Western Mail

‘Vegans aren’t forcing people to eat [the vegan] Greggs sausage roll’

As the Greggs vegan sausage roll becomes big news, Kathryn Williams and Jillian MacMath take a look at veganism, and ask the experts what it is about this lifestyle choice that provokes such strong feeling in people...

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LAST WEEK Greggs – a bastion of mostly meat-based snacks – launched a vegan sausage roll. For a lot of people it was the tipping point on the vegan debate.

Leading the group of those who lost the plot was Piers Morgan, who called Greggs “PC-ravaged clowns” and was then filmed spitting a vegan sausage roll into a bucket on Good Morning Britain, Wales Online reports.

But Piers Morgan wasn’t alone in his veganism rebellion.

There was an outpouring from people apparently furious that Greggs had decided to expand its product range for a new group of people that is itself rapidly expanding.

But what is it about veganism that elicits this reaction?

We asked a neuroscien­tist and da a psychologi­st, as well as the author of The Occasional Vegan, Sarah Philpott, who is happy that more people are choosing plantbased diets and that more companies see fit to provide them.

“The cliche is, ‘ I’m a vegan, look at me’, and there are some e who are like that, but there are e people like that in every walk of f life too,” says Dr Dean Burnett, a neuroscien­tist who is the author r of The Happy Brain and The Idiot t Brain.

Dr Burnett suggests that t because for most of the recent t past veganism was a choice made e because a person was against animal cruelty, others might feel that at the implicatio­n is that those who o do eat meat or dairy products are re cruel.

“So when someone says, ‘I’m a vegan’, that’s a judgement on what at you do from the start,” he said.

He adds that other things fundamenta­l to so many people – like, ke, say, parenting – can also arouse se similar strong feelings.

“When it comes to what we eat, at, everyone does it, it’s a fundamenta­l tal part of our being,” he said.

“Take, for example, parenting. Everyone has a very strong opinion on parenting if they are parents and everything can become a status thing: ‘I don’t feed my kids this and I do something different to you and therefore you are wrong and I am better’.

“It maybe isn’t intentiona­l (on the part of the vegan) but it’s hard to get away from that if you eat meat. And veganism is tied up in that sort of thinking.” “I “was so amazed about the backlash bac about the Greggs sausage sag roll, you’d never have predicted dic it to be quite so strong,” says say Professor Lorraine Whitmarsh, ma from Cardiff University’s School Sch of Psychology, who agrees agr that there’s an implied judgement jud felt by some non-vegans.

“By becoming a vegan you are say saying that you are part of this gro group and you are trying to m make yourself different. What pe people choose to eat is part of th their identity, it says who they ar are.

“There’s an implied judgem ment on people who are not gi giving up meat. It’s not like ch choosing whether you prefer th the colour yellow over green – th there’s an actual reason you are g giving up and quite often it’s to d do with morality.”

The Occasional Vegan author Sarah Philpott is keen to reassure people that vegans are not as judgementa­l as non-vegans might instinctiv­ely feel they are. She adds: “A lot of non-vegans fear that they are being judged when actually it’s a small part of the vegan community that are militant in that way.

“Most of the vegan community are really friendly and helpful and you can see that by how supportive and helpful they are through Veganuary.

“Vegans aren’t forcing people to eat [the vegan] Greggs sausage roll. The meat one is still there. There are just as many, even more, meat than vegan products. Even though that choice is there for vegans, it’s not taking away any choice.”

This tendency to feel hostile to certain lifestyle choices is not limited to veganism.

Prof Whitmarsh, who specialise­s in environmen­tal psychology and engaging the public with climate change, says: “I appeared on the radio recently, talking about going green, and there was a lot of backlash.

“One of the ways you can do that (be greener) is to give up meat and I had a lot of ‘Who are you to tell us to do this?’ “People are very sensitive to the message that you should or shouldn’t do this, even when this message could be in their own interest.

“When it comes to climate change we have to change what we do quite radically, but for a lot of people that means sacrificin­g things they want to do.”

Dr Burnett says vegans are “an easy target” for anger.

“Vegans are pretty much the poster child, the avatar for soft lefty liberals, the snowflakes,” he said.

“They refuse to eat animals because it’s cruel and all that stuff is what Piers Morgan likes to attack.

“They are easy to understand, we know what they stand for, they don’t pick fights in the street (as far as I know) and veganism is a choice, therefore people feel that there’s not as much guilt involved, they are fair game.”

He adds that once cruelty and aggression were made mainstream and profitable (by things like reality television and social media) people like Piers Morgan and even Katie Hopkins “will happily do it and don’t care about the consequenc­es”.

Sadly, some vegans actually expect people to have a go at them occasional­ly for what is essentiall­y a lifestyle choice that affects no-one else.

Sarah adds: “We do expect to receive a fair bit of ribbing, though not abuse, but at the end of the day we are trying to do something that’s for animals and for the planet and I’m not sure that can be a bad thing.”

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 ??  ?? > More people are taking up plant-based diets. Below, Sarah Philpott, The Occasional Vegan
> More people are taking up plant-based diets. Below, Sarah Philpott, The Occasional Vegan

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