Lovely, shopping at the market in front of the medieval town hall, where the winter vegetables blue cabbage, savoy cabbage, parsley roots, onions, colorful carrots in white, yellow, orange and purple and lots of potatoes of different sizes present their amazing variety in the sunshine. At home, unpacking later, I read on the wrapper of the whole grain bread, "Vegan." Amazing. Shouldn't it be vegan anyway? What business should a piece of animal have to do in whole grain bread? However, I have often noticed that pieces of animals appear in the most outlandish products. So not only in gummy bears, whose consistency can supposedly only be achieved with bone powder - not true, because I have often bought and consumed vegan gummy bears and dinos and cola bottles myself - and survived the pleasure. But also creams, toothpaste, fruit juices, etc., etc. The list of products containing ingredients derived from animal carcasses is certainly much longer than those without.
Okapi nudges Zebra. -Hey, Zebra, how do you like the idea that we ask the people in front of the butcher shop what they think? They're waiting there because of Covid restrictions, and there can't be more than 3 customers in the store at a time. That's where you could approach them.
Zebra puts on a doubtful expression. -Would you go so far as to assume they're thinking anything at all?
Okapi laughs briefly. -Well, yes. I think it's safe to assume that they are. After all, I heard someone there in line say something about "the poor critters."
-Seriously? Zebra asks in amazement. -But that actually proves my assumption that they don't think anything, or at least not much, when they go to the store afterwards and buy pieces of these "poor critters" to eat.
-Well, they just don't have a relationship to them. Or maybe they don't see them as "critters" at all.
- I'm afraid that could be. But my question would also be, do they want to think about what the current crisis has to do with the meat industry?
- Be the change you want to see in the world?
- Worth a try.
A vegan symbol for animal-free products is a good thing in itself. But how would it be if instead labels on the non-vegan products were mandatory, showing the animals contained in them? In the food sector, for example, a picture of the animal in question could be printed. In the case of clothing, the information could be practically attached to the price tag or the tag with the care instructions. And it would have to be marked which part of the animal is in the product. This also applies, for example, to the popular fur collars on anoraks - "Der Graslutscher" wrote a wonderful column about this.
Until now, a kind of presumption of innocence has applied to many products because of the lack of mandatory labeling. This is inappropriate and also deceives the clientele because it supports concealment. Do we not have a right to know in which products pieces of killed living beings are hidden?
But first, a vegan cow candy. That is, one without any cow at all. Neither with pieces of her nor with calf growth booster (aka milk). The candy is called so in reminiscence. In the past it was made with butter. Today it is animal-free. And extremely good.