LET THEM EAT MEAT: China media attacks vegan and animal rights campaigns, claim they want Chinese to ‘eat grass’
Environmental and animal rights groups, and public health experts have also increasingly criticized the Chinese phenomenon of 'wet markets' in the era of the coronavirus pandemic.
FRANCES MARTEL: China’s state-run Global Times published multiple condemnations this week of a largely favorable article in Time magazine highlighting the growing meat substitute industry in the country, accusing those urging vegan diets in China of having a “sense of superiority” over Han Chinese people…
The Global Times urged those concerned about growing meat consumption in China — naming former President Barack Obama specifically — to instead express more concern with nations like Argentina and New Zealand, where beef consumption is high compared to other states but carbon emissions are relatively negligible.
“In recent years, the West has constantly raised concerns over the impact of Chinese eating meat on the environment,” the Global Times observed this weekend, quoting the CEO of the meat substitute company Impossible Foods, Pat Brown, stating, “every time someone in China eats a piece of meat, a little puff of smoke goes up in the Amazon”…
The newspaper accused Obama and those concerned about meat consumption in China of bigotry. “In the eyes of some Western elites, Westerners can have the privilege to eat meat while Chinese should just eat grass,” the outraged newspaper accused. “They are reluctant to see Chinese are living an increasingly abundant life, and that the living standards of the Chinese are getting closer to the Westerners”…
Late last year, the Global Times‘ boasted that “China’s appetite for meat is showing no sign of slowing down.” “The country is the world’s largest consumer of meat by some margin, with citizens expected to eat 40.3 million metric tons of pork in 2020, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)”
In a separate article also published this weekend, the Times cited Chinese “netizens” — the social media users the Communist Party allows to share their opinions online due to their favorable takes on the regime — calling Time and the West generally “hypocritical” for expressing any concern about meat consumption in China… A pro-government “expert” appeared in the article, again raising the specter of anti-Chinese bigotry. “Are Chinese people inherently inferior to enjoy the standard of living as those in Western developed countries?” the “expert” asked…
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a U.S.-based animal rights organization that has both condemned the continued existence of wet markets and highlighted Asian cuisine in its slate of vegan recipes, emphasized in a statement to Breitbart News that it, as the preeminent pro-animal organization in the West, is seeking not just the promotion of plant-based diets in China.
“PETA wants the world to go vegan, and the U.S. and Europe could learn a thing or two from China, where foods like mock duck and soy-based pork originated and vegan brands like OmniPork, Starfield, Z-Rou, and Beyond Meat are booming,” Jason Baker, the vice president of PETA Asia, said in a statement. “We believe China can continue to lead by encouraging its citizens to abandon filthy pig factories and ‘wet markets’”…
China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases fueling climate change. A 2018 scientific study described reducing the consumption of meat products as the “single biggest way” to reduce the harmful effects of pollution on the world environment. China consumes so much meat that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) listed an African swine fever epidemic in the country in 2019 as the “primary” reason for a global decline in meat consumption that year.
Environmental and animal rights groups, as well as public health experts, have also increasingly criticized the Chinese phenomenon of “wet markets” in the era of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. Wet markets are open-air locations where consumers have access to live animals killed on sight to be purchased for food. Many markets feature exotic animals and face minimal oversight, prompting accusations of being hubs of disease. SOURCE…
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