*Disclaimer: An image within this article shows cooked lamb, which may be distressing to animal and vegan activists; viewer discretion advised
A cheerful atmosphere, spending time with loved ones, traditional tasty treats and succulent meals, everyone has different reasons to love festive holidays.
Cultural festive feasts involving animal products are often integral to holiday celebrations.
Families prepare and share traditional meals unique to their culture, creating memories.
Lamb, for example, is a classic cultural dish of recent Easter celebrations, particularly among Christian cultures celebrating Jesus’ resurrection.
Although multiple cultures kill and use animals for celebratory feasts, animal activists protest all cultural feast traditions involving animals.
Director of animal rights organisation Liberation Cooperative, Emma Madle, does not believe animals should be involved in cultural feast traditions, calling it “absolutely wrong”.
“Animals are not here for us; animals want to live.”
Ms Madle does not believe there is an ethical way to kill an animal.
“They’re babies when we kill them, and then they’re slaughtered in a way that is terrifying for them.”
“I don’t think that there’s a way that you can humanely kill an animal.”
Ms Madle is a vegan and animal rights activist.
“I’ve been vegan for about 13 years, and I would say that’s when my real journey towards animal rights began,” she said.
She advocates for animal rights and veganism through her organisation.
“I started finding out information about the ways we exploit animals, and that led to me becoming a passionate animal rights advocate and a vegan,” Ms Madle said.
“I’ve been involved with trying to change public perceptions and promote veganism and animal rights ever since.”
Ms Madle acknowledges the difficulties of changing animal product traditions within cultural feasts.
“If it was easy, we’d have a world of vegans,” she said.
“A lot of people don’t change, even when they know the facts.”
She said animal eating habits have been normalised for too long.
“The reason why it’s so difficult for people to change is because almost every culture in the world has practices that revolve around consuming animals.”
“It’s a complex problem to overcome because it’s so deeply culturally embedded and also a habit that most people partake in three times a day at meals.”
Ms Madle said users of animal products for feast traditions should consider meal alternatives.
“Alternatives are really easy to just go into the supermarket and grab something that doesn’t involve animal exploitation.”
(Photo: Jürgen Schmidtlein, Pixabay).
“When it comes to consuming animals like lambs, we have vegan alternatives […] you can go and get vegan roasts; you can really find any other option.”
She believes there’s more to focus on than food during cultural celebrations, like spending time with family.
“We have this idea of an animal as a centrepiece, but we can also move away from that with the new knowledge that we can do better.”
Ms Madle said more inclusive celebratory feats are possible, where “we can all join together in a way that everyone is happy”.
Dowerin Farmer Kelly Jones grew up in a different environment, within a farming family.
“I’m fifth generation […] I’m working with the old man, I worked with my Pop a little bit before he passed, and now I’m working with one of my brothers.”
Farming and curating animal food products are essential to Dowerin culture, according to Mr Jones.
“It’s all farming community, the whole town sort of lives off of that, without it, there wouldn’t be a town,” he said.
“Everyone that we know from around here in some way, shape or form is helping these farms no matter what sort of jobs they do and what sort of businesses they run.”
Although Mr Jones believes preparing animals for food is a necessary cultural tradition, he acknowledges the challenges.
“It’s not nice that things have to be killed […] unfortunately, that’s just the way the world is, people need to eat,” he said.
“It’s the law of the jungle to an extent […] It’s not a fun thing to do.”
Mr Jones says his family’s farming practices are ethical.
“We take good care of animals, and we take really good pride in making sure that they live good lives when they’re here.”
(Photo: Quang Nguyen Vinh, Pexels).
“Our job is to make them as healthy and happy as possible while they’re here.”
He believes animal activists would have different perspectives about using animals for cultural food traditions if they visited his family farm.
“I’d love fothem to come and see our farm, or any farm for that matter,” Jones said.
“The activism, I understand it to a point, but I feel like a lot of it is uneducated.”
Mr Jones said you can treat animals with love and care, even if you must kill them.
“If you come and see how we treat our animals with respect, I think they might have a different opinion,” Jones said.
“You wouldn’t possibly be able to run livestock in any way, shape or form if you didn’t care about your animals.”
Mr Jones said killing animals is sadly unavoidable.
“Unfortunately, it’s just part of the circle of life.”
Is eating animal products a compulsory part of our cultural traditions, or could celebrations be the same without?
