It’s so easy to target foie gras and lobsters because they’re eaten by those rich hedonistic people aren’t they? This enables people to feel good about the principled stand they’ve made on animal welfare, while not having to change their own behaviours, or question the fundamental components of their diet - their day-to-day consumption of pork, chicken, eggs etc. These are big and difficult ethical questions and really not what most people want to think about.

Education is vital here, but jeez it’s a difficult and highly unpopular message to get across.

We’re nowhere near that point here in Australia. There’s a vague awareness of the problem with battery farms and more people are choosing free range eggs but that’s about as far as it goes. There is a huge disconnection between what we eat and where it comes from. And there are fundamentalists on both sides - both animal rights people, but also some farmers, the meat and dairy industry bodies and so on.

However, when it comes to fundamentalist vegans–and I use that term with full knowledge that it is probably going to be taken badly–their decision to eat vegan hinges on it being, in their eyes, the only moral or ethical way to eat. In their worldview, there is no -other- moral dietary choice possible. This leads to activism meant not to educate or enlighten, but to reduce the choices others can make regarding their own diets.

Not all vegans are fundamentalists–quite a few of them take the route of education. But the number of them who are, are very vocal and pretty organized, and so they need a bit of watching. Like all extremists, they think that what they believe is good for all people, and will change the world in a positive fashion, and so they have a hard time seeing any other point of view.

And yes–ah, for real camembert.

Tanna–all goes well with Kat and I, and the rest of the family. Rest assured, I will be taking a break for a while after she is born, but as soon as I am up and cooking again, the blog will return.

Mujeresliebres–at least you can legally -get- raw milk where you are. Here–unless I own the cow or goat and milk her myself–no raw milk for me.