Another book-club purchase by the look of it, this is from 1990 and at first sight looks like just another publication for a celebrity-biased readership. But it is for the most part much better than that. It states that the Living Without Cruelty Campaign including the annual exhibition in London is (was) run nationally by Animal Aid. The Introduction states how the book is geared towards people who want to make the world a better place, but feel helpless to do anything about it. So the book is about explaining choices as to how to bring that about and how it fits into a broader ‘green’ view of the world to tackle the poisoning of the planet and the exploitation of all creatures, human and animal alike. Included in that are concepts that it says were once dubbed ‘cranky’ such as supporting alternative medicine and the holistic approach to healthcare.
Unfortunately these are still viewed as ‘cranky’, including by the hypocritical ‘vegans’ who support the pharmaceutical industry. The book states how an interest in healthy eating, food additives and the link between a bad diet and certain diseases have led people to question the advice that they once trusted, with both the food and pharmaceutical industries being held up to the spotlight of investigation. It must be said that since the book was published, the Vegan and Vegetarian Societies have become seriously ethically compromised, by getting their respective trademarks on numerous processed foods, many of which are just junk full of unhealthy food additives. Worse than that, they are not only unwilling to challenge the pharmaceutical industry, they actively support those Big Pharma companies in spite of those companies’ appalling track records on both animal rights and human rights. This is what sucking up to the political establishment does.
To run through each of the book chapters in turn, Chapter 1 entitled Food for Thought deals with animal and bird suffering, initially from a welfarist perspective related to the horrors of factory farming, battery hens and how ducks were also being bred in similar conditions, far removed from how most of us are used to seeing them. Also detailed are the conditions in which pigs are kept as mentioned on the previous post about Genetic Engineering. The chapter also mentions what is euphemistically known as ‘hatchery waste’, day-old male chicks that are gassed to death because of their obvious inability to lay eggs. The chapter also points out that ‘free range’ animals such as cows that are allowed to live as they should do in fields (not in sheds) still have a much-reduced lifespan due to genetic interference being used to increase milk yield. Male calves have an even shorter life span, being bred for veal and killed within a year of being born. Detailed also is how slaughterhouses (abattoirs) are killing factories, with seven seconds (or less) being taken to stun each animal before its throat is cut. There is a graphic description of this given in the text.
Genetic manipulation itself, as specified on the relevant blog post, as mentioned, is how resistance to disease is bred out of factory-farmed animals due to the appalling living conditions. This results in a pharmaceutical market worth at the time $2.5 billion dollars in the US, with the UK specified as the sixth biggest user at the time of animal ‘health’ drugs. As one disease comes under control another arises. These drugs given to the animals end up in the meat and dairy products consumed by omnivorous humans. As far as eggs and poultry are concerned it was then and still is well known that salmonella gets passed on via them; and that listeria is found in dairy produce. The government response was to irradiate such food, thus creating further possible health problems. Slaughterhouse employees are not surprisingly susceptible to falling ill from handling carcasses infected with bacteria and disease. That meat that is legally sold contains a slurry of mechanically recovered ingredients is well-known but generally ignored by most omnivores. The chapter than goes on to detail common health problems associated with the typical Western diet and how reducing (or eliminating) animal products can help to mitigate these health problems.
There is also the ecological impact of breeding animals and birds for food that needs to be taken into consideration and the chapter deals with this well, stating at the time the high proportion of agricultural land in the UK used for growing animal feed; also that the European Community, which at the time had twelve (all Western) member-states including the UK, imported forty million tonnes annually to feed farmed animals. Of this forty million, sixty per cent was imported from developing countries, including from Ethiopia at the time of the 1984/85 famine. Did Live Aid ever mention that? Humans in developing countries try to scratch a living at subsistence level, whilst the land that they farmed for generations is bought up by global corporations and used to grow animal feed for the increasingly overweight populations of developed countries with their high levels of meat consumption. An issue that I was unaware of when I first read this book was that factory farming practices were being exported to some of these developing countries with more crop growing land being set aside to growing grain for this purpose.
Then as now, one of the most well-known ecological impacts of the high level of beef consumption in wealthy countries was (is) deforestation for grazing land. Pollution of water courses is another serious ecological issue, with bird and animal faeces ending up in slurry lakes, which no-one would want to live near even if they don’t realise that their meat consumption is responsible. Not only that but animals themselves naturally need a water supply and the more that are bred for slaughter the more water resources are required. Slaughterhouses also produce waste in the form of offal and blood, again which pollute water courses. Bringing this up to date, water companies are correctly being criticised for discharging sewage into rivers and the sea, but how much of that sewage is the result of factory farming of animals and birds creating such high levels of pollution to the each of the small brooks that feed into the tributaries and then into the main rivers?
The chapter then goes on to describe the best foods for vegetarian mothers-to-be and babies and how everyone could make a gradual approach to going vegetarian. Dr Vernon Coleman, a long-time vegetarian, prolific author and former GP (in Leamington Spa, contiguous with Warwick) is quoted as saying: ‘An enormous amount of today’s illness can be traced back to the consumption of meat and meat products. The wisest and healthiest diet would include very little meat or no meat at all’. He has also written books opposing the use of animals in experiments and about the dangers of vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry in general. Following on from this is a large list of recipes, including those recommended by celebrities. There is then information on how to go dairy-free, which although I had already done so, was not quite as easy in terms of finding plant ‘milks’ as it is now. There are some specifically dairy-free (and egg-free) recipes to follow. Chapter 1 is the longest in the book and is rounded off with a list of organisations with respective addresses, including the Vegetarian and Vegan Societies (the latter at the time based in Oxford). There is then a list of relevant literature and guide books and then finally the views of a few celebrities.
Chapter 2, Only Skin Deep, is about animal testing for and the use of animal-derived ingredients in toiletries and cosmetics. The most infamous of these procedures was LD50, where sufficient dosage of the ingredient of finished product is given to kill half of the animals and the Draize eye tests usually carried out on rabbits to ‘prove’ the safety of products such as shampoo. These and other cruel testing procedures became very well-known with some manufacturers and chainstore own-brand products subsequently jumping on the ‘cruelty-free’ bandwagon by using a rolling five-year threshold on testing, with surprisingly the Body Shop (at the time) using this as well. Ultimately this was and still is inadequate. Only a fixed cut-off date can be trusted, Honesty Cosmetics and Beauty Without Cruelty being two such companies mentioned (the former using a cut-off date of 1976). The book also states that in the USA (unlike the UK), companies who test their products on animals ‘have to register the details with the relevant government departments’.
Also stated is that one should be careful about the nuances used by manufacturers if claiming that a products is ‘tested without cruelty to animals’, this could mean that those carrying out the tests didn’t consider them to be cruel! Stated further on is that a European Community directive had proposed that all cosmetic ingredients, even those already in use, should be subject to mandatory animal testing. One other important issue to look out for is that of animal-derived ingredients, with some obvious ones being specified such as ambergris, castoreum, civet, musk and spermaceti oil. Nowadays most toiletries, if not cosmetics, do have a long list of ingredients, though unless you have a dictionary with all these listed how would you know what the origin of each ingredient is? Many will now state ‘suitable for vegans’ though not have a relevant trademark from the Vegan Society, Vegetarian Society, the European Vegetarian Union or equivalent organisations elsewhere. The chapter closes with some celebrity beauty tips, DIY beauty recipes and addresses of campaigning organisations and retailers (many of which were small mail-order only operations).
Chapter 3, Dressed to Kill, about the use of animal skins for clothing is fairly brief, highlighting fur, the sales of which in Britain were already in decline by the late 1980’s due to successful anti-fur campaigning by organisations such as Lynx, responsible for the ‘Rich Bitch, Poor Bitch, Dumb Bitch’ and ‘It takes forty dumb bitches to make a fur coat, but only one to wear one’ adverts. These infuriated feminists but got the message home with the result that women’s magazines as stated such as Cosmopolitan, Elle and She no longer took adverts for fur garments. And it was in 1990, the time of this book’s publication, that a PETA activist in the USA staged her own one-woman ‘I’d rather go naked that wear fur’ protest. The novelty and shock value of these protests has long since worn off. In Britain due to our mild temperate climate there was never the same high demand for fur in the first place, but there was still a trade of foxes being caught in gin-traps for their furs.
Sheepskin is a slaughterhouse by-product, so are the skins of cattle predominantly and goats for leather. Unfortunately nothing has changed there. And as the article states, leather is also made from crocodiles, alligators and numerous other creatures. The tanning of skins also results in pollutants being discharged into water courses. It is only because this industry, like so many others, has been off-shored to countries where clothing, shoe and other manufacturing is cheaper to undertake, that it has now become out of sight, out of mind. Synthetic replacements for leather, made from petroleum by-products, have become much more widely available since this book was published; in Britain, Vegetarian Shoes and Ethical Wares being suppliers established during the 1990’s. Wool of course is not cruelty-free, but the obvious replacement is polyester, a petroleum by-product, which most vegans will have some clothing made from. The chapter rounds off again with useful addresses.
These three chapters take the book more than half way through, however Chapter 4, An Apple A Day, is the longest and I think one of the most important of the remaining ones, in dealing with health. It starts with a poem A Black Rabbit Dies for its Country, about said creature in a medical laboratory, by Gavin Ewart. The main point in the first paragraph of this chapter is that most illnesses (in the developed world) are lifestyle related and preventable, due to poor diet etc and a belief that everything can be cured with ‘wonder drugs’ from the medical and research professions, presenting an image of ‘godlike infallibility’. Health technocrats in lab coats dispensing ‘wisdom’ as well as these ‘wonder drugs’. I wonder if the author had Dr Anthony Fauci in mind when writing that. Many of these drugs have serious, sometimes even fatal side effects. When animals are used (abused) for testing the results are generally useless due to different physiology.
The book makes the point about Our National Sickness Service (Health?) stretching resources to the limit; and thirty years after publication we were all extolled to ‘protect’ this alleged ‘health service’ by the mandatory closure of gyms and restrictions on outdoor exercise, anti-health measures if ever there were! The book states that at the time more people than ever were being treated, yet very little goes into preventative education. Plus ça change. And that a cynical look would be that the government doesn’t want people to live longer as money would be needed for state pensions, though since publication the qualifying age has been consistently moved back. For me if I live that long it will be 67, rather than 65, though by the time that qualifying age approaches it will probably be moved back again, if indeed the state pension still exists then.
If lifestyles were healthier then the pharmaceutical industry would find product consumption and hence profits dwindle. Since 1990 Big Pharma’s stranglehold over governments and the medical profession has become almost absolute; and it also has most universities dependent upon it for research grants. As the book also points out a healthy population and environment would upset those who profit by its exploitation, in agrochemicals, pesticides, chemical waste and factory farming with academic life and research similarly affected. Similar can be said for processed foods, if people consumed natural wholefoods rather than the products of laboratories (even if the latter are notionally ‘vegan’). The factory farming lobby tried to cover up the dangers of salmonella in egg production and the drug (vaccine) industry rarely admits liability for product harm, for vaccines the industry is immune from liability, although the recipients are certainly not immune from illness or injuries that the products caused. As the book states, parents also seldom receive unbiased information about vaccination, which would enable them to make an informed decision for their child. A few decades on from that one can say that it is not just parents and that unbiased information is never available from the pharmaceutical industry and those in government, the media and the medical profession whom it has captured.
As the book states, taking back responsibility for our own health means that we will all benefit. Healthy people make fewer demands on health services and consume fewer drugs. But with the National ‘Health’ Service being by far the largest employer in the country then every political party has a vested electoral influence in winning the votes of its employees and keeping the population dependent on it. As its staff tend to lean towards voting Labour and taking responsibility for one’s own health is anathema to the collectivist ideology of NHS dependency, then it is hardly surprising that the Labour party and the political left in general view with hostility the notion of individual responsibility for health. Fewer drugs, including those just rebranded and marketed as ‘new’, means fewer laboratory tests on animals. So one would expect the Green Party to support this philosophy of reducing dependence upon allopathic (conventional) medicine, but the ‘Greens’ are as pro-pharma as the larger political parties. The article states that at the time there were eighteen thousand licensed drugs in Britain, but how many of them are (were) just rebranded and re-patented versions of existing ones?
There then follows some quite disturbing information on vivisection, stating what has become long-since well known that as well as these experiments being cruel they are worthless in relation to human physiology. Any medicine, vaccine or other drug still needs to undergo double-blinded tests against a placebo, undertaken by human volunteers. Such tests are undertaken in three phases using gradually larger groups. Medically, the animal tests achieve nothing and ought to have been phased out long ago in favour of using human tissue culture, again taken from volunteers. Animal Aid and other similar organisations are (were) in favour of this. At the time, the education system still required children to undertake dissection of dead animals for the ‘A’ Level Biology exams. Universities and medical research establishments however were and still are licensed to carry out experiments on live animals, something which the National Union of Students had led a campaign against? Does it still do so? As the book goes on to state, animals are also used in military research at Porton Down near Salisbury in Southern England. This is Britain’s biological warfare laboratory, our equivalent of the ‘gain-of-function’ lab at Wuhan in China.
Of the celebrities featured in this chapter, actress Julie Christie details her awakening to the reality of factory farming being on location in Norfolk whilst filming The Go-Between (a film set in 1900 that whilst featuring a farm does not itself feature a factory farm). She narrated The Animals Film and wrote the Foreword to The Cruel Deception: The use of animals in medical research by Dr Robert Sharpe (published by Thorsons in 1988) and prior to the Foreword featuring a quote from Dr Vernon Coleman on the futility of experiments on animals. The book is also listed at the end of this chapter under Further Reading. Chrissie Hynde, whose militant vegetarianism extended to advocating the firebombing of McDonald’s, features in this chapter. She embraced vegetarianism along with other ‘hippy values’ in the 1960’s. Although she acknowledges that it is healthier for her that wasn’t the original motive. She also believes that people need to see the bigger picture from an ecological viewpoint and not just from a selfish perspective about what might be lost to themselves.
The chapter rounds off by promoting alternative medicine (something that the Green Party used to, until it lost the plot), with standards being set by the Council for Complementary and Alternative Medicine), in order to give people a real choice that isn’t available with ‘conventional’ Western medicine. Some professional bodies are listed. Also at the end of the chapter is a list of anti-vivisection groups, a list of groups campaigning for humane research, those for preventative medicine and a Further Reading list. This includes the well-known E For Additives by Maurice Hanssen (published by Thorsons in 1987) and Cured to Death by Arabella Melville and Colin Johnson (published by New English Library Ltd in 1983), dealing with how prescribed drugs can cause new diseases, sickness and even death.
Chapter 5, Good Housekeeping, is one of the briefest and could really have been appended to Chapter 2 as it covers similar issues only in relation to household cleaning products rather than toiletries, pointing out that testing of these products on animals are usually carried out by contract laboratories, working for companies such as Colgate-Palmolive (better known for toiletries) and Johnson & Johnson (also known for vaccines). The chapter mentions a university student who having taken a job at one of these establishments, called Toxicol in Herefordshire, catalogued the abuse done to animals and which was later exposed by the national media. Cruelty-Free alternatives were and still are available, with a list of companies shown. More to the point people could just make their own household cleaners using the substances that they would have done before manufactured home cleaning products became available, a list of DIY household cleaners is near the end of the chapter, vinegar as one of the more popular ones. At the end of the chapter but unrelated to cleaning is a mention of how some pillows and duvets may contain ‘down’ but nowadays the fill used is usually synthetic.
Chapter 6, How Does Your Garden Grow? is about going organic and the difficulty in getting such a standard to begin with as the land must be left fallow for two years, then followed by stringent checks by the Soil Association. During these two fallow years the (potential) grower receives no financial help from government, whilst those who continue to use chemical pesticides reap in subsidies. Not mentioned in the chapter, but which ought to have been is that organic fruit and vegetables sold in any shop need to be segregated from the non-organic produce to avoid cross-contamination. In supermarkets therefore it is common to see organic produce sold shrink-wrapped, which is hardly good for the environment! If you have a decent-sized garden or an allotment you can grow as much of your own food as possible; and without worrying about adhering to strict enough rules to get certification you can gradually go organic. You could for example buy some organic potatoes to use as tubers from which you could grow your own; or buy some runner beans to use the seeds to grown your own. And ensure that you use organic fertiliser of plant-based origin.
Organic seeds for other fruit and vegetables may be difficult to buy. The chapter states that at the time small seed companies were being bought up by the agrochemical giants and that lobbying by these companies had resulted in many fruit and vegetable varieties being made illegal. The chapter didn’t mention Genetically Modified Organisms, as mentioned in the Vegetarian Society quarterly magazine a few years later. In 1990 at the time of the book’s publication the issue may not yet have been well-known. Rounding off the chapter is a list of organisations with addresses, including obviously the Soil Association and what was the Henry Doubleday Research Association at the National Centre for Organic Gardening at Ryton-on-Dunsmore near Coventry. Further Reading is listed including Rachel Carson’s famous book Silent Spring, first published in 1962 and a book entitled Veganic Gardening by Kenneth Dalziel O’Brien and published in 1986 by Thorsons.
Chapter 7, Entertaining Abuse highlights the plight of animals and birds in zoos. It should be obvious to anyone with a conscience that these caged environments are prisons; and as stated safari parks are not much better in that although the animals have some space to roam, that space and any social groupings that they may be permitted to make are still limited to what they would have in their respective natural habitats; habitats that have the relevant climate to which each species is used to. Although there are welfare organisation, such as Zoocheck mentioned, in themselves these arguably don’t go far enough but at least raise public awareness. The chapter mentions how Zoocheck examined the plight of a dolphin, most of whose life had been spent in captivity, but not whether the establishment where it was essentially held as a prisoner had been shut down as a consequence. The welfare of animals in circuses is also examined as well as action that Zoocheck took in their defence; as is that of animals, mainly chimpanzees, by beach photographers abroad (though I remember this was also the case in Britain during the 1970’s), in bullfighting and by the film making industry. In some films animals are killed for the sake of the story, but there is no reason that such a scene has to be included.
It details also British ‘Country Pursuits’, the hunting of wild animals, mainly foxes, with dogs, which became illegal in 2004, but is still widely flouted and that the League Against Cruel Sports produced information about ‘drag hunts’ following an artificial scent. As an alternative, it feels that these aren’t really, as what if the hounds became distracted by a real scent? Accurately mentioned is that many country people – and not just incomers from towns and cities – do not welcome the hunt, with its lack of regard for other people’s crops, gardens or other property. And when a hunt meets up in a town – Chipping Norton for example, most of whose infamous ‘set’ do not live in the town itself – and takes over the centre, as many do on Boxing Day, how many of the townsfolk actually approve of the hunt? Or are they frightened to speak out? Oddly enough, missing from the chapter is any mention of hunt saboteurs, unless they were considered too militant to include in the book. ‘Sabbing’ for many animal rights’ activists was and still is a way of life.
Badger baiting and hare coursing are detailed. Once a badger is dug out of its sett it is then smashed about the head before being torn about by terrier dogs. Hare coursing, whilst very much a minority blood ‘sport’, is when two greyhounds compete to catch a wild hare which gets torn apart by them when caught. Why anyone could derive enjoyment over any animal being killed is incomprehensible. Of course greyhound racing, whilst chasing a mechanical hare, in the confines of a stadium, is less cruel in not being geared towards a kill, many retired dogs are sold to laboratories for experiments. Horse racing which I’ve addressed in a previous blog post, is also examined. The most obvious and overlooked blood ‘sport’ of all, as mentioned, is fishing. The fishermen ignore, whether they even care, that the fish experience pain and distress when hooked; and the hook injuries can lead to death when the fish is returned to water. One other obvious issue with regard to fishing is the use of lead shot, as any wild fowl – ducks, geese, swans – that swallow it can be killed as a result. Discarded line and tackle can also kill them. Rounding off the chapter is some Further Reading, a list of specialist animal welfare groups and a list of local badger protection groups.
Chapter 8, A Nation of Animal Lovers? addresses the welfare of domestic animals as pets. It mentions that in 1987 the RSPCA, the largest animal welfare institution in the UK, killed more than sixty-one thousand dogs and fifty-three thousand cats as ‘unwanted’ or stray animals; and that the RSPCA had advocated a dog registration scheme of microchipping. The chapter suggests neutering animals to limit further breeding. I don’t have a companion animal nor do I want one, so I am not adding to the demand, however I can’t help thinking that those eugenicists who believe that the number of humans inhabiting the planet is too high, will look to exactly the same methods that are used against animals to keep their numbers down. Advice of giving a home to an animal as a companion is to go to a shelter rather than buy from a breeder. The chapter rounds off with a list of useful addresses including that of the RSPCA and that of a couple of retailers of vegetarian pet food. Finally, a list of home-prepared vegetarian pet foods.
Chapter 9, The Call of the Wild, starts with an article by English artist David Shepherd who died in 2017. In this article he claimed that he had always wanted to be a game warden, so in 1949 emigrated to Kenya in the hope of finding employment with the National Parks Service. He didn’t so returned to England to train as an artist, where after a few years of training began painting aircraft, so the Royal Air Force commissioned him to do some paintings for an officers’ mess in Kenya; but those paintings were to be not of aircraft, but of wildlife and this started his interest in conservation, stating that ‘the inhabitants of a country have to believe for themselves the value of protecting habitat and conserving animal life’. He recognised that if people in those countries are living at or below subsistence level, then their highest priority is their own survival and that if they see lush bountiful wildlife reserves, but they themselves are left with poor crop-growing and grazing land they will resent the better land being set aside for wildlife conservation. He claimed to be fed up with such a ‘people come first’ philosophy, but how would he have felt if he were living in dire poverty?
In typically colonial fashion, a common trait among many British and other ‘Western’ conservationists, he blamed the high birth rate in Kenya. How would he have felt reading an article by a Kenyan artist complaining about the birth rate in Britain as being ‘too high’ on the basis that British people per capita consume more of the world’s resources than Kenyans or other native peoples in the former British Empire? This attitude is prevalent among the World Wildlife Fund (based in Surrey, England) whose patron at the time was the now deceased Philip Battenberg-Windsor, father of the current English monarch (and husband of his predecessor). Shepherd blamed the high birth rate on the people being ‘denied’ birth control, whilst completely overlooking that in agrarian societies (as distinct from post-industrial ones), children are regarded as economic assets who work from an early age. Also the high birth rate is to ensure the survival of the next generation. His argument like that of many eugenicists (racists) is that high birth rates create poverty when they don’t, rather they are partly a response to poverty, which in Kenya’s case is a legacy of British imperialism. Economic prosperity brought about by more equitable trading relations with wealthy countries, combined with the social advancement of women, will bring down birth rates.
Shepherd went on to claim that ‘the world will breed itself out of house and home’, a misanthropic view that completely overlooked the huge disparities of wealth that allow a small number of families, including the British ‘royals’, to have control over vast amounts of wealth including land; and that of global corporations exploiting developing countries. Much of what he went on to state that ‘we’ are destroying species, rainforests, the planet and so on is correct, but again he placed collective guilt on everyone as well as pushing the ‘there’ll be nothing left to eat, there’ll be too many people’ argument. If it weren’t for these views then his ecological perspective would be fine, as he needs to recognise which people and corporations are responsible, instead of blaming everyone and in particular those who have ‘too many’ children. He stated his opposition to both factory farming and fur farming, as well as wild and endangered species being targeted for their furs. And he recognised that Antarctica, as an ‘unexploited’ area, should be kept that way.
The general text of the chapter, following on from Shepherd’s views, is about ‘animals being exploited by man’ and that for people living in wealthy countries consumer boycotts can work as they have in the case of the fur and ivory trades, the latter of which had led to a decline in the elephant population. Lorraine Kay as book author states that where she parts company with ‘conservation’ is where it relates to keeping a species going only in sufficient numbers for them to be exploited (for their skins, tusks, meat etc or for the tourist industry), rather than viewing animals as individuals with a right to live. She does recognise that in poorer countries where human life is a ‘disposable commodity’ giving priority to animals can seem irrelevant; and that moving animals from areas where there are ‘too many’ to where they are few might seem well meaning, but isn’t necessarily practicable. She recognised that people in developing countries need their own lives improved first by political and social action such as housing, sanitation and clean water; and that there is a need to resist the commercial parasites from the developed world seeking cheap labour, lax legislation and often corrupt officialdom.
One area she didn’t look into is how highly subsidised European farmers, who are paid to produce agricultural surpluses, then dump these surpluses on African countries thereby undercutting their farmers and keeping them in a state of post-colonial dependency. She states that better living standards will mean more surviving children, hence families can be kept small. At least she understands that improved living standards are needed to bring birth rates down, not the other way around. She recognised that many Eastern countries are already ‘primarily vegetarian’, which is not necessarily the case, but that those which are will have spiritual philosophies that can be built upon. However her comment that some countries ‘may have to be jollied along and imposed upon’ gives away an imperialist mindset. It is all very well her castigating Brazilians for the damage to the Amazon rainforest, but they themselves are not the ones driving the demand for the land to be used for cattle farming, it is the junk food addicted populations of North America, Europe and Australasia who are to blame. The chapter rounds off with the contact details of some ‘green groups concerned with earth/wildlife rescue’, including Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, but unfortunately including ‘Population Concern’ and the World Wildlife Fund, two misanthropic organisations.
Chapter 10, The Root of all Evil? is a look at finance, stating the obvious that many of the companies offering shares on the stock market are heavily involved in both human and animal exploitation. Since this book was published in 1990, almost all the large companies and corporations quoted on global stock markets have become ultimately owned by Blackrock and Vanguard, the ownership of which appears to be of each other, but which are ultimately owned by the wealthiest families in the world, including the British ‘royals’, the Battenberg-Windsors. So don’t be fooled by any claims by these people that they care about ecology, humanity and the well-being of other species. The article states how ethical investment trusts had become available and still are. Not mentioned is the Ethical Consumer magazine, which certainly existed in 1990 and still does now in on-line form, which is a good source for researching the investments of different companies. The chapter does state that if you hold shares in companies which clash with your principles, you could raise these issues by attending Annual General Meetings. Also mentioned is the Ecology Building Society, which lends to specific projects such as organic horticulture, energy-saving homes and which refuses to invest in factory farming. The chapter rounds off with a list of ethical investment trusts.
Chapter 11, Epilogue: Louder than Words, is only a page long, summing up how the reader can make positive steps towards a cruelty-free lifestyle without being cajoled or subjected to pressure from campaigners. On an individual level what you do unconsciously makes you part of a larger group of people doing the same. When I went vegetarian in 1986 and then later vegan in 1989, it was as a result of my own reading and decisions, not any amount of pressure from campaigners or peers (of whom I didn’t know any who were vegetarian or vegan!). An obvious way, as stated, to influence other people would have been to lend this book to others or buy them a copy. The same applies to any similar books available nowadays. If you are a member of a public library you could request books on cruelty-free lifestyle be added to the collection. Since the book was published, vegetarians and vegans are much better catered for and food labelling has improved substantially, albeit for the ‘wrong’ reason of highlighting possible allergens, including those of dairy or egg origin. The chapter rounds off with a list of political pressure groups, including those within the main parties. My summary of this book is that, if it is available second-hand at a reasonable price, it is worth buying and checking its current relevance, including how much has really changed for the better (if at all) in the past thirty-three years.
Main Reference:
Living Without Cruelty – Lorraine Kay, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, England, 1990
Warwick Vegan 
You must be logged in to post a comment.