Vegetarian nonsense

On Tuesday I went to the Lux cinema in Nijmegen to see the documentary Food for Profit , which exposes abuses in European livestock farming. According to my mental coach, I should avoid livestock farming documentaries. The first one I watched made me go vegan. Two documentaries later, I had to sublimate my anger by working on a novel for four years in which the characters leave a trail of destruction through livestock farming: slaughterhouses are burned to the ground, animal transports are hijacked – that kind of thing. It was fiction, but still. According to the man from The Hague, I was only a livestock farming documentary away from visiting a slaughterhouse myself with a crate of Molotov cocktails on my luggage rack. "Then you slip on a puddle of gasoline you spilled yourself and break your hip."

Food for profit was largely filmed with hidden cameras by undercover employees. Suffering animals, suffering workers, suffering residents, deserts around dumped manure, antibiotic resistance, viruses, unscrupulous lobbyists: they all come up in this indictment of an industry for which European laws seem optional, but which nevertheless rake in billions in European subsidies. Anyone who thinks that things are going well with livestock farming in Europe can get a healthy dose of disillusionment at Food for Profit

After the screening, a discussion with the audience was held according to what was announced as the 'active hope method'. Apparently, we had to become hopeful. The discussion leaders were members of Extinction Rebellion. We were allowed to share positive intentions, anger and frustration with each other. A knot of thread was passed through the room. Whoever had spoken could pass it on. In this way, a web would be created that connected us to each other. My intention not to participate in this nonsense held until a discussion leader, as if that were a positive thing, announced that he was a vegetarian.

I was a vegetarian for eight years, under the assumption that I did not cause animal suffering. The dairy industry was able to manipulate me to death for eight years, to my shame. In Nijmegen I had a flashback. Even in a room where everyone had just seen dairy cows with inflamed udders rotting in their own shit on a big screen, the attendees, including the climate activist moderators, seemed to find the cruelty of dairy acceptable.

Thanks to my tiny lead and a relvegan in the back row, the discussion in the hall derailed into shouting about animal rights.

“A calf misses its mother more than you miss your cheese!” she shouted.

“And you need to show more compassion!” That meant compassion for people, not cows. The vegan in the back was right. Dairy and meat are the same industry. Dairy cows and beef cows end up in the same slaughterhouses. Dairy cows just have to travel longer because they are exploited for their milk for a few years first. As a vegetarian, you are still subsidizing that industry. Climate activists should know this. Especially when they organize discussions after livestock farming documentaries. The discussion was smothered in hope and commitment. We had to talk about small positive changes again.

The hard-working documentary makers are not asking for hopeful talk. They are asking citizens to organize screenings and to stimulate discussions about ending livestock farming subsidies. They want to organize citizen councils about this. I would rather see the entire trade banned and a Europe where anyone who consumes animal products has to register for it and is only allowed to touch animals without supervision, but I react a bit strongly to livestock farming documentaries. Especially when they end with chatter that is intended to temper the justified anger that the filmmakers have carefully built up.

Carolina Trujillo is a writer.