Food for Thought

Meet Pippin! Pippin came home with me from Shropshire Cat Rescue exactly one week ago and is my new baby and my best friend. She is already making herself at home. Here she is, on my lap, watching Crufts with me on her first night chez nous.

Pippin (and all animals in fact) is one of the major reasons I went predominantly vegan around a year ago. And I’ve just watched a brilliant, thought provoking (but not preachy) documentary film called Food For Thought (available to watch on You Tube) which argues that we should all be thinking about reducing the meat in our diet, if not going vegetarian or vegan. It’s directed by two regular creative blokes from the film industry - Giles Alderson and Dan Richardson - who happen to be vegan and big animal lovers.

“The aim of the film is the title, to get people to think,” says Dan who has been vegan for 8 years now. '“We’re not judging, not preaching, not vilifying people for their choices. We’re talking about veganism in an easy gentle relatable way.” Thus the film starts with a bit of larking about between Giles and Dan,” the approach is light hearted and not extreme or militant. “Vegans aren’t necessarily weird, anaemic, purple haired people who tie themselves to trees! We want to normalise the vegan community.” continues Dan.

“I don’t think its seen as extreme any more,” adds Giles who has been vegan 9 years. “There’s still the jokes, we’re an easy target. It’s great that its gone mainstream.”

“Even people that do resist say ‘I have reduced my meat consumption,’” chips in Dan.

As if to prove how normal, cool and healthy it is they interview vegan bodybuilders, vegan yoga teachers, vegan Derek from a heavy metal band in South America (Sepultura), and a sun kissed vegan California girl - who is also an animal rights activist. They also get random members of the public to go vegan for a month and make video diaries of the experience - including some very recalcitrant young male carnivores!

But I had to wonder why the Climate Change reason for veganism wasn’t foregrounded in this film? Dan explains: “98.5% of the scientific community are saying Climate Change is real and animal farming is at the top of the list of things causing it. But we didnt want to do a science based thing, we wanted to keep it relatable. We steered away from facts and kept it to people’s experiences.”

Of course health can be a very compelling reason to go vegan and they interview several cancer survivors who went vegan post cancer and found that the cancer didn’t recur precisely because they had gone vegan.

So why do they think veganism has had a massive surge in popularity in the last 10 years? “Social media has had a big impact, “ reckons Giles also noting there have been previous films alerting people about animal welfare in industrialised farming.

And the good news is its getting even easier to go vegan, or even just to do a meat free Monday if you don’t want to go that far. “It’s even easier to go vegan, than ever before, “ says Dan. As if to prove this point they interview Ethan Brown the CEO of Beyond Meat “who represents an entire industry.” Supermarkets, restaurant menus - “we’re a fast consuming society and its getting easier and easier.”

It’s a convincing film and whether you decide to go fully vegan or just do one or two days a week without meat, it may well change attitudes and thinking. At the end of the day, Pippin, and all his animal comrades, will thank you for it!