By Adam Szymanski
At this very moment, there are multiple wars being fought across the globe in the name of first-world imperialism. The wars being waged on Iraq and Afghanistan are prime examples of the New World Order’s insistence on death and destruction. Likewise, first world nations blindly led by the American Oligopoly are waging wars much closer to home - inside of our very minds and bodies – where death and destruction also ensue.
The government has a vested economic interest in certain food industries which are at odds with human health and environmental sustainability. A quick scan of the Canadian food guide, which most doctors cynically recommend as a healthy lifestyle to the general population, suggests economic links between the government and the powerful meat and dairy industries. Could you imagine an Alberta politician condemning the beef industry, or an Ontario politician condemning the dairy industry? Absolutely not. It would be political suicide owing to the pressure that these massive industries are able to exert over the politicians, and the masses through the power of the media.
The assumption that animal products are necessary for human health is plain false, despite the messages found in the mainstream corporate media. Never before in human history has such a mass amount of people relied so heavily on animals for their main food source. The quintessential North American diet is derived mainly from animal products; meat, eggs, and dairy, and is consumed to an excessive degree unparalleled by any other diet in the world. No wonder North American obesity rates are out of control.
So how is it that the government and the animal product industries are able to get away with naturalizing such abhorrent dietary decisions? Through highly developed advertising strategies that create and reinforce cultural norms dependent on dominant representations of gender. In order for this type of food advertising to be successful, it must make people believe that they are fulfilling a gender role through what they choose to eat.
Prime examples include the name of popular beef product the “Manwich,” and the infamous “Manthem” introduced by Burger King in 2006. The jingle’s lyrics “I’m a man, I will eat this meat until my innie turns into an outie” sum up how eating dead cows in a bout of gluttony is equated with fulfilling the food industry’s expectations for men
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While these examples are more overt, the same advertising strategies are used more subtly in marketing to women as well, since women are the prototypical household grocery shoppers. Descriptors such as “low fat,” “lean,” “grain fed,” “rich in calcium,” and “contains Omega 3” attempt to sell animal products as health food. While it may be true that a yogurt is low fat, the label fails to explain that it comes from a cow which was force fed antibiotics. The creators of these misleading labels are well aware of our consumer culture’s fixation on rapid weight loss and the skinny ideal perpetuated by seemingly every fashion, health, and lifestyle magazine directed at women. These food corporations capitalize on this female fixation, all while fueling unhealthy lifestyles with their unhealthy foods. Obesity rates continue to soar in North America.
Evidently, opting for the chicken salad and “light” egg and milk-based dressing is not the answer to the obesity epidemic, despite what numerous “health experts” will suggest in return for your money.
Not only does our society’s meat consumption pose health risks, it profits capitalists who exploit the environment and low-wage workers who must toil in the abhorrent conditions of a slaughterhouse.
Veganism provides opportunities for community gardening, sustainable living and DIY food production. Given government lies, secrecy, and corruption, we must take action to provide for ourselves and become self-reliant in our food production. Only veganism makes this independence possible.
The government backed meat and dairy industries are waging a war against progressive vegan voices. The battle is over your mind so that they can profit off of what you put into your body - at the expense of your health, the environment and the alienated labour of factory workers. The decision is yours and your health is what’s at stake.
Reject the murder and enslavement of animals for the financial
benefit of big business. Choose veganism.
