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VEGANISM
Why Vegans Calling Animals “Friends Not Food” Irritates Me
And why I believe they’re missing the bigger picture
You see it all over social media: a vegan will post a photo of an incredibly cute piglet or calf with the caption “Friends Not Food” and everybody loves it.
Well, not everybody.
I, for one, find it irritating.
I know what they’re trying to do. I know what they’re trying to convey.
They want to shift people’s perspective away from seeing animals as simply products, as commodities whose only value is in what resources they provide us (flesh, milk, money, etc.).
They want to help people see that other animals are people, too, with their own lives, their own fears and desires, their own personalities.
But friends?
Can you really be friends with someone you’ve never met?
What about all those human beings who don’t see other animals as friends?
It’s a bit like the argument that if you love someone you don’t eat them. It’s true, of course. We wouldn’t dream of killing our children or our spouse.
But just as not everyone sees nonhumans as friends, not everyone loves other…
