UK books/documentary recommendations?

[Ruth]

Hi everyone,

I went vegetarian 7 months ago after reading the book 'Eating Animals' - which was both inspirational and horrifying in equal measure

The aim is to go vegan and I'm cutting out all non-vegan products gradually

I want to read more books similar to Eating Animals to give me some much-needed inspiration and to keep me on track, but the problem is nearly all the well-known books (and documentaries!) I can find are based on US factory farming/animal welfare. Don't get me wrong I am interested in this too, but as I live in the UK I would really like to find out how our practices compare.

Does anyone know of any UK based documentaries/books on this?

Thanks all,

Ruth

 

[Joe]

Hi everyone,

I went vegetarian 7 months ago after reading the book 'Eating Animals' - which was both inspirational and horrifying in equal measure

The aim is to go vegan and I'm cutting out all non-vegan products gradually

I want to read more books similar to Eating Animals to give me some much-needed inspiration and to keep me on track, but the problem is nearly all the well-known books (and documentaries!) I can find are based on US factory farming/animal welfare. Don't get me wrong I am interested in this too, but as I live in the UK I would really like to find out how our practices compare.

Does anyone know of any UK based documentaries/books on this?

Thanks all,

Ruth

You might try visiting this website:

Books

ETA: The Vegan Society is an organization in the UK, but several of these books appear to be by American authors, so might not be what you are looking for. Sorry.

This site is London-based and might have more of what you are looking for:

Vegetarian Guides - Mapping the World for Vegetarians and Vegans

 

[Joe]

Here is PeTA UK's recommended booklist.

Must-Have Vegan Books and Cookbooks | PETA UK

But I'm afraid at least more than half of these books are by Americans.

I don't know what to advise except maybe go to a good university library and get a librarian to help you.

 

[Andy_T]

Hello Ruth!

I do not know which version of "Eating Animals" you read, but the UK edition published in 2010 includes the following "Preface to the UK edition":

While the first-person research in this book took place in the United States, and many of the statistics refer to American agriculture, a remarkably similar story could be told about animal farming in the United Kingdom. There are some important differences: sow stalls (gestation crates) and veal creates are banned in the UK, whereas they are the norm in America; poultry slaughter is almost certainly less cruel. But there are far more, and more important, similarities. A British reader who cares about the issues raised in this book should not find any peace in being British.

Approximately 800 million chickens, turkeys and pigs are factory farmed in the United Kingdom every year—more than ten animals for every human. (If this number were to include cows and fish—which are, for different reasons, difficult to quantify—it would be dramatically larger.) Approximately 95 percent of poultry and 60 percent of pigs are raised on factory farms. The techniques and outcomes are often identical to those that I describe.

(Emphasis added by me)

So I would say, this might actually start to answer your question whether animal agriculture in the UK is "as bad" as that in the US...

BTW, "Eating Animals" was the book that made me go vegan (I had actually been vgetarian before). It is IMO a very well written and important book, although it does have some shortcomings.

 

[Second Summer]

I think the argument that "those US videos are not representative of our country!" is one AR-minded people often hear, in the UK and elsewhere.

@Bite Size Vegan posted a video in this thread which might be of interest.