fairy Four Wick candle at £35 and when the candle runs out, you ’ re left with a cool glass dish! Or there’s the Candy Cane Bubble Bar (£5) a minty, plastic free, sweet bath time bubble treat enough for three or four baths It also smells amazing and its perfect for decorating your tree (before you use it in the bath)!

My favourite Lush items are the Mint Julip Lip Scrub (I’ve have been using it for years and love it) and the Karma perfume it smells amazing and a small quantity lasts all day (£30 for 30ml).

Lush is also a great place to pick up beautifully designed, plastic free knot wraps to wrap up your gifts. Their products range from £3.40 £185. lush.com

Nakie Recycled Hammock

I wanted something relaxing for my partner to take on walks that wasn’t the usual bulky, uncomfortable camping chair And bingo! I found Nakie hammocks and knew I had to get one!

Each is made from 37 old plastic bottles, is ultra lightweight, easy to pack and so comfortable Even better, they can be used by two people! (Although I still fancy having my own) Easy to set up, they are perfect for reading a book, sunbathing or just having a nap! However, you do need to find two trees the correct distance apart

They come with strong polyester straps, triple stitched for extra strength, and can hold an impressive 225 kg (500 lbs) Although an Australian brand, I found them being sold on a UK website called Passenger Clothing (a sustainable brand based in the New Forest) They come in two colours: Sky Blue or Sunburnt Orange. £75. passenger clothing com

I L Y C O S T E R , R E T A I L M A N A G E R

with a lively péritif k for or you, es, cava, too!

£72.60

Heart Warming Adoptions

Give the gift of life to a rescued farmed animal through our adoption scheme makes the perfect pressie for any occasion!

Adopt Squidgy, who lives at Beneath the Wood sanctuary in Wales Squidgy is a cheeky character and part of a gang of five very large boys who believe they rule the roost at BTW and like to think they’re top of the pecking order in their wonderful pig city!

He was named Squidgy because he has the most gorgeous squidgy face and wonderful huge tusks!

Half your donation will feed and care for your chosen adoptee and the other half will go to Viva! to help save millions more lives animal and human through campaigns against factory farming For £25 (inc p&p) you can adopt for a year and your pack will include a letter, personalised certificate, 7x5inch colour photo, adoption postcard and a six month update Children’s packs (for under 12 year olds) will also include an animal factsheet and accompanying keepsake folder. Please allow up to 10 working days for the delivery of your adoption pack

ve a Jolly Chr

We have lots of Christmas themed chocolates and treats i the shop as well as th perfect cards and gif for animal lover

Christmas Cards

Send good wishes to friends, family and neighbours and help raise funds for our lifesaving work! This year we have three new designs we think you’ll love and one returns from last year as it was so popular!

Choose from: Let There Be Peace On Earth And Let It Begin With Me, Christmas With Love cards, designed by Holly and Wendy Bushnell, I’m Dreaming Of A Vegan Christmas! Or, Have A Holly Jolly Vegan Christmas. Each design comes in packs of either five or 10, with envelopes. Pack of five £2.50, pack of 10 £5.

Christmas Recipe Guides

These are cracking for the Christmas period! Whip up some delicious classic dishes and new meal ideas for friends and family!

Viva!’s Deliciously Vegan Christmas Recipe Guide £2

Viva!’s Winter Wonderland, Vegan Recipe Guide £3

Vegan Christmas, from Avant Garde Vegan £15

Tasty Vegan Christmas Treats

Treat yourself to these delicious festive vegan treats and count down the days to Christmas with our vegan advent calendars

Butterm!lk Plant Powered Zingy Orange Choccy Segments Pouch 100g £3.50

Divine 70 per cent Dark Chocolate Coins 65g £2.60

Ella’s Instant Vegan Yorky Yorkshire Pudding Mixture (plain) 130g £3

Moo Free Vegan ‘Milk’ Chocolate Advent Calendar 70g £4.55

Divine Vegan Dark 70% Chocolate Advent Calendar 85g £5.75

lifescience

Chicken dinner –the consequences

It’s a major driver of wild bird losses

Catastrophic declines in wild birds are likely if we don’t change the way animals are farmed, scientists have warned

Wild birds are being killed by highly pathogenic strains of bird flu emerging from large scale poultry farms Typically, these more dangerous strains develop in commercial poultry, evolving from low pathogenic viruses found in the wild

The H5N1 virus currently circulating the globe originated in a commercial goose farm in China in 1996, spread rapidly in poultry in Asia and spilled over into wild birds in 2005 For many wild birds, already threatened by loss of habitat and climate change, the additional threat o flu will have a devastating imp

Over the past 50 years, the g population of poultry has grow six to 35 billion “These large li populations, which are connec trade, form reservoirs where in can evolve and spill over into w Kuiken, professor in the depart at Erasmus University Medical

Kuiken T and Cromie R 2022 Protect w diseases. Science. 378, 6615.

Where did covid come from?

Exploitation of nature, the evidence suggests

There has been endless speculation on the origins of covid, with some suggesting it came from a laboratory. This panel of experts say the evidence supports a zoonotic (from animals) origin with this spillover from wildlife to people occurring via the wildlife trade

Wildlife farming, live animal trading and expanding livestock production are all drivers of emerging infectious diseases In recent years, wildlife trade in Southeast Asia and southern China has exploded to an industrial scale The authors of this report say we must employ strategies to reduce the risk of spillover and spread They call for a One Health approach that aims to sustainably balance the health of people, animals and ecosystems

Keusch GT, Amuasi JH, Anderson DE et al 2022 Pandemic origins and a One Health approach to preparedness and prevention: solutions based on SARS CoV 2 and other RNA viruses Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 119 (42) e2202871119

Meat increases risk of diabetes

while vegans have lower rates

Eating meat increases the risk of developing diabetes, according to a study published in the journal Nutrients They found that older Australian women who eat a vegetarian or vegan diet are less likely to have diabetes, compared to women who regularly eat meat Those who ate meat several times a day had a significantly higher risk

Diets high in saturated fats, refined carbohydrates and low in fibre have been linked to increased visceral (tummy) fat and a bigger waist measurement, which are both well established risk factors for diabetes Previous studies have reported similar findings the Adventist studies, for example, found lifelong vegetarians have much lower rates of diabetes than meat eaters.

Viva! Health dissects the latest scientific research and makes it easy to understand Here we update you on recent findings

Y D R J U S T I N E B U T L E R , H E A D O F R E S E A R C H , V I V A !

Baleato CL, Ferguson JJA, Oldmeadow C et al 2022 Plant Based Dietary Patterns versus Meat Consumption and Prevalence of Impaired Glucose Intolerance and Diabetes Mellitus: A Cross Sectional Study in Australian Women Nutrients 14 (19) 4152

Combat the cost-of-living crisis

Vegans spend less on food

Following the call from international organisations and scientists for a drastic change in dietary habits, to protect both public health and the environment, plant based diets have been promoted worldwide. Despite this, some still claim it costs more to be vegan

This study looked at the diets of over 1,000 people, representative of the population in Portugal, and found that plant based consumers not only don’t spend more but spend less than any consumer assessed The earlier US stu spend less on

Pais DF, Marqu AC and Fuinha

2022 The cost healthier and more sustainab food choices: D plant based consumers spe more on food?

Agricultural an Food Economic 10 (1) 18

Is drought increasing?

Plant-based diets improve cancer prognosis

The latest evidence revealed

eview of 30 studies found that higher intakes lant based foods are linked to an improved gnosis for cancer survivors A high intake of olegrains and fibre improved outcomes in se with colorectal (bowel) cancer while a her intake of fruit, veg and fibre, and a derate intake of soya, benefitted those with ast cancer or prostate cancer, a higher vegetable fat ke was linked to improved prognosis while a h nut intake was consistently related to better comes for all three types of cancer aken together, evidence shows how healthy unprocessed plant based foods, including olegrains, nuts, fruit and vegetables, may efit cancer prognosis

Yes now 20 times more likely because of the climate crisis

Since the beginning of May to

Germany,

alone, there

September,

Hardt L, Mahamat Saleh Y, Aune D et al 2022 Plant based diets and cancer prognosis: a review of recent research Current Nutrition Reports Epub ahead of print

The last fond farewell

Just born, she’ll be taken away from her mother within the next 24 hours No matter how agonisingly they call to each other across the farmyard, their separation will be permanent

Not one bad farmer but the industry standard. It’s one reason why the Advertising Standards Authority agrees that dairy farming is ‘inhumane’.

Viva!’s undercover teams have regularly exposed the many cruelties there are in milk and sales are falling. Please support us and help us to continue fighting for animals

It is becoming hard to keep track of our media coverage as cuttings are coming in from all over the world on a whole range of our campaigning topics and this despite the news agenda everywhere having been dominated by the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the current economic situation

Some of the online outlets you will never have heard of before (and neither have I) but their number, reach and range is increasing all the time and they help us to reach millions The potential audience for all our coverage in the past three months is a staggering 500 million people Our intro talks about a media blitz and with an expansion of our press and PR department, that’s exactly what we have I have not been able to include everything!

A double page spread in the Express, written by our patron Wendy Turner Webster, covered Viva! and Viva! Poland’s extraordinary campaign to help save Ukrainian animals Dr Justine Butler also had a big story in the Express on how animal foods increase the risk of blood clots It was repeated in the Mirror Online and the Daily Record Online

She also had an equally big story in the Financial Times (reaches 28 million) on the dangers of invading nature

Viva!’s brilliant billboard campaign, ‘Sheep are also Lions’ was covered by Campaign, LBB, Creative Salon, BestAdsonTV com, Ads of the World, Advertising Association and Roastbrief Times Online and Law News covered our Michael Mansfield KC podcast at length and Juliet Gellatley was interviewed for World Animals Voice on Scary Dairy.

Somerset County Gazette and Knowledia ked up on our school farms petition story Vegan Food & Living ran two of Veronika šek Charvátová’s pieces on the science of ad and recommended Christmas recipes onika also had a big feature on how to avoid rt disease in the Express ur exposé of sea lice infecting M&S salmon de it into Times Online, Times Scottish Edition Isle of Bute News astern Daily Press and Thetford & Brandon es picked up on Dale Vince’s campaign against oting diseased pigs and using them in energy uction, using our observations Still in the East, wich Evening News and East Anglian Daily s, as well as LeicestershireLive, Leicester ury and Vegan Magazine, covered our Viva! urger tour colnshire Co op ’ s decision to permanently ban k! Duck Eggs from its stores was covered in Lincolnshire Live, Grantham Matters and Sentient Media And finally, Mirror Online ran a piece from Rachel Stone extolling vegan diets

Viva!’s media blitz for the animals

Working with a local restaurant, The Canteen, as part of our much needed Eating the Earth campaign, to include carbon counts of all restaurant menus, struck a chord across the world I can’t promise always to publish every outlet we get but in this case the variety was extraordinary and worth a read It’s a trip around the world:

The Independent, World Animals Voice, Yahoo Canada, Yahoo News (UK) & Ireland, Mail Online, MSN UK, I KnowAllNews.com, Bristol World, Eat Drink Sleep magazine, Plant Based News, Vegan Food & Living, Taste at 55, Big Hospitality, AbanCommercials, LiveNews co nz, Digital Journal, Legit ng, Yen com gh, Briefly, France 24, Breitbart, Radio France International, Yahoo Finance UK, RTL Today, Manila Standard Online, Urdu Point, Space Daily, Terra Daily, Business Times Online, The New Indian Express, Forbes India, phys org, Oman Observer, WhatsNew2day, PublicNewsTime com, Macau Job, IBN Live, Mydroll, Raw Story, Malay Mail, Daily Sabha, Suffolk News, MalaysiaJournal com, Kuwait Times, The Frontier Post, Borneo Bulletin, International Business Times, Sharjah24, Knowledia, Getmelivenews com, Asian Lite International, Seed Daily, euronews, Taipei Times, Cambridgeshire Live, Daily Tribune, Japan Today, Global Times, Jiji Press Online

B Y T O N Y W A R D L E , E D I T O R

Cheeky Panda

DISCOUNT 10%

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Some 27,000 trees are cut down every day for paper production but Cheeky Panda have a brilliant solution! As Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world, they have created a wide range of bamboo products, such as toilet paper, kitchen rolls, biodegradable wipes and bamboo nappies all plastic free, B Corp certified and naturally hypoallergenic. uk cheekypanda com

HOWND

DISCOUNT

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Multi award winning dog brand HOWND, offer 100 per cent plant based health, wellness and hygiene products for all your doggies’ needs! They say they have tailored products for calm minds, stinky breath, growing bones or itchy skin Your dog may well love them without knowing the hidden benefits dogslovehownd com

To find the latest updated discount list, use the password bekind at myvegantown.org.uk This includes 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 in store, take along your Supporters’ card!

Eden Perfume

DISCOUNT 10%

CODE EDENVIVA10

Friendly Soap

SCOUNT 15%

ODE VIVA 15 ooking for a soap with no preservatives? Friendly Soap’s products are packed with nutrient dense oils o give your skin and hair all the goodness it needs Handmade in e UK, they contain no plastic and are cruelty free making them kind to your skin and the animals friendlysoap.co.uk

Dark Star Natural Products

DISCOUNT 20%

CODE VIVA22

Bar soaps*

If you want to personalise your perfume with favourite scents and smells, Eden Perfume will help by creating high quality organic and affordable vegan fragrances unique to you Once you ’ ve used it all, you can return your empty bottle for a reduced refill rate edenperfumes co uk Sign

VIVA!’S FIRST demo & dine

… goes down a storm!

Organised by Viva! and Vegan to You, our first Demo & Dine showed people how to rustle up a showstopping vegan roast dinner – and then they ate it! The Taunton event was sold out, with over 80 people watching a cookery demo by chef, Anna Madams and then being treated to a fullsized lunch. Participants were shown how to prepare the nation's favourite meal –a roast with all the trimmings, including elusive vegan Yorkshire puds! The centrepiece was squash, spinach and pumpkin seed filo pie.

Anna, of Vegan to You, said: “I often get contacted by non-vegans in a bit of a panic as they are having vegans over for Sunday lunch and don’t know where to start! The filo pie not only looks really impressive but it’s also super easy once you know how, and all the ingredients are readily available in supermarkets.”

Founder and Director of Viva!, Juliet Gellatley, said: “We created this event to help people understand that veganism isn’t about missing out –you can still enjoy delicious flavours and take part in traditions like a Sunday roast.

“This pie is mouth-wateringly tasty, healthier than meat, better for the environment and, of course, much better for the animals.

“I was delighted with the response – and almost everyone asked for it to become a regular event”, says Juliet. Well, there’s an idea!

Bottom: Director Juliet Gellatley (right) with Anna Madams of Vegan to You who did the cookery demonstration. Below: Viva!’s Jo Dixon (left) with volunteers Simone Roper and Carol O’Leary

MY VEGAN TOWN to the rescue

Everything vegan with a single tap

Exploring a new town or city, or wandering around and appreciating the beautiful countryside and its rural villages, is one of life’s delights Maybe less delightful when you have to travel for business but you still need to eat and relax and there’s no law that says you can’t enjoy yourself And if you ’ re vegan, that means finding just the right place that can cater for you

Although things are rapidly improving, there are still plenty of places that see veganism as an annoying irrelevance and stick an afterthought on the bottom of the menu, like a box ticking exercise Then there are the reviews you ’ ve read that point you towards places that, they say, offer vegan options, and you find they do chips and salad!

Anyway, the cavalry has come to the rescue in the form of Viva! and our newly launched app, My Vegan Town. Download it and you’ll be able to browse plant based and vegetarian eateries both home and away (well, within the UK). You’ll see recommendations from likeminded people who have dined there themselves With the app, you’ll have contact details, opening times, reservations and directions all with one tap.

My Vegan Town is also a directory for vegan shops, accommodation, services, sanctuaries and events, so you'll always be in the know. From manicures to make up, barbers to bars, live like a local wherever you are with My Vegan Town

Download today via the App Store or Google Play

Viva!’s Vital Volunteers

The biggest possible thank you to the wonderful Viva! volunteers who have been working hard to represent us at vegan events we wouldn’t be able to have a presence there without you! All your efforts in selling merchandise and handing out information help our campaigns enormously

l August 7, Welsh Vegan Festival Sharon Heywood, Carys Heywood and John McCarthy £102 raised

l August 13, Bude Vegan Festival Annie Gibson Harrison and Evie Marshall £179 76 raised

l August 21, Chester Vegan Festival Hannah Dickson and Emily Dickson £172 raised

l September 25, Tewkesbury Vegan Fair Dave Provis, Rachael Freeman, Josh Roderick and Susan Segust £150 raised

We would love YOU to become a Viva! stall volunteer and represent us at your local events It’s fun and we can provide you with all you need Email merchandise@viva.org.uk or fill out our form at viva org uk/campaign with us/stall volunteers

We wouldn’t be where we are without you!

Viva!’s valued stall volunteers: Annie Gibson Harrison (above); Hannah and Emily Dickson (left)

thank you for all you do!

BELIEVE IN THE IMPOSSIBLE!

climate change and government threats to UK farming? There was only one way to find out Go and see!

“T

o imagine that we would have been welcomed so warmly All the myths and all the barriers of prejudice were just broken down ” This was an activist for Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) speaking in 1984 Miners and gay people established an unlikely alliance in the face of Thatcher’s repressive police crackdown during the year long miners’ strike which was immortalised in the 2014 movie, Pride.

If two groups on the opposite end of the spectrum were able to align back then, could Viva! do something similar and unite farmers and vegan activists in the face of

As Animal Rebellion dairy blockades were shutting down the dairy industry, Viva! Farming visited county fairs and animal auctions across the country to see if we could connect as human beings, despite our differences

Preparation is key and that meant a day long workshop on communication techniques and understanding the concerns of farmers The future of UK farming is uncertain and changes to the subsidy system after leaving the European Union threaten to put UK farmers out of business. Spiralling costs of feed and fertiliser, pressure to reduce prices from supermarkets and increasing government legislation have resulted in a farming industry that feels isolated and suffers from astonishing levels of mental health problems and suicides.

But don’t vegans want farmers to stop farming animals? Yes, but allowing in cheap imported meat and dairy that results in UK farmers going bankrupt is not the solution What they need is support in transitioning to healthy and sustainable vegan farming

That was the message we wanted people to hear as we arrived at the Dorset County Fair, the first stop on our tour We were pleasantly surprised to find that even in the heart of farming country, at one of the UK’s biggest agricultural shows, vegan options were everywhere!

“As time has gone on, we’ve just had more and more demand for it,” said Patricia, owner of Flo & Frankie’s Fudge, with her four differently flavoured vegan fudges. From vegan burgers, sausages, homemade sauces and ice cream, we were spoilt for choice!

We headed over to the show rings to talk to farmers and perhaps not surprisingly, many were reticent and

Kerri Waters, Viva! Farming Co ordinator, talks to farmers with surprising results

Vegan vet Alice Brough speaking to a group of sheep farmers

reluctant to speak to us One cow farmer spoke openly about how tense the situation was for her She had not made a profit in years and doesn’t know how she will carry on when subsidies are removed She feels abandoned by the government and fears trade deals will end UK farming

When asked the question what she would do if the government gave her money to simply look after the cows, she lit up and said: “That would be wonderful,” before hesitating and asking why DEFRA would do that if there was no profit to be made from them.

It provoked her to talk about her love for her cows who she does not send to slaughter once they’ve reached the end of their productive life She either sells them, or the ones she simply cannot part with stay with the family until they die She appeared to understand how sentient and individual each cow is but could not reconcile that with her identity as a food producer

The following day, we visited an auction house in Market Drayton and nervously introduced ourselves to the manager Our fears were unwarranted and he invited us in and gave us a table in the canteen to speak to farmers as they chatted together over lunch He even announced our arrival on the tannoy!

What followed was an incredible transformative experience, speaking to those considered our ‘enemy’ as we shared a table to eat and drink We explored the incredibly difficult situation farmers find themselves in the climate crisis, our views on animals and our fears for the future. At the end of the day, we left as friends rather than viewing each other with suspicion, even though we couldn’t agree on everything.

As word spread around the tight knit auction house community, manager after manager extended an invitation for us to visit them next and showed us around their facilities These auction houses don’t just sell animals, they are a community hub for farmers, with NHS services and a place to have a chat and warm meal

The manager at Frome asked: “Why haven’t vegans come in to talk to us before instead of just shouting outside?” It was a lesson in not making assumptions –a little friendly conversation can go a long way Farmers listened carefully to our viewpoints and took on board the gravity of the situation for the planet and animals

Just as Welsh miners and London gay activists broke down barriers in the 1980s, we ended our tour with the hope that seeing the ‘human’ behind the farmer or vegan label could be the way to build a better world for animals whether they be human or nonhuman.

Viva! Farming’s Evie and Kerri talk to some farm consultants

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

Heather effectively became a mother to her two younger siblings, brother Shane and sister Fiona There were times when she resorted to shoplifting in order to feed them The subsequent bond that developed between the three of them is extraordinary, particularly evident between Fiona and Heather, who have stood shoulder to shoulder for years in an iron clad relationship

Interestingly, Heather doesn’t blame her mother for leaving them and clearly adored her, naming her own daughter, Beatrice, after her a granddaughter her mother never met Heather’s mum was in hospital from a blood clot resulting from her damaged leg. Heather was with her but popped out to buy her mum some new pyjamas and was delayed by an abusive woman. By the time she returned, her mother had died, at the young age of 47. That kind of pain and regret never leaves you.

Heather played a pivotal role in getting the EU to ban cat and dog fur and as part of the campaign, led a debate at the Oxford Union I was there The rules of the Union are that you must not use props well, that was never going to work! At the crucial moment, when Heather began describing the agony of dogs being skinned alive in China, Fiona stood up, took to the floor and opened her coat to reveal a TV monitor strapped to her body and rolled video footage of the skinning.

No one even tried to admonish her as the screams and shrieks of tortured dogs echoed back from the paneled walls The audience sat like stone figures, shocked into absolute silence. That’s another lesson learned don’t tell Heather Mills she can’t do something!

In 2007, when asked by Viva! to join us on an undercover investigation into pig farming, she didn’t hesitate, even though it meant walking a couple of hundred metres across a ploughed field in the dark Also in 2007, Heather headed up, our environment campaign, HOT, and wasn’t afraid to poke a bit of self deprecating fun at herself

She appeared on huge billboards aimed at meat eating environmentalists, with a headline that read: ’You haven’t got a leg to stand on!’

Holland & Barrett were an important outlet for VBites’ products but in 2020, H&B were bought out by Russian billionaire Mikhail Maratovich and the sale of chilled and frozen foods was ended. With four factories to keep running, that was a big concern

“I knew I was going to have to partner with someone”, says Heather, “as I’d been funding everything myself and had nothing left to scale up the factories. I didn’t want a big corporate outfit and found a German family company who own KP Foods and have a lot of farms so we now have a guaranteed supply chain, from start to finish.”

We’re all familiar with many of VBites products but there’s plenty going on behind the scenes Applewood Vegan Smoky Alternative is made by VBites, as is Ilchester Blue and Mexicana They make the cheese for Domino’s vegan pizzas and the chunks in Fray Bentos vegan steak pies Then there’s the VOmega 3, omega 3 supplements, and the Be At One vegan make up range. All this despite the shocks of Brexit and Covid lockdown

Heather has involved herself in numerous global disasters and says with a smile: “Every time a disaster happens I think, what am I meant to do about this?” Well, her latest venture is a fantastic product for any disaster and even the cost of living crisis.

“Two years ago, I created a canned food with meat free chunks, cheese and beans containing 28 grams of

protein,” Heather explains “I had families with little money in mind but it’s an ambient thing doesn’t have to be heated so it could be used for any situation, anywhere. I wanted thousands of cans ready for any eventuality and then, of course, Ukraine happened and the perfect food was ready to go. Another 56,000 cans were picked up yesterday!” According to Viva!’s Lex Rigby, they taste great!

Heather has championed all aspects of a vegan diet but specifically wanted to counter the myth that it is somehow substandard

“I wanted to counter the bullsh*t that if you’re vegan you’re weak and feeble and so I decided on a downhill speed record. I had to get up at 4am to be on the slopes at 6am ready for sunrise I then had four hours to train before the tourists arrived and I had to stop

“Going up in the chair lift, I used touchpad gloves to bang off maybe 30 emails for work so I didn’t have time to think about what I was doing I was too busy to be afraid After the run, it was back up again and as I got off the chairlift I’d think, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to do another run’ Then I’d stick my iPhone in my pocket and down I’d go. Eventually I got to love it it was amazing ”

The outcome was that Heather created a new world, downhill speed record for a disabled skier of 166 kph (103.1 mph) and picked up three gold medals. I feel terrified just thinking about it All I can say in conclusion is there really is only one Heather Mills!

Top: Heather Mills fronting our environmental HOT campaign, along with Juliet Gellatley and (above) joining our undercover team in a pig farm investigation

for

rights…

V for Life’s self-advocacy pack outlines the laws that safeguard dignity and choices in care. It details the steps you can take to ensure that you are cared for in line with your beliefs.

Understand your rights as a vegan or vegetarian. Where to access support and information (care homes, legal, nutrition).

Step-by-step guide to ensuring your rights are respected in case of loss of capacity or cognition or when receiving care.

Template letters to use if admitted to hospital or receiving care.

HAPPY WORLD VEGAN MONTH

There’s a secret, shameful ingredient in the electricity that goes to millions of British homes. Animal by products. They can come from factory farming animal slurry and other by products Four of the large energy companies and two 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 Viva! and The Vegan

No animals are harmed in the making of our power. Scan the QR code to sign up to our newsletter and we’ll contact you when it’s a good time to switch.