Vegan activists campaign against turkey Christmas dinners in Leicester Square.

National World - LocalTV

Vegan activist group Viva! were handing out vegan plant-based mince pies and cheese and crackers to raise awareness about animal cruelty and the killing of animals during the festive period.

Transcript

00:00 Every year thousands of people will sit down at the dinner table looking forward

00:05 to a traditional turkey Christmas dinner. But how long will this tradition

00:09 continue? Are plant-based Christmas dinners the way forward? Vegan activist

00:13 group Viva were out campaigning in Leicester Square this week.

00:17 Yeah sure so we're here with Viva today and we're showing people the

00:23 reality of what's happening to animals before they get to our Christmas dinner

00:27 table. We're showing standard practice so everything that you see here is legal

00:32 and practiced. The majority of the people on this street would agree that it's

00:37 wrong to cause animals unnecessary harm but unfortunately when we buy these

00:42 products such as milk, dairy and eggs we're contributing to the suffering of

00:46 animals. Yeah so we're giving away free cheese and crackers. We have Cathedral

00:53 City with us today and Philadelphia Spreadables. So many people who have

00:57 tried it today already have loved it and yeah they're going away with a different

01:02 point of view when it comes to dairy and that maybe taste pleasure is not as

01:06 necessary when you have such great options. We're also giving away free

01:10 mince pies and yeah so we always run a Christmas campaign at Viva. This year

01:17 we're educating on three animals that unfortunately have their lives taken at

01:22 Christmas. The first one being turkeys which is obviously traditional in the UK.

01:27 Thousands of turkeys will be in factory farms and they'll die a fraction of

01:34 their lifespan when it's totally unnecessary because we don't need to

01:38 kill them. We have so many alternatives in supermarkets these days. The majority

01:43 of pigs in this country will be factory farmed up to 80% and also 80% will die in

01:49 a gas chamber which the majority of people don't know about unfortunately.

01:54 We're also educating about what happens to salmon in salmon farms. They're

02:00 riddled with lice, sea lice and there's actually an epidemic of sea lice on

02:05 farm Scottish salmon.

02:08 What makes a great vegan Christmas dinner? What are you having?

02:12 Yeah so I'm fortunate enough that my family are vegan as well so we go all

02:18 out on Christmas Day. We still have some of the main staples. We have incredible

02:24 potatoes, we have stuffing and the peas and carrots but probably the centerpiece

02:30 we have is a mushroom wellington which we make ourselves. We have some great

02:35 recipes if you want to visit the Viva website where you can find incredible

02:41 centerpieces that you can have as a Christmas dinner. There's all the main

02:45 supermarkets on this high street so Marks and Spencer's, Waitrose, Tesco,

02:49 Sainsbury's, they'll all have an alternative that you can go with instead

02:53 of causing harm to an animal.

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