One vegan does not a movement make – less than 3,000 omnivores confirmed to have been “converted” by #Veganuary

Posted on March 14, 2018 by bovidiva

Would a cheeseburger have tempted you away from #Veganuary?

Well, the official numbers have been published for #Veganuary, the 2018 attempt to entice people away from meat and towards the heady delights of almond juice and bean curd. The campaign has been cited as a magnificent success by such impartial publications as Plant Based News (has that been the guest publication on Have I Got News for You yet?) with 62% of survey respondents (who were not previously vegan) stating that they intend to continue with a vegan lifestyle.

On the face of it, that does sound impressive, admittedly slightly less so given that it means 38% of participants presumably thought “Sod that Veganuary lark, I’m off for a bacon sandwich with cheesy chips.”

Yet here’s the rub. Despite the claims of success, the survey was only sent to 50% of participants. That’s slightly odd given that, presumably, the majority signed up online with a valid email address. There was then a 14% response rate to the survey. That means that overall, only 7% of people^a who undertook Veganuary actually completed the survey.

Let’s assume that those who replied and confirmed that they were going to continue a vegan lifestyle were a random sample of the Veganuary population. This is a bit of a stretch, as anybody who’d not enjoyed Veganuary and was happily chomping down on a bacon sandwich would be considerably less motivated to reply than somebody who thought it was the best thing since sliced tofu. The stretch is underlined by the fact that 99% of respondents would recommend Veganuary to others – so basically a sub-section of happy campers. However, we’ll give it benefit of the doubt.

40% of people who completed the survey had previously identified themselves as omnivores (compared to 16% pescatarian, 33% vegetarian and 11% vegan). If we extend that statistic out to all the people who undertook Veganuary (168,500 people), then 67,400 people^b – just less than the population of Stafford in the West Midlands – were originally omnivores. So, if the assumptions made earlier hold true, 7% of those previously-known-as-omnivores replied to the survey (4,718 people^c) and of those, 62% aimed to stay vegan.

So 2,925^d omnivores have confirmed that they will remain vegan – are the rest enjoying a cheeseburger for lunch? Who knows. However, human nature being what it is, the “converted” number may be even smaller in a few months time.

Are vegan numbers increasing? Yes. Is it a massive trend? No. A fad prevalent in westernised society? Maybe. In 2016, 17.86 million babies were born in China. That’s 48,932 born per day, many of whom will choose to emulate the western diet. So, in just one day, 15.7-fold more babies are born in a country where meat and dairy consumption are predicted to increase over coming decades, than the number people who we know have actually pledged to stay vegan (having previously been omnivorous) after Veganuary. Was Veganuary a storm in a tea cup? Yes – with milk…and a cheese sandwich on the side.

^a 50% x 14%
^b 168,500 people x 40%
^c 67,400 people x 7%
^d 4,718 people x 62%

Many thanks to @davidbarrettvet for the conversation that suggested this blog post.

Is your dinner more intelligent than a baby…and should you care?

Posted on March 8, 2018 by bovidiva

If Daisy the pig can recognise herself in a mirror, does that mean she shouldn’t be turned into bacon?

In the wake of a seriously busy #Februdairy, where activist rhetoric was thrown around like confetti at a summer wedding (my personal favourite activist claim – milking cows just promotes patriarchal societies in which females are treated like objects…), this little gem just arrived in my Twitter messages.

It’s a interesting little animation, probably aimed at giving food for thought (groan…), with the premise that if the animals that we eat for dinner (pigs, octopi, etc) are more intelligent than something that we wouldn’t eat (a human infant*), then should we be thinking twice about eating them?

There’s just one fatal flaw in this analogy – most livestock species are precocial. That means that when they’re born, they can quickly get up, feed and, if necessary, run away from predators. Not surprisingly, that can be essential for herbivorous prey animals in the wild. Animals that are not precocial are altricial – young are relatively undeveloped and helpless when born and tend to be hidden away in nests until they’ve gained maturity (e.g. mice).

Humans fall between these two extremes – gestation length is relatively long compared to other mammals, which favours increased foetal development and a higher birthweight, but human infants have smaller brains (29% of adult size compared to 40-45% in African apes) and have extremely immature motor skills. A significant amount of brain growth and development therefore occurs between birth and adulthood. Can an infant take the top off a child-proof medicine container? No. Can an adult? Absolutely. Does that mean that human infants lack intelligence? Not in the slightest. They just haven’t formed all the necessary brain and motor connections yet.

To try and compare the “intelligence” of a human infant with a fully-grown pig, octopus or sheep and draw any meaningful conclusion about whether or not we should eat the “intelligent” animal is an utterly futile comparison. Not quite apples to oranges, but close – after all, even the smartest apple can’t recognise itself in a mirror – or can it?

*Note that infanticide and cannibalism is practiced by some primates.

Do Avatar characters eat cheese? James Cameron’s films may suspend disbelief, but his dairy claims are fiction, not fact.

Posted on December 18, 2017 by bovidiva

In our brave new world, where questioning authority and searching for truth are championed as positive attributes, it is ironic that we tend to follow predictable behaviour patterns when faced with new information. Decisions which we consider to be impartial, or opinions that we hold about controversial issues based on evidence, balance and facts, may prove to be anything but when scrutinised further.

Take, for example, the preponderance of media articles suggesting that meat and dairy consumption are unhealthy – for us, the animals and the planet. One of the most recent, a plea from film-maker and deep-sea explorer James Cameron, plays upon three phenomena relating to decision-making – cultural cognition, bad news bias and confirmation bias.

We assume that we make impartial, balanced decisions, but we’re far more subject to bias than we may think. Graphic from Capper (2017) Cattle Practice.

Celebrities have been used to sell products, messages and ideologies for centuries, from the Royal Family endorsing Wedgewood pottery in the 1760s, to Bette Davis advertising shampoo in the 1950s and Joanna Lumley now gaining publicity for activist causes. However, fame doesn’t imply any degree of expertise, knowledge or understanding of the issue, just a belief that the solution lies with X, whatever X might be.

Most of us aim to be like our heroes, whether they are famous based on appearance, acting ability, athletic skill or career prominence; thus we are prone to cultural cognition. If I believe that celebrity A believes that something is right/wrong and I aspire to being like this celebrity, I am more likely to adopt their message without question. The fact that a famous Hollywood film maker (and deep-sea explorer – seriously, who doesn’t aspire to be a deep-sea explorer?) has sufficient belief to write an op-ed in The Guardian claiming that we should all reduce meat and dairy consumption, therefore resonates with us far more highly than the same message from a non-famous individual.

The inevitable “this is killing us and the planet” rhetoric adds an extra layer of credibility via bad news bias, in that we are preconditioned to believe negative news over positive news. “Bad news sells” is clichéd, yet true (and explains the popularity of “X Causes Cancer” stories in the Daily Mail) and we need five pieces of positive information to negate each piece of negative information.

Confirmation bias is the final layer in this anti-meat and dairy club sandwich. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to have missed media coverage of potential impacts of meat and dairy consumption on health. If we consciously (or subconsciously) absorb the message that these foods are bad, then Cameron’s claims that “eating too much meat and dairy is making us sick, greatly increasing our risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, several major cancers (including breast, liver and prostate) and obesity” agree with our existing bias and we are likely to believe them. However, these claims do not accord with (nor are linked to) current scientific literature on dairy consumption.

This would include, for example, a meta-analysis in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, which demonstrated a negative association between dairy consumption and breast cancer, i.e. increasing dairy product consumption may be associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer. In addition, a dose-response meta-analysis in the European Journal of Epidemiology reported neutral associations (i.e. no clear positive or negative association) between dairy product consumption and cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. Perhaps even the recent article in Nutrition Research Reviews, which concluded that recommending reduced dairy consumption in order to lower saturated fatty acid intakes (and thus the risk of type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease) would have limited, or possibly negative effects.

Ice-cream (and other dairy products) may reduce the risk of breast cancer.

When the subject under discussion is the fictional lives of blue-skinned human hybrids (as per the film Avatar, directed by Cameron), it’s perhaps easier to use imagination than rely on scientific veracity. However, having an evidence basis for claims made in media articles is increasingly important, especially when the claims are made by those who are only prominent for their excellence in other (non-scientific) areas.

In the meantime, eat, drink and be merry over the next two weeks – content in the knowledge that clotted cream with your mince pie will not have adverse health effects, and may even prevent against cancer. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!