Famous Vegans - Kerry McCarthy

Kerry McCarthy, 2009.

Kerry McCarthy

Born Kerry Gillian McCarthy on March 26, 1965. She is a British Labour Party politician. In 2005, she was elected as the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Bristol East. Before being elected, she worked as a lawyer and on political campaigns. She has an Animal Welfare page on her website, on which she states that she is "committed to protecting and promoting animal rights". Her website can be found at this link.

November 1st, 2011 was the first time that World Vegan Day was marked in the UK's Parliament. Kerry McCarthy had invited fellow MPs to become vegan for the day and debate the role of plant-based diets and sustainable farming in tackling hunger, obesity and global climate change. During the debate in the House of Commons she made the following statements:

"As a vegan of nearly 20 years’ standing, I am very fortunate to represent a seat in Bristol, because it not only plays host to the largest vegan fayre in Europe each year but has some great restaurants and shops catering for vegans."

"Among the many prejudices against vegans is the belief that they are always preaching to others and trying to convert them. I do not think that is true; we are incredibly tolerant. We are always polite when others ask, "Don’t you ever get tempted by a bacon sandwich?" ... In fact, most vegans I know are rather coy about explaining why they are vegan, mostly because the question tends to be asked when we are sitting at a dinner table full of meat eaters, and it seems rather impolite to answer."

"If people are vegetarians for ethical reasons—because they believe that killing and eating animals is wrong—they really ought to be vegan, too. The average human eats more than 11,000 animals in his or her lifetime, but millions of calves and chicks are also killed every year as "waste products" of milk and egg production."

"I confess that, for me, it took a long time for the penny to drop that cows are not constant milk-producing machines. Just like every other animal, including human females, cows produce milk only to nurse their young. The dairy industry means artificially forcing loads more milk out of cows—10 to 20 times more than they need to feed their calves, with their huge udders causing painful mastitis and lameness—and taking their calves away early, or, in the case of male dairy calves, which are useless to the dairy industry, either shooting them at birth or exporting them live to the rest of the EU for the veal trade."

"The average lifespan of a dairy cow is six years, compared with a natural lifespan of 20 to 25 years. Some 100,000 male calves a year are deemed a surplus by-product on Britain’s dairy farms because they cannot give birth or produce milk. An undercover investigation by the Bristol-based vegetarian campaign Viva! showed a calf taken from its mother and shot in the head at Halewood Gate dairy farm near Bristol, which supplies milk for Cadbury."

"Hens are forced to lay 20 times as many eggs as is natural for them. Male chicks are useless to the egg industry. Millions of day-old chicks are killed, with many thrown alive into mincers—known as "homogenisers". This also happens in free-range and organic systems, despite their claims to be cruelty-free."

"The World Cancer Research Fund carried out an authoritative study which found that people should avoid processed meat altogether, and eat red meat in moderate amounts only. That is the most authoritative study that I have come across."

"Cancer Research UK is co-funding a massive study called EPIC—the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition—which has found that people who ate two daily 80-gram portions of red or processed meat increased their risk of developing bowel cancer by a third, compared with those who ate just 20 grams a day. The same study found that people eating more than 100 grams of meat a day had over three times the risk of getting stomach cancer."

"I have been a vegan for nearly 20 years. My honourable Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun has been one for 15 years, and my honourable Friend the Member for Derby North has been one since time immemorial—well, since the 1970s, anyway. I think that we are all testament to the fact that people can survive perfectly well on a vegan diet."

"I deal now with the environmental case for switching to a vegan diet. The 2006 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Livestock’s Long Shadow, stated that the livestock industry was responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That is more than the transport sector, including aviation, which produces 13.5%, yet there is a huge public debate about aviation and virtually no debate about livestock."

"Meat consumption is an incredibly inefficient way to feed the planet. It takes 8 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of beef. It takes 100 times as much water to produce 1 kg of beef as it does to grow 1 kg of vegetables. It takes almost 120 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce 1 calorie of beef, compared with 2.2 calories to produce a single calorie of plant protein. It takes almost 21 square metres of land to produce 1 kg of beef, compared with 0.3 square metres to produce 1 kg of vegetables."

"We hear a lot about biofuels and deforestation, but whereas in 2009 about 100 million tonnes of crops were being diverted to create biofuels, around 760 million tonnes were being used to feed animals. As Raj Patel wrote in his excellent book Stuffed & Starved: 'The amount of grains fed to US livestock would be enough to feed 840 million people on a plant-based diet. The number of food-insecure people in the world in 2006 was, incidentally, 854 million'."

The full transcript of the debate can be read at this link.