Viva!, the UK’s leading vegan campaigning charity has wrritten a response to the article in The Independent ‘Meat still has an important place in our diet – we just need to gradually reduce the amount we eat’ by Janet Street Porter. The charity felt she completely missed the point of going vegan, while ignoring the environmental, health and welfare issues surrounding the consumption of animal products.

Viva!’s Head of Communications, Faye Lewis, had the following counter to Janet Street Porter’s messaging:

Oh Janet, it’s been a bit quiet for you on the controversial front recently. Which is why I am guessing you are hoping to outrage vegans with your latest article in the Independent. The article in question; ‘Meat still has a place in our diet – we just need to gradually reduce the amount we eat’ seems innocent enough on the surface, but it doesn’t take long for the vitriol to set in…

Having thrown a brief nod to the idea that ‘sustainable food is kinder for the planet and good for our health’ (two massively important factors, you know, given the world we live in right now), Janet decides to caveat that with saying these things ‘need to balance a range of factors…’so let’s hear them, shall we?

In the first paragraph of the article, Janet compares ‘daring to admit you still eat meat’ to ‘confessing you think bashing kittens should be an Olympic sport – or smacking your children.’ Of course, she does. This is the woman who once compared microchipping children to marking Jews in the Second World War, so, hyperbole is a tried and tested method in the Janet Street Porter journalism school of shock jargon to grab attention. And it’s a well-worn formula that she has successfully manoeuvred throughout her career.

The article is full of misinformation, it relies on tired old vegan stereotypes, and despite her zeal for heavily loaded biases, honestly, the end result of her opinion piece is just, well, boring.

In one sentence Janet talks about how ‘for people on low incomes a vegan diet is not necessarily balanced, nutritious or sustaining’. Let’s debunk that misconception straight away. The idea that vegan diets are expensive seems to come from ready meals, processed foods and from restaurant menus – some of which have been known to overprice vegan options. However, a vegan diet which is based on fresh fruit and vegetables, beans, pulses, cereals and grains, can be significantly cheaper than relying on animal products such as cheese or meat. The staples of a healthy vegan diet are some of the most affordable foods you can find, including pulses, grains and vegetable.

Stick to talking with octogenarian villagers living in the gorgeous Tuscan and Greek hills Janet, as it’s something you’re clearly more at home with.

Unfortunately for Janet, in her frantic quest to maintain the need for animal and dairy products she slips up repeatedly again on little things, like facts.

“Red meat and dairy are a source of B12 and protein…” she writes. Well, sure they are because B12 is grown in vats for supplements and fed to animals in factory-farmed conditions.

B12 is naturally made by bacteria in soil and water or is grown in vats for supplements. Traditionally – and let’s emphasise that point – farmed animals got B12 from eating food from the ground but in reality, with so many now confined in factory farms, animals are fed B12 supplements. But the notion that you need meat or dairy foods for B12 is a myth so you might as well cut out the middleman and take the supplements yourself! – and to quote Janet; “hardly controversial stuff, and factually correct.”

In another cringeful attempt to justify animal death Janet speaks on behalf of poor victimised farmers subject to ‘some of the strictest standards of animal husbandry in Europe’. Because heaven forbid standards are in place where our food is concerned. And on the subject, given that the ‘UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world’ largely thanks to farming, it feels like they get off pretty lightly.

While accusing vegan lobbyists of being ‘organised, vociferous and busy trying to get 100 per cent of the population converted to their views’. (Thank you that’s praise indeed coming from you Janet), she goes on to say that ‘vegans are winning the battle for our hearts and minds. Meat consumption is gradually coming down, along with that of dairy products.’ And that’s the real crux of her opinion piece really.

For all the vegan blaming, the attempts at rationalising the need for meat and dairy, the piece reads like a desperate last attempt to try and halt an inevitable shift and transformation in how people are consuming food.

Times are changing, people are becoming more aware of the conditions in which animals are farmed and they don’t like it. Vegan food is on the rise and it’s not just in ‘trendy places like London’ it’s everywhere and it’s inevitable. And no amount of heavily funded farming backed TV adverts, or opinion pieces from people like Janet Street Porter can reverse that.