Why shouldn't vegans be catered for in an apocalypse?
You know you've arrived when professors start thinking about how to look after you during a major emergency. As a vegan, I was thrilled to read in the Times this week that Professor Tim Lang, a professor of food policy, has told the government that us meat-dodgers must be catered for in any 'food apocalypse'.
Speaking at the Hay Festival, Lang said that if a cyber attack or military strike from Russia destroyed Britain's 'vulnerable' food chain, the contents of ration packs would need to bring comfort to a shaken public. We'd all be 'in psychological shock', he explained, so we'd need to have food that we're 'familiar and comfortable with'. In the face of 'explosions' and 'energy outages' he wouldn't want vegans to 'have to eat meat'. Well, if mushroom burgers are on the menu as the mushroom cloud goes up, then I'm feeling better about Armageddon already.
Lang's remarks are just the latest step in veganism's move to the mainstream.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Salman Rushdie says he is 'over' knife attack as author reveals 'important moment' he returned to New York lecture stage where he was repeatedly stabbed
Sir Salman Rushdie says 'I'm over it' following the horrific knife attack which has now seen the crook jailed. Hadi Matar, 27, was sentenced last month to 25 years for attempted murder after he repeatedly stabbed the author on stage during a lecture in New York in 2022. Sir Salman recently told Radio 4's Today programme that he was 'pleased' the man who set out to kill him had received the maximum possible prison sentence. But he wishes to move on from the terrifying ordeal and focus on his new book coming out later this year. Speaking at the Hay Festival in Wales he said: 'It will be nice to talk about fiction again because ever since the attack, really the only thing anybody's wanted to talk about is the attack, but I'm over it.' He added that an 'important moment' came for him when he and his wife Eliza 'went back to the scene of the crime to show myself I could stand up where I fell down'. The award-winning Midnight's Children and Satanic Verses writer was left blind in one eye after the attack as well as damage to his liver and a paralysed hand caused by nerve damage to his arm. The event had tight security, with sniffer dogs and bag searches. Hadi Matar, 27, was sentenced last month to 25 years for attempted murder after he repeatedly stabbed the author on stage during a lecture in New York in 2022 Once Sir Rushdie entered the stage to an audience of applause, he joked: 'I can't see everyone - but I can hear them.' Although he said he felt 'excellent' he added there 'were bits of me that I'm annoyed about, like not having a right eye. But on the whole, I've been very fortunate and I'm in better shape than maybe I would have expected.' Last year, the 77-year-old published a memoir called Knife about the ordeal, which he said was his way of 'fighting back'. It comes decades after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses which made him the target of death threats as some Muslims consider blasphemous for its portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad. A short story collection called The Eleventh Hour is set to be released by the author in November.
Times
9 hours ago
- Times
Respite for hares as officials back a close season for hunting
Brown hares could finally have a respite from year-round shooting after the government said it supported ambitions to introduce a close season. Unlike other game such as deer and pheasants, brown hares — the numbers of which have declined by more than 80 per cent over the past century — can be hunted all year. Last week, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said England and Wales 'stand out as being among the few European countries not to have a close season,' adding that it had failed 'to give it the protection we should'. It said it would look for 'a suitable primary legislative vehicle to deliver this close season'. Chloe Dalton, the former Foreign Office adviser who wrote the acclaimed non-fiction book Raising Hare, which is based on her experiences living with the animals in her rural home, said the absence of a close season meant hunters turned their attention to brown hares when all other game species were protected. 'The hare you can shoot at any time and commonly, because of the prohibition on shooting these other animals, such as pheasant, which you can't shoot from February 1, it is a good time for business reasons to shoot hares in February. 'So the peak shooting season for hares coincides with their breeding season, during which period most female hares are either lactating or pregnant or both. If you shoot a mother hare, her young [leverets] starve to death. It is an animal welfare issue,' she told the Hay Festival. 'It is a core principle of conservation that you don't kill an animal when it is breeding,' Dalton added. • Chloe Dalton: My father read Joseph Conrad to us at the kitchen table Brown hares are one of Britain's most extraordinary — and previously revered — species. In his account of the Gallic Wars 2,000 years ago, Julius Caesar said native Britons refused to eat the animal because it was sacred. Dalton's book outlines how brown hares are able to carry two litters of leverets simultaneously, in a process known as superfetation. They can move at 37 of their own body lengths per second, while a cheetah, the fastest land animal, can move at 23 of its body lengths per second. Dalton said: 'I think it is straightforward. We should grant to hares the same protection that we give to every other game species. Scotland already has, and most of Europe. So what happens is that they [European hunters] come over to [England and Wales] to do it.' A petition calling upon the government to protect hares and leverets from shooting during the breeding season from February 1 to September 30 has now been signed by over 20,000 people. According to the Hare Preservation Trust, there were about four million brown hares in Britain in the late 1800s. It said numbers had declined by more than 80 per cent during the past century — which it said was at least in part also due to the intensification of agriculture — and has also stated that in parts of Britain, such as the southwest, 'the brown hare is almost a rarity and may even be locally extinct'. Dalton, who was being interviewed at the Hay Festival by Lord Hague of Richmond, her former boss, who also supports the introduction of a close season, said the case should be made that the hare was 'an iconic national animal'. 'There is something about the quietly persistent, unassuming hare that speaks to who we are in this country,' Dalton said. 'I hope we can reverse these years of inattention.'
The Guardian
12 hours ago
- The Guardian
Salman Rushdie says AI won't threaten authors until it can make people laugh
Salman Rushdie has said that authors are safe from the threat of AI – until the moment it can create a book that makes people laugh. Speaking at the Hay festival in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, Rushdie said he had 'never tried AI' and liked to pretend it didn't exist. But the problem AI had was that it couldn't make up its own jokes, the writer said. 'It has no sense of humour – you don't want to hear a joke told by ChatGPT. If there's a moment when there's a funny book written by ChatGPT I think we're screwed.' Rushdie was making his most high-profile in-person appearance in the UK since a stabbing in the US while he was on stage left him blind in the right eye. The audience was asked to arrive in good time because of the extra security. Police officers stood by in the wings and security staff flanked the stage. Rushdie, 77, said he was glad that his attacker, Hadi Matar, 27, had been convicted of attempted murder and assault and jailed for 25 years. But he said what had given him closure was writing about it in his book Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder. He said: 'I'm glad that trial is over and done with. And that he got the maximum sentence. The closure was more finishing writing about it.' Rushdie said he was also pleased he had new fiction coming out later in the year and writing it 'felt like coming home'. He continued: 'Ever since the attack, really, the only thing anybody's wanted to talk to me about is the attack. And I'm over it. It will be nice to have stories to talk about. 'When I wanted to be a writer, it never occurred to me that I would write about myself. That seemed like the most uninteresting thing of all. I wanted to make stuff up.' Rushdie also spoke about Donald Trump, saying the world was in an 'orange moment'. He said: 'I don't know what to do with it – he was elected', but added: 'So was Hitler, by the way.' Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion Rushdie argued that in a world where people struggled to agree on the truth, stories and fables were even more important – and could feel more real. But he said he did not like books that tried to teach him something and preferred ones he could inhabit. He joked that most writers did not make much money – unless they wrote about 'child wizards' and suggested JK Rowling was the Taylor Swift of literature. Rushdie spent years in hiding because of threats to his life after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, a fictional story inspired by the life of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, in 1988. In August 2022, he was attacked on a New York lecture stage and left with severe injuries including vision loss, damage to his liver and a paralysed hand caused by nerve damage. In Knife, Rushdie relived the traumatic events of the attack and its aftermath, describing his eye lolling on his cheek like 'a large soft-boiled egg', but also described his healing and recovery.
