The Livewire Guide to Going, Being and Staying Veggie

Juliet Gellatley

Chapter 19 – Fancy Free and Cruelty Free

In becoming, being or staying veggie, you have taken one of the most important steps of your life. You’ve improved your health, made a giant contribution to improving people’s lives around the world and done a huge amount to help the earth’s environment. You’ve also made sure that the animal production line of misery and death is no longer carried out in your name. You are doing much more than most people to safeguard the future.

Of course, you’re always going to meet those people who don’t want to do anything. Once they know you’re veggie, some bright wazzock is bound to tell you that, just by giving up meat and fish, you won’t make any difference. Wrong! Just remember how many animals you will have saved in your lifetime by not eating meat: over 850 of them as well as half a ton of fish!

Having taken this important step, what sometimes happens is that people want to know more about the not-so-obvious and sometimes hidden cruelty to animals that plays a part in everyday life. This chapter outlines some additional issues that may concern you as a vegetarian or vegan, although you may feel quite fairly that you are doing enough already.

One obvious example of something that concerns a lot of veggies is the issue of leather. Leather is a by-product of meat. Producers don’t kill cattle for their skins alone, although it is another bit of the animal that makes slaughtering them profitable for those who do it. Leather, as you probably know, has become pretty fashionable and is used for loads of things like shoes, briefcases and bags, as well as covering furniture.

A lot of the leather people buy is soft leather – the softer the better for handbags and jackets. This leather doesn’t come from the skin of cows but from calves. And the softest leather of all comes from the unborn calf of a pregnant cow killed at the slaughterhouse. This leather is often used for gloves as well as clothes.

Happily, there are zillions of leather look-alike products these days. You can get bags and clothes from loads of shops and even by mail order from specialist outlets (see pp. 184-5). There is also a wide range of non-leather jackets available and as a lot
Of them come from Italy – one of the international centres of fashion – they’re really pretty up to date! They’re also a lot cheaper than leather!

These days, non-leather shoes are easy to find too. (It’s a bit more difficult for boys although they are around.) You tend to get the best choice in cheaper shoe shops, funnily enough. The styles are the same as leather shoes it’s just that they’re less expensive. In the summer, hessian, canvas and rope shoes with synthetic soles tend to be everywhere. Again they’re cheap and come in the latest styles.

If you’re living in the UK, then Marks & Spencer (yes, really!) are stacked with pong-proof, non-leather boots and shoes and some are pretty cool. There are also specialist places whose whole purpose is to sell stylish veggie shoes by mail order (see p. 184). Most of these shops started up when the chunky Doc Marten look came in, and the stuff they sell is completely trendy. These shoes often aren’t any cheaper than the leather styles, but you can even get identical DMs in brilliant colours like purple or yellow.

Wool is a bit like leather in that it often provides a bit of extra cash for sheep farmers. The reason some people don’t use wool is because the shock of being shorn may kill some sheep while others sometimes die of cold if the shearing’s done too early in the year while it’s still winter. (What many people don’t realise is that as much as 50 per cent of the wool used in brightly coloured coats, jumpers, scarves and gloves may be cut from the bodies of slaughtered sheep.) Happily, cotton has made a big hit over recent years and just about every jumper selection shops, catalogues and mail-order stores includes a big range of cotton ‘woollies’. Another alternative is acrylic and both this and cotton tend to be cheaper than wool, as well as a lot easier to look after and wash!

If you’re decided not to use any animal products then fur’s obviously a no-no too. Unless your folks have just won the lottery, you’re unlikely to go clubbing in a mink or any other kind of fur – pardon the pun! Unfortunately, loads of shops still sell clothes with little bits of fur trim on the collars of jackets and coats. Fur can only come from one of two places: animals that have been trapped in the wild or those that have been farmed for their skin. Either way, the animals suffer and there are plenty of alternatives, including some really good fakes. Let’s face it: Being veggie and dressing in fur just don’t go together!

Silk is seen as a trouble zone by some vegetarians and vegans. Silk is the substance that silk worms spin into a cocoon to protect themselves when they’re in the process of turning from caterpillars into moths. Problem is, they never make it. While still in their cocoon, the caterpillars are dunked into boiling water which kills them and allows the silk to be unwound into long threads. It’s then woven into fabric to make the clothes you find in high-street stores everywhere.

Another slightly different issue that comes up for some vegetarians or vegans is dissection. If you’re at school, then you may be asked to dissect an animal or part of it as part of your studies. However, in the UK, dissection is not required by the exam boards for GCSE Biology or for a teacher’s assessment. So it doesn’t have to be part of the lesson – it all depends on whether teachers (and students) want to include it or not. For this reason, schools in Britain cannot make their students take part in dissection and they can’t take marks away from students who don’t participate.

For some veggie students, dissection is a no-go. As they see it, dissection teaches people to treat animals as disposable objects. Animals – usually rats, although in the USA, cats and piglets are also used – are bred, caged and killed just so they can be cut up in high school science classes. The question is whether animals should be seen as teaching aids – or whether as living, feeling creatures, their lives have a value in their own right.

Dissection is designed to show students how the structure of an animal’s body is linked to its function. For instance, the position of the lungs has a bearing on how they work. Increasingly, however, exam boards have acknowledged that dissection is not essential to an understanding of this relationship. There are also a growing number of effective alternatives including computer simulations, videos and filmstrips, models, wall charts, prepared slides and, of course, diagrams in books – all of which give an equally good picture of how things work.

As we know, animals are also used to test how painful or dangerous different products like oven cleaners, bathroom cleaners, disinfectants, weed-killers and so on are when brought into contact with people’s skin (including our nose, mouth and eyes). And, despite the growth of cruelty-free cosmetic companies, some big manufacturers still drip their make-up products into animals’ eyes or smear them over their raw flesh, causing enormous pain and suffering.

Simply not buying cosmetics or domestic products that have been tested on animals sends a clear message to the manufacturers that you don’t support what they are doing. As more people buy only ‘cruelty-free’ products, companies are turning away from animal testing in order to maintain sales.

The question is: How do you know which products are safe to buy? Well, you can be sure that none of the manufacturers who use animals is brave enough to tell you this by stamping ‘Tested on animals’ on their products. Instead, look out for the opposite. Read the labels and find out which companies have made a clear policy decision to give up animal testing. Then buy only from them. Most manufacturers who don’t test on animals say so! To be a hundred per cent sure, you can also refer to the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection’s Approved Products Guide (see p. 181).

The more you change your life to cut out cruelty to animals, the more you may feel as though you’re the only person in the world who cares. The truth is that a lot of people now care about the same things you do and are living accordingly – just see the number of different organisations listed at the end of this book!

On the other hand, you may feel that the number of issues to think about is a little overwhelming and that as a veggies, you’re doing enough already. Giving up things like leather or wool may just seem too much at the moment. That’s absolutely fine and it’s important to remember that by being veggie, you’re already doing much, much more than most.