Will gross pictures make you go vegan?
A loyal reader (thanks, Hsien…) brought this site to my attention this morning. WARNING: it is not for the weak of stomach. Or those about to eat. Or those who love animals. Or… much of anyone, really. While purporting to be a vegan cooking site, some pages feature picture after picture of dead and dismembered farm animals, being butchered on their way to your plate (well, someone’s plate). If you want to see them, click on the Steak? Pork? Eggs? menu items.
While I really don’t like looking at sites such this, I can see the point. Isn’t it a good thing for us to know where our food comes from? Meat is chopped off a dead animal, not grown in little styrofoam trays in the grocery store. If the truth about your food’s origins grosses you out, should you be eating it in the first place?
On the other hand, I wonder if sites such as this ever actually convince anyone to give up meat, or do they just cause people to associate the gross images with vegans and animal rights activists? What do such images do for you?
Tags: animal_rights_activists, farming, farm_animals, gross_images, meat, vegan, vegetarianRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Animals, Becoming Vegetarian, Media
14 opinions for Will gross pictures make you go vegan?
Ward
Feb 28, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I definitely think that eating meat and “factory foods” would be less popular if everyone was informed about the origins; or even if we interacted with it more than asking the butcher at the store to slice off a piece.
I don’t think it is limited to foods either. Would everyone still be so excited about the newest gadgets made in China if they could visit the factories? (I’m thinking in particular of the story from last year about the working conditions in an iPod plant.)
Nick
Feb 28, 2007 at 7:37 pm
I have to say that, as an omnivore, these pictures don’t make me want to give up meat or eggs. Anyone that is only willing to eat meat as long as they don’t know the details of where it comes from is just deluding themselves. Of course seeing these images is somewhat unnerving. But I am probably still going to make some eggs for lunch.
As you say, I understand what the websites is meant to accomplish, but I think it fails. And to be honest, it reminds me of a group of anti-abortion activists that protest on our campus every year; they hold rallies with huge blown-up pictures of aborted fetuses. This website doesn’t seem quite as bad, but it is definitely in the same vein.
Jul
Feb 28, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Ward and Nick - those are both great comparisons. I think I’d be less excited about buying low-cost electronics, for example, if I saw concretely that the low price was related to horrible working conditions for workers.
On the other hand, those aborted fetus pictures just make me think the people carrying them around are insane.
Hsien Lei
Feb 28, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Ward’s comment about factory foods is interesting. It always grosses me out to think of huge vats of soup and what not being ladled into tins.
Jul
Feb 28, 2007 at 9:06 pm
But Hsien, do you still eat it?
Hsien Lei
Feb 28, 2007 at 9:12 pm
/me hangs head and whispers
yes, i do
Scott Hughes
Feb 28, 2007 at 10:57 pm
I don’t think gross pictures of animals/meat will turn anyone vegan, anymore than gross pictures of aborted fetuses will turn a pro-choicer. I’ll talk about it at the Vegan Forums. Thanks!
Céline
Mar 1, 2007 at 10:58 pm
I would like to hope so but I am not sure that such pictures will turn anyone vegetarian or vegan. I feel quite a bit of rebellion around me when we start talking about the meat trade for example. People sometimes feel that they are being bullied into giving up animal products and by-products. Sometimes the shock tactics reach out to some people, sometimes they don’t because some people totally refuse to abandon their habits. I must say that I can sort of understand how the tactics of some animal activists can brush up omnivores the wrong way.
If anything these campaigns help raise awareness. After that people are free to choose. You can take a horse to the water but you can make it drink.
Meg Wolff
Nov 9, 2007 at 4:23 pm
That did it for my daughter. I subscribed to Earth Save when she was 8 and she saw the photos of some of the animals and vowed never to eat anything with eyes.
fred
Dec 27, 2007 at 8:13 am
I love meat i love meat meat for me meat for you i love meat it loves we a big hunger family with a steak from me to you wont you say you love meat tooo.
billco
Jan 30, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Pictures of vegans make me want to eat meat. Every vegan I have met has dull hair, ashy grey skin, and just generally looks unhealthy. They seem to be very sluggish aswell. They are sick all the time. If you even sneeze around them they will be off work for a week, and still sick for another 2 weeks after that. I dont have anything against vegans. Those are just my obversations.
Beefeater
Feb 2, 2008 at 5:31 am
I was eating a porterhouse while I read this.
Gwen
May 13, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Meat is wrong, I turned to being a Vegan when i was looking at things like Meet your Meat, and 15 reasions to go vegetarian. It is unhealthy and all that to eat meat our bodys were not made for eating meat. Meat is Murder and it will always be murder no matter how you slice it. And it will always be flesh, grose blood and desises ridden flesh.
rhcp1234
Aug 14, 2008 at 5:47 am
meat is murder.
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