Sanctimonious vegans would do well to think about their diet’s global impact Western vegans are the new custodians of the earth, the Adams and Eves before the Fall, each one of them […]

Western vegans are the new custodians of the earth, the Adams and Eves before the Fall, each one of them a saviour who sees and lives the truth. I know many and can vouch that they are good people. But as with all the rest of humans, not nearly as good as they think.

The Vegan Society is ecstatic that this is “the fastest growing lifestyle movement” in Britain today – up 360 per cent and rising. You can be thin! Glow! And feel superior to feeble veggies – who still consume dairy – and grubby meat eaters, the worst of the lot. But these faddists are clueless about the actual impact of their diet.

‘[This is] part of a damaging north-south exchange, with well-intentioned ethics-led consumers here unwittingly driving poverty there’ i's opinion newsletter: talking points from today Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription. Joanna Blythman

They can be aggressive too, as chef Laura Goodman found out. She had served a large party of vegans in her restaurant and then posted on Facebook that she “spiked” one meal with cheese. Her partner later clarified that the vegans had ordered a meal containing cheese, leading to her joke. Even so – death threats because someone had a milk product added without being informed? Insane.

Who pays the price?

Yes, vegans care deeply about animal welfare and the environment, but not about the farmers and their families who are now paying the price for this “lifestyle movement”. Underneath the most popular vegan crops lie buried scandals and tragedies.

The exceptionally knowledgeable food writer Joanna Blythman warned about this five years ago: “There is an unpalatable truth to face for those of us with a bag of quinoa in the larder. The appetite of countries such as ours has pushed up prices to such an extent that poorer people in Peru and Bolivia, for whom it was once a nourishing staple food, can no longer afford to eat it.”

In Lima, too, “quinoa now costs more than chicken. Outside the cities, and fuelled by overseas demand, the pressure is on to turn land that once produced a portfolio of diverse crops into quinoa monoculture.”

‘In India lentils and chickpeas – staples – cost more than chicken in some places.’

Blythman calls the quinoa trade an example of “a damaging north-south exchange, with well-intentioned health and ethics-led consumers here unwittingly driving poverty there”.

Asparagus, soya, quinoa

Asparagus growers in developing countries are going through worse crises. Massively increased soya planting is reducing biodiversity and leading to serious and irrecoverable deforestation, both of which have serious consequences for locals (though a large proportion of soy is consumed by livestock).

In India lentils and chickpeas – staples – cost more than chicken in some places. Rice, too, is beyond the reach of millions of the most destitute.

Let’s then to the avocado, the It girl’s fave veg. Three million Instagram images in a year, and a surge in sales in healthy food outlets, have meant prices have shot up so growers in Latin America can’t eat this nutritious product any more. When we were in Mexico in 2016, our friends told us that avocado, a staple for weaning babies, was now as unobtainable as gold for peasants and domestic workers.

All around the world are new slaves, toiling for the rich and spoilt while they and their loved ones barely subsist.

Veganism food goddesses oddly never bring up these inconvenient facts. To do is to excite much outrage. So vegans, please, no death threats. You love animals. Humans are animals too.

@y_alibhai