£5 note contains animal fat. For vegetarians and vegans

[EveOnline2016]

news.sky.com/story/vegan-campaigners-demand-animal-fat-removed-from-new-1635-notes-10676891

I hope this raise awareness.

I am not a vegetarian but people who choose to be should know that bank notes be aware.

"So yes, when people express the wish to make life harder/more expensive because of what they believe and I do not, I feel, if not hostile, certainly less than supportive."

I guess it depends whether you believe that having an easy life and access to cheaper goods is more important than avoiding cruelty. You can, for example, buy cheap clothes in some stores that are produced by child slaves in developing countries. Some people campaign against that because they feel strongly about child cruelty: if they were successful, that would result in clothes being more expensive. But if you're not bothered about cruelty, then I don't suppose there's any point in trying to persuade you otherwise.

I generally assume that animals in an industrialised food chain have not had happy lives, amicissimma - just the bare minimum that is needed to maximise profits/yield. Therefore, the by-products derived from these animals are not going to be cruelty-free.

In the interests of being very clear, my main objection to animal products is that I am not confident that the animals are treated at all well. The only welfare standards I am willing to accept are the ones that I can see with my own eyes. So I buy honey for my family that came from my neighbour's one (well-tended) hive, and eggs from my friend's chickens in her garden (again, I don't eat them myself). To me, those are the acceptable faces of animal-derived products - properly cruelty-free. I can't guarantee that that is the case elsewhere, and so I don't knowingly consume any other animal-derived products (unless forced, as with money it seems ).

I also try to avoid Primark and generic Poundland type shops because of child cruelty/sweatshops in other countries, and to avoid products that contain palm oil from nonsustainable sources, and to favour fairtrade products over non-fairtrade....

There's a world of horrors out there once you start to look

"I could be wrong (and someone will no doubt correctly me swiftly and coldly if I am) but I was led to believe that if something is declared legal tender, then as a business you are legally required to accept it as payment?"

No, the retailer is within their rights to refuse your payment if they choose not to - which means of course that they don't sell you the goods you were attempting to purchase. Retailers aren't legally obliged to sell anybody anything - it's just an invitation to buy. Obviously they wouldn't get far if they didn't sell anything! But plenty of us have experience of Scottish banknotes being refused in shops in England (and Wales). Their loss, I always say to myself, and find another shop.

Your post was a long time ago .. But thanks, Twentycups.

But plenty of us have experience of Scottish banknotes being refused in shops in England (and Wales)

Technically they are not legal tender, and that includes in Scotland. But they are used as such, which, I can't remember the proper term, is legal.

A bit like being able to spend US dollars in many countries, rather than local money.

Its all a bit silly in my view really but people have a right to be offended. Its not going to change anything though.

Boycotting a product or a company or a country is fine if it's the choice of the individual - or at the highest the family - and it involves some sacrifice (financial or of amenity) without others being bothered by it.

It's not fine if it's the result of pressure from employers or unions or councils or of course central government - even if you work for central or local government.

It's a big world and you just have to get on with people who don't want to boycott what you want to boycott!

Bringing home the bacon just got a new meaning!

"Wool, no shearing is not beneficial to sheep, it's done very fast and with no consideration for animal welfare and can result in broken, jaws, wrenches joints etc also some sheep can't tolerate the cold and become ill from this.
I genuinely wonder where you got this information."

From personally witnessing animals being treated badly and from years of research/reading plus hearing from relatives who've worked on sheep farms in aus.

So not 'made up' at all

Yes also experienced the scots notes nonsense (especially when we still had £1 notes long after England and Wales got rid).

Also the 'you care more about animals than humans' that assumption does make me angry, I've worked as a nurse, supported and campaigned for (and still do as far as I can) shelter, amnesty, and various 'human' charities they're not mutually exclusive.

I haven't read the whole thread yet but as I don't actually eat £5 notes I am not too worried.

Hahahaha stupid whinging vegans..

They don't realise just how many things contain animal products.
Glues, fabric dyes, the tyres on your car , paints and other petrochemicals, I could go on....

It is literally impossible to avoid animal products unless you strip naked , fuck off to live an the woods and shit in a hole.

People need to get a life.

While I find some of the more extreme views held by certain extreme vegans to be unreasonable, comments such as yours, maninawomansworld01, are not helpful, they're not funny, they're certainly not clever, and in fact they're completely counterproductive in this discussion because all you're doing is getting people's backs up. There's no sense in being cold, cutting and cruel because no one wants to listen to that, and it only makes them dig their heels in and fight harder.

I wonder if animals are slaughtered just for tallow or is it a by-product of the meat or other industries? If the latter, it seems rather unethical not to make best use of the already slaughtered animal and throw all the tallow away.

maninawomansworld. I always thought you were a pretty good egg. Just goes to show how wrong I was, what a horrible post.

Most of us are very aware that many things have animal products in them. It doesn't make it right.

I have a life thanks, I'm sorry that you seem to think that the mass killing of animals for human gain makes you some sort of superior being who 'has a life'.

Maninawomansworld is a pro-hunting farmer so not exactly unbiased on this type of issue.

Mainly from defunct dairy cows when slaughtered.

5to2

I can understand your view & to an extent I don't disagree. If an animal loses its life for meat or leather (whichever) I'd rather the entire animal was made use of.

However, often animals are bred for X and thus aren't suitable for y.

Or the fact they can sell y makes them 'worth' slaughtering.

It's a complicated industry, but the way I look at it is, everytime an animal product is used, it's creating demand. More demand, more lives lost.

I don't really get the angst. If you called a taxi and it had leather seats would you refuse to get in and instead walk 5 miles home?

Really? Who knew. Why? Seriously, why did they do this? Am not vegetarian, other leather things don't bother me, it's just I can't quite understand why they would do this, why add it.
Very odd.

I've never quite understood why a desire to avoid animal cruelty is the subject of so much hostility. Most people who eat meat would be horrified at seeing someone kick a dog, for example, or at an animal such as a lion being shot for someone's entertainment. But then they get very very angry at the idea that someone should want to avoid being complicit in animal cruelty by not eating meat or dairy.

^^ well said.

You can be "not unbiased". You can take the opposing view in a debate. You can take the opposing view in an argument. You can do all of these things without being a revoltingly antagonistic.

It is possible to dissent without being a d-bag.

www.vice.com/en_uk/read/a-very-precise-calculation-of-exactly-how-many-cows-are-being-murdered-for-the-new-fivers

"Tallow is rendered cow or mutton fat, but for the sake of argument let's go with cows here.

How much do cows weigh? Between 1,100kg for a male (bull) and 720kg for a female. So, on average, a cow weighs 910kg.

The body fat content of an average cow is 25 percent. Therefore, the amount of fat in an average cow's body is 227.5kg.

How many kilograms of this fat is contained in offcuts you could use to make tallow? About 40kg, according to a man at the James Elliott butcher in Islington.

How much tallow is used in one note, according to the Bank of England? "A trace", which chemically means less than 100 parts per million, or 0.01 percent. A polymer consultant I called confirmed that the tallow present in a given polymer would be a fraction of a single percentage.

New £5 notes weigh 0.7g, therefore there is roughly 0.00007 g of tallow present in one £5 note.

How many fivers are in circulation now, and therefore will be around by May of 2017, when all the old paper ones have been phased out? 329 million notes.

To work out how much tallow will be used in total in all of these fivers, we need to multiply 0.00007g by 329 million, which gives us 23,030g, or 23kg.

And if you get about 40kg of tallow-worthy fat from the average cow, how many cows would you need to make every single £5 note in circulation?

JUST OVER HALF OF ONE COW"

If you don't like the notes just ask for coins instead.

Job done.