This Is Vegan Propaganda: (And Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You)

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Winters is sharp when describing the conditions animals are forced to endure, but relies on platitudes to underline his point about them. (“I know which option I would choose – what about you?”)

It is worth pointing out that nearly all farms are considered family farms, including the huge factory farms. The meat, dairy, and egg industries market their products as coming from traditional family farms by naming their farms Willow and Happy, a ploy to convince you to buy from them. This was good vegan propaganda. I will probably now recommend this book to people interested in learning about veganism, mostly because the information in it is the most up-to-date (as of 2022). There were, however, two main things I didn't like (this is a bit of a ramble, and also a lot of my own thoughts on vegetarianism/veganism): Without turning my review into too much of a regurgitation of these arguments that I clearly agree with and uphold, I want to establish once more just how significant the decision of what we chose to consume is. We can either chose to live and consume in an ethical way or we can continue to support industries that are destroying our planet and causing death on an unimaginable scale. It’s really that simple. Please choose the kinder option. Please go vegan. I feel like I’ve been waiting for this book (or a book like it) for a very long time. It’s really a pivotal piece of writing. And it’s written in such a way to be accessible to both vegans and non-vegans alike. This is a book written to make you think. It’s not written to demonise you for your choices or to make you feel judged. It wants to challenge you. And it wants you to consider the reality of animal agriculture.Ed Winters, "Earthling Ed", is a vegan educator, public speaker and content creator based in London, England. Winters is the co-founder and co-director of Surge, an animal rights organisation determined to create a world where compassion towards all non-human animals is the norm. I'm not going to rate this or go into detail about the content other than to say it was illuminating, horrifying and informative. And UK based, which somehow made it even more horrendous to read about. Whether you are a vegan needing more thoughtful and irrefutable dinner-table counter arguments, a curious relative or friend of a vegan, or simply someone curious about learning about and helping to change systemic issues, this book is for you! If you are a human, this book is for you!

This book is without doubt the most interesting book out there on the real truth behind the meat industry. Our choices can help alleviate the most pressing issues we face today: the climate crisis, infectious and chronic diseases, human exploitation and, of course, non-human exploitation. Undeniably, these issues can be uncomfortable to learn about but the benefits of doing so cannot be overstated. It is quite literally a matter of life and death.That’s absolutely not the reality the animal you’ll see in your supermarket later has lived. And connecting the products you buy to those gorgeous animals is even more challenging. Where Winters is at his most effective, for me at least, is when he sets his Debate Club prep notes aside and writes from his heart about his struggles to discuss his veganism with his own family, or our societal double standards when it comes to animal cruelty:

We need to change the way we look at and treat our fellow animals on this planet. As soon as possible. Is it not strange that we call those who kill dogs animal abusers, those who kill pigs normal and those who kill neither extremists? Is it not odd that someone who smashes a car window to rescue a dog on a hot day is viewed as a hero but someone who rescues a piglet suffering on a farm is a criminal? [....] Ed Winters has built his career on bear baiting. Not with real bears; he’s a vegan. Instead he sits in public places under signs printed with provocative statements such as “Going vegan is a moral imperative: change my mind.” Winters waits for a passerby to take the bait, in the form of debate, and uploads their subsequent conversation on his popular social media channels. To anyone who ever owned a pet, whatever it was, a hamster, a cat, a dog, you realise the entire duplicity of how you can adore animals yet nonchalantly consume others who’ve been kept in dreadful conditions for their very short lives. It should be clear that I read this book as a vegan beforehand, and I am pretty well informed on most aspects of the industry in large part due to Ed’s content. He has helped to solidify my conviction in being vegan. I ‘read’ the audiobook version, which is well-narrated by Ed.

The irony of vegan men referring to meat-eaters as “pussies” is not lost on Adams: “It’s not undoing the association with women and negativity.” She points to the term “hegan”, a portmanteau of he and vegan, coined in a 2010 article about male vegans and defined by the Urban Dictionary as “a trendy male vegan”. “It’s this need to not be associated with women, who are perceived by society to be more compassionate and empathic,” Adams says. “But the world needs more compassion. Why is compassion feared? How do we undo this situation so that men are no longer afraid of being compassionate?” Maybe the most important reason for going without animal products is the much more frequent and deadly incidents of pandemics this century. COVID-19 was not the first or the deadliest in history and the worst is predicted by most scientists to be coming if we continue to farm diseased, mutilated animals in highly toxic environments. Wild animals bring the virus to farms, it spreads like wildfire, and all the farmed animals in the surrounding area must be 'culled.' but sometimes the virus mutates enough to affect the lungs of human farm workers. The amount of pain, stress and suffering experienced by hundreds of millions of sentient beings with conscious experience, emotions, relationships and behaviour is unimaginable. And we are causing it. Just to have some simplistic, banal feeling of pleasure for a few minutes with our meal. Without necessity (in our modern affluent countries at least). I love the way Ed breaks down all the mess surrounding veganism and the propaganda fed to us from the meat dairy and egg industries. Overall, I think this is an essential read both for vegans and for curious non vegans, who care about the future of our planet. This book shows how veganism could change the world for the better, and also how dezastruos the current system really is. It's both an informative and a terrifying read.