PETA vs The World Wide Web Despite 2019 being the “The Year of the Vegan” it is definitely not the year for PETA. Unsurprisingly, PETA , one of America's oldest and most established animal rights organizations, came under scrutiny last month when it criticized Google Doodle’s commemoration of Steve Irwin. PETA claimed that “#SteveIrwin was... Continue Reading →
Instagram and influencers in the year of the vegan 2019 was declared by The Economist as “the year of the vegan” and, in only March of this year, it’s easy to see why. Regardless of your dietary preferences it’s hard to go onto your timeline and avoid seeing at least one video marketed as “DIY... Continue Reading →
The Ex-vegan video saga part 2: Animal conscious or image conscious
The aftermath of Rawvana’s 2019 #fishgate scandal (for more context see blog “The ex-vegan video saga part 1”), whilst arguably both successful and scary in its ability to eek out hypocritical vegans through the use of harsh internet pressures, also draws attention to a far deeper debate surrounding Youtube’s food based content- do vegan Youtubers... Continue Reading →
The Ex-vegan video saga: Helping or hindering the vegan movement?
It took only 3 months for vegan Youtube star Yovana Mendoza, known by her handle Rawvana, to go from roughly 2 million subscribers to 468k when a video was leaked of her eating fish. The internet reacted quickly and aggressively, swarming her Instagram and Youtube accounts with allegations of her being fake and reckless, and... Continue Reading →
Vegan fashion and its impact on the waste crisis
As someone who calls themselves environmentally conscious I am ashamed to say that I had never considered the environmental impact of my clothing before this year. Despite the term “slow fashion” having been around since 2007- the movement seems to have taken massive leaps in the last two years (or maybe this is just the... Continue Reading →
Vegans vs Government: How your food choices are handled in the system
In the past few years, and even in recent months, the global restaurant and commercial supermarket sector have pulled out all the stops in joining in on the vegan band wagon- with success stories such as the Greggs vegan sausage roll pushing profits up by 58%, since the products release. But in government run institutions... Continue Reading →
Feeding the Future Part 2: Assisting agriculture on a vegan diet
In November of last year, an article released by The Daily Maverick highlighted that South Africa is heating at twice the global average. This is a statistic that not only makes events such as Trumps stance against the G20 summit all the more harrowing, but truly brings the climate crisis home for us here in... Continue Reading →
Feeding the future: Are faux foods affecting our ability to provide for 50 billion by 2050?
A few weeks ago I went to a screening of Patagonia’s new documentary Artifishal, A film that explores wild salmon’s slide toward extinction and the threats posed by fish hatcheries and fish farms. The documentary is hard-hitting, authentic and looks at the lives of people and communitites whose culture depends on salmon. The most poignant... Continue Reading →
The Necessity of -arian subgroups in a world of Imperfect Vegans
When planning this post a few months ago I thought this entry was going entail the diary records from a fun challenge called “my perfect vegan week”, an experiment documenting my attempts to, eliminate any and all animal products from my life for a whole week- hopefully more. I thought this was going to mean... Continue Reading →
Breaking through South Africa’s Green Ceiling
As people across the globe make appear to make conscious shifts to refuse the straw, or shop in zero waste super markets, it’s hard not to feel as though 21st century consumers are becoming increasingly environmentally aware. However, despite what feels like progress, it is becoming evident that there is an area of climate activism... Continue Reading →