Veganuary isn’t a fad or trendy diet – it’s a chance to live a more ethical life

Veganuary can wrongly lead the public to the perception of Veganism as faddish. Granting it a more educated coverage in the media would be a good start to taking it seriously.

CASPAR SALMON: ‘Well into Veganuary and the head-scratching confusion over just exactly what veganism is continues.The perception of veganism as a diet or passing fad has somehow clung on in the health pages of our newspapers…There is a continual debate in the media about whether ‘the diet’ is healthy. This is beside the point. There is a stream of misinformation designed to trick people into believing that vegetarianism and veganism are simply not possible. This madness must stop, and it’s extraordinary that it has endured this long…

Making the personal choice to live more ethically deserves better than these eyebrow-raises from the media. What we need instead is more information, more attention paid to ‘the diet’, and better questions. Such as: why isn’t the government doing more to change the way we eat, given that the overwhelming majority of climate science has been repeating for years that reducing meat intake is crucial to the survival of our ecosystem?…

This situation leads to a strange disconnect in our public life, where what is a known and necessary phenomenon is underreported, misreported or misrepresented. That comes on top of an already massive generational divide: roughly half of all vegans are aged 15 to 34, compared to 14% of over-65s. This means that there’s a lack of proper guidance, and the sense of veganism as fringe and cultish perseveres…

Veganuary is a tolerable endeavour, which apparently leads to people taking-up veganism seriously, but it also hugely participates in the public perception of veganism as faddish and juvenile virtue-signalling. Granting ‘the diet’ a modicum of respect, and wider, more educated coverage in our media, would be a good start’.  SOURCE…

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