Wednesday, January 23, 2013

LindaMcCartneyFoods New TV Advert

LindaMcCartneyFoods (MeatFreeTweets) on Twitter and TV

Linda McCartney Foods, now owned by Hain Europe, tweeted this morning that they are to launch a new TV advertising campaign to claw back some of the market share they've lost to Quorn.


Grassroots vegan activists are dissappointed and exasperated that the Linda McCartney Brand hasn't played to it's vegan strengths to combat egg and dairy containing Quorn. So many of the new Linda McCartney products have dairy or egg in , particularly disappointing are the new vegetarian prawns which contain milk protein making them unsuitable for the Dairy Free, Vegan and Kosher markets.

Other Meat Free Food companies such as Redwoods, Frys, Vegusto, Wheaty, Goodlife, Amy's are managing to keep their Vegan Kudos alive and kicking with a "Sustainable, Delicious and Suitable For Everyone" theme and with a constant stream of new innovative sustainable products that can be enjoyed by all.

Animal Welfare

The trouble is that by adding dairy and egg into the ingredients many of the key USP of the brand and drivers for a greener, more sustainable world fall down. It's not kinder to animals, chickens and dairy cows are some of the most tortured souls on the planet, male chicks are gassed or crushed at birth as they can't lay eggs, baby calfs are dragged away from their mum's so the milk can be used for humans not them.

Health

It's thought that the natural growth hormones in cow's milk to help a calf grow to the size of a shed in a few weeks is like fertiliserfor cancer cells. Certainly it's milk implicated in the China study by Colin T Campbell that he saw switch cancer cells on and off. The other main problem is that milk has so much more saturated fat vs omega 3 fats as most dairy cows don't get a natural diet. Then there's the intolerance, or at least a sub clinical intolerance to dairy protein and lactose that irritates the digestive system.

London Nutritionist Yvonne Bishop-Weston says "New vegetarian products need to be not just as good as, they need to be better than meat. They need to be at least as tasty,  need to be more nutritious and need to be more sustainable and ethically produced than meat. Just being 'meat free' is no longer good enough."

Environment

This is the most perplexing as Sir Paul McCartney himself appeared on National News at 10 to highlight the United Nation's Livestock's Long Shadow report. The Dairy Farming industry is one of the biggest culprits in global warming - we simply no longer have the resources left to feed a cow, water a cow, clean up the waste just for some fatty white liquid that nature designed you to give up by 5 years of age. Second hand food is a luxury we can no longer afford. The clever money is moving into plant food. KFC, McDonalds and their ilk are already looking at plant based meat free alternatives for their products. Old school vegetarian products such as Linda McCartney and Quorn are not on the table.

Avatar director James Cameron says "You cannot call yourself an environmentalist if you are not vegan"

Vegfest 2013

Vegans have already given the Linda McCartney TV advert a makeover to encourage people to try more legitimately,  more sustainable options at The UK Vegfests at Brighton , Bristol and London

Vegans Give Linda McCartney TV advert a pirate vegan  makeover

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Vegfest Family Event - YouTube

Vegfest Free Family Event

Professor Hans Von Puppet explains why we must go to vegfest