(Picture: Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)

Vegan documentaries get a bad rap.

Films like Cowspiracy and What the Health are dismissed by many Brits as being overly American, too simplified and well, unrelatable.

You see, here in Britain, we love animals.

We are a country of rolling hills, happy sheep chomping on wind-blown grass, bucolic scenes of lovely cows being gently milked.


Hell, even I like to think of Yorkshire as being home to steak pies cooked with the most free-range cows who lived their best lives right up until they slipped into a beautiful state of euthanasia.

That’s why all these horrific Earthlings-type movies are filmed in the states. They’re a nation of cow-kickers and slaughterers, not us. I mean…there’s no footage of British farmers treating animals like pieces of sh*t, is there?



Well, friends, prepare to have your naive bubble shattered into a million pieces.

Ahh, sweet, happy Northumbrian sheep (Picture: Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images)

Because there are f*cked up farming practices everywhere and the UK is no different.

Last year, the Food Standards Agency reported that more than 4,000 breaches of animal welfare regulations had happened over the previous 24 months at British slaughterhouses.

And we’re not just talking about dirty abattoirs here, we’re talking about instances of inflicted unnecessary pain on animals.

That includes boiling chickens and freezing animals to death.

Imagine that kind of monster who would willingly BOIL A CHICKEN ALIVE.

(Apologies if you’re eating your lovely free-range British chicken sarnie right now. I’m sure you’re not eating one of those chickens…)

Other fun recorded moments include a cow being ‘violently slammed’ against a wall following an argument between two workers, and pigs being lifted by their ears and tails.

The data also showed up thousands of cases of animals not being stunned properly – and in some cases, not stunned at all before being thrown into tanks of boiling water to remove hair.

I know, Britney! I KNOW!

In fact, to go into further detail of the report – which can be found here – is enough to make you feel physically ill.

And that’s not all.

You might think that there are no documentaries about the awful practices that go on this country…but there are.

They’re just not on home-of-all-conspiracy-films Netflix.

In August this year, animal rights organisation Surge brought out Land of Hope and Glory.

Sick of hearing the phrase ‘that doesn’t happen in our country’ in response to docs like Earthlings, they set about showing the truth behind the UK land animal farming industry by featuring the most up-to-date investigation and never seen before undercover footage.

The film looks at about 100 UK facilities, from Hull to Lincolnshire, Norfolk to Driffield, where some of this country’s one billion land animals are slaughtered every year for meat, dairy and eggs.

You’ve got to check out the film, which you can watch for free here.

But in the meantime, here are some of the key takeaways:

The best of British farming only 3% of UK pigs spend their entire lives outdoors

90% of chicken production in the UK is in intensive windowless sheds which house 20 – 50,000 chickens each.

33% of pigs in the UK are killed in gas chambers

Calves would naturally feed from their mothers for around nine months to a year, but dairy calves are taken away from their mothers normally within 24 – 72 hours of birth, in order for the farmer to ensure as much milk as possible can be acquired from the mother

90,000 male dairy calves are shot soon after birth and discarded as a by-product

30% of UK dairy cows have mastitis, a bacterial infection of the udder

Every year around 4 million newborn lambs die within a few days of birth, mainly because of malnutrition, disease or exposure to cold weather

And yes, all this is happening right here in Britain.

It really isn’t an American problem. It’s just that America has more animals, more people and more documentary makers (that Cowspiracy dude is everywhere) to get the message out.



The inhumane killing and cruel treatment of animals on their way to their deaths is an unforgivable stain on this nation’s consciousness and it’s time people woke up and faced the reality of the situation.

Eat what you want, but please stop denying that this happens here.

We’re all complicit.

If you’re interested in trying out plant-based life, Veganuary is coming up and we’ll be providing you will all sorts of tips, recipes and fun animal-product free ideas over the next few weeks.

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