Chapter 13 – Political Persuasion

Having read this far, there is probably a question which you’re dying to ask. Why, if meat is as bad as all the evidence shows, don’t governments do something about it? It’s a good question but not that easy to answer.

First, politicians aren’t gods, they’re ordinary human beings. Whichever party they belong to, their first aim is to gain or keep power. Without power, politicians can do nothing. So the first lesson of politics is -–don't upset the people who have money and influence and who can take your power away from you. The second lesson is – don’t go around telling the majority of the population things they don’t want to hear, even if they may need to know it. If you do, they will simply vote for someone else.

The meat industry is big and powerful and most people don’t want to be told the truth about meat eating. And those are two reasons why governments say nothing.

Meat and dairy production is by far the biggest and wealthiest side of farming and a huge industry. The value of Britain’s cattle alone is around £20 billion and before the BSE scandal in 1996, UK exports of beef added up to £3 billion every year. Then add to that all the chicken, pork and turkey growers and all the companies who make things out of meat – burgers, pies, sausages and so on. We are talking mega amounts of money! Any government that started telling people not to eat meat would jeopardise the profits of these corporations and they would use their power against it. This advice would also be extremely unpopular with the general public; just think how many people you know who eat meat. That, I’m afraid, is a simple statement of fact.

Governments everywhere tend to see environmental destruction, starvation in the South and even human health as long-term problems which they don’t have to worry about too much now. Spending large amounts of money on these things doesn’t help to get them re-elected. Only when ordinary people know the facts and start to demand change will anything happen.

The meat industry also spends a vast amount of money advertising directly to the public, telling them every day in every way that meat is good, necessary and natural. On British television there have been the Meat to Live and Meat the Language of Love advertisements paid for by the Meat & Livestock Commission out of its annual £42 million marketing and advertising budget. The poultry industry advertises chickens, ducks and turkeys. Then there are the hundreds of individual companies too that make profits out of meat: Sun Valley and Birds Eye chicken, McDonalds and Burger King burgers, Bernard Matthews turkey, Matteson’s cold meats, Danish bacon – the list is almost endless and the amount of money involved huge. I’ll give you one example- McDonalds. Every year they sell burgers worth US426 billion in 18,000 restaurants in 89 countries. And the message is constant: Meat is okay!

Ever heard of the story of Pinocchio, about a wooden puppet who comes to life and tells whoppers. Every time he lies his nose grows a bit longer until he finishes up with a huge conk. The story was meant as a warning to children not to tell lies. It should have been written for some of the adults who sell meat, and this is why.

Producers will tell you that their pigs are much happier living inside their warm pens where they get plenty of food and don’t have to worry about the rain and cold. But as anyone who’s read Chapter 1 will know, this is an outright lie. Factory-farmed pigs are so stressed out and bored that they often go mad.

The egg section in my local supermarket has a phoney thatched roof with phoney chickens. When little kids pull a string, a recording of a clucking hen play. On the egg boxes it says ‘Farm Fresh’ or ‘Country Fresh’ and there’s a picture of chickens in a field. This is the ‘Fooled you’ lie! Without saying so, the egg producers have made you think that chickens wander around as free as . . . well, a bird. (As we’ve seen in Chapter 3 that just isn’t true.)

‘Meat to Live’ says the advertisement. That’s what I call the ‘half-a-story’ lie. Of course you can live with meat as part of your diet but how much would they sell if they told the full story: ‘Meat for 40 per cent more heart disease’ which as Chapter 16 shows is the complete truth.

But why would anyone tell such fibs? The answer, my veggie or soon-to-be-veggie friend, is easy – money! The moment loads-a-money can be made from something, is the time when truth is in danger of taking a back seat. As for the animals which suffer – well, animals can’t vote, can they?

If it sounds like I’m being unfair to politicians then just think about cigarettes. Tobacco is the biggest killer in the world and now plays a part in one half of all deaths around the globe. It’s been known to cause cancer and other diseases for over 30 years. In fact most people who smoke want to stop but find it very difficult because tobacco is an extremely powerful drug.

So what do governments do about it? There’s no really serious campaign to say don’t smoke; cigarettes are still advertised in high streets all over the world and in almost every newspaper and magazine; you can buy them everywhere and they’re cheap enough for anyone to get hold of. Why? Could it be the billions of pounds which governments make every year in taxation on tobacco?!

So you see, when money’s involved the truth may be hidden or sometimes even buried completely. But it can’t be taken away from you once you have it. And truth is also power because the more you know the less easily you can be fooled.

‘The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals. . .The only way to live is to let live.’
- Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948, Indian peace activist
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‘ The more we know about the meat industry the more we can do to stop it. Knowledge really is power.’
- Damon Albarn, lead singer of Blur