10/03/2022
One of the world's most influential living philosophers Prof Peter Singer provides a brilliant take down in The Age today of the Australian Senate inquiry into meat alternative labelling.
"How do we know when the Australian meat industry is losing confidence in its products? When it seeks to ban plant-based alternatives from being displayed on the same supermarket shelves as meat from animals."
"I’ve talked to several people in the plant-based meat industry, including Josh Tetrick, CEO of Eat Just, Inc., based in California and the first company to put chicken grown from chicken cells, rather than from a living animal, on a restaurant menu; and Michael Fox, CEO of Fable Foods, based in Queensland.
They both believe passionately in the need to transition away from flesh meat, to reduce the suffering of animals, to save the planet from catastrophic climate change, and for the better health of consumers. They want to promote their product as emphatically different from animal meat, and their labels show clearly that they are not trying to deceive anyone.
Tetrick, Fox and the other innovative entrepreneurs providing us with exciting and tasty new products do, of course, want them to be displayed alongside animal flesh, because they didn’t go into business just to woo vegans away from their lentils. They want to save the world, and they can only do that if they win over people who wouldn’t ordinarily think of putting anything but animal flesh at the centre of their plate.
Instead of seeking ways to restrict the reach of the new, kinder, healthier and more ecologically sustainable forms of meat hitting our supermarkets now, our political representatives should be cheering them on. As I write this, large areas of Queensland and New South Wales are struggling to recover from yet another “once in a century flood” – except that now they are coming every two or three years.
Cutting down on fossil fuel usage is critical, but it is not enough. If meat consumption, particularly from ruminant animals like cattle and sheep, continues to grow we will not be able to stop the increasingly familiar cycle of extreme drought followed by extreme flooding. It will only get worse.
That isn’t going to help Senator McDonald’s constituents, or anyone else."
The Australian meat industry must be losing confidence in its products when it seeks to ban plant-based alternatives from being displayed on the same supermarket shelves as meat from animals.
