[Anthony Butcher]

Originally Posted by Calum

hello all, hope it's not too late to comment, there having been no activity in the thread for a week.

Welcome on to the forum. Please do keep any discussions going - the campaign is incredibly new, so as members join they are bound to want to discuss the issues

Originally Posted by Calum

What i mean is that there's no point giving up a dietary improvement as a lost cause simply because battery farms still exist. Nuclear power stations still exist and yet much is being spent on research into hydro, solar and wind powered electricity. Where would those projects (and the technology and industry involved with them) be if they had taken this attitude?

I take your point, although I think that we are really just saying the same thing! It is slightly outside the realm of a labelling campaign to campaign against battery farmed eggs, but that doesn't mean that we can't campaign for mandatory labelling for all battery farmed eggs.

Originally Posted by Calum

is it a case of straining gnats while passing camels? (so to speak) All i'm saying is, a good thing, okay, but a better thing, that's better.

It is, as you say, just a step in the right direction. However, the driving force for me is that it is a potentially achievable step. I really would like the campaign to remain a consumer information campaign, rather than an animal welfare campaign, because it includes people who have a much wider range of food issues (religion and allergies) and also because it is far easier for companies to ignore and dismiss animal welfare groups.

Originally Posted by Calum

i actually disagree. While i find Astro Cat's posts quite hard work in terms of assimilating all the information (over on her own forums, that is) i can't actually see anything in this thread that's been a waste of space.

It wasn't a waste of space, and I hope that I made that clear. There was no offence intended.

Originally Posted by Calum

Rather than continue discussing in the raw atmosphere that Astro's discussion has created, you say "i'd rather bow out of this uncomfortable atmosphere and do something i am familiar with", because after all leaflets are about disseminating the information you already know, whereas discussing involves (if you're doing it right) assimilating new information and checking the facts independently as well.

Fair enough. She had many good and valid points, but I simply couldn't keep up with her constant demands for questions to be answered!

I did try to suggest an alternative route for her to perhaps offer something more constructive by providing a vegan labelling guide for restaurants, but she declined.

Obviously I don't want to upset anyone, and regret that she felt unable to stay, but a campaign like this is always going to be unacceptable to some people if it doesn't specifically follow their own ethical code.

Originally Posted by Calum

Does Label My Food consider the vegan society to be the authority on veganism?

I wasn't aware of any issues on this. In the absence of a respectable alternative then I would say "yes". Of course if there is some pressing reason why that shouldn't be the case nothing is set in stone.

Originally Posted by Calum

Why not encourage restaurants to have a decent number of non-meat/non-animal meals? Many products are now available that are indistinguishable from meaty products, and restaurants could easily offer many existing dishes as vegan/veggie "options" without altering their menu at all, just their recipes and ingredients.

That is indeed the plan . I have never understood why places will offer sausage and mash but not offer a veggie sausage alternative for example.

Originally Posted by Calum

In my opinion some markets, like airline food and burger vans, could replace their existing food with soya based alternatives at a stroke and the meat eaters wouldn't even be able to tell the difference!

I don't think that we can realistically persuade anyone to stop selling meat products, regardless of whether their customers would notice .