Leap Year Resolutions

For the last three days since randomly reading an article on animal testing for Lipton tea I have been glued to Peta's webpage watching very disturbing videos on animal testing and the food industry. Pigs boiled alive, monkeys with their eyes sewn shut strapped to what can only be described as torture tables, rabbits having toxins poured into their eyes and dogs having their hind legs broken and their vocal chords cut so that they can be more easily experimented on through forced ingestion of poison among other things. Pretty gruesome stuff. I used to wonder where the writers of horror movies got there ideas from.. no longer. Jeepers Creepers isn't a patch on what is going on every day in the cosmetics industry.

So, having been sufficiently traumatised by these videos and subsequently realising that every single shampoo, face cream, toothpaste or laundry detergent that I use has been tested on animals I have decided to take a little responsibility in my role in this system that allows animals to suffer for the sake of capitalism and make some changes.

As of today I am not going to be using my consumer buying power to buy meat, milk, cheese or any products tested on animals.

This is a huuuuuge commitment.

Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, L'Oreal.. they ALL test on animals and between them they pretty much own every cosmetics or household product that you see on a supermarket's shelves.

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That means no more Pantene, TRESemme, Herbal Essences, Estee Lauder, Biotherm, Lancome, Clinique, Persil, Fairy, Chanel, Dior, Vaseline, Dove, Vicks, MaxFactor or Maybelline, to name but a few. Even The Body Shop was recently taken over by L'Oreal and now has been taken off Peta's list of companies that do not test on animals. The problem is that even if the finished product itself has not been tested on animals (in the case of companies such as Chanel or Clinique) the ingredients have been, often making it very tricky to know if the product you are buying is cruelty free.. 

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I did a little quiz on the Peta website and, as a person who eats meat every day, if I stop now I would be saving the lives of 24,360 animals. That is a vast amount of animals whose deaths I would have directly contributed to by buying meat. And if I add on to that number the amount of animals who have suffered so that I can wear makeup, take paracetamol, wear leather shoes, clean my clothes or do the washing up my mind simply boggles. I've always loved animals, never bought fur, had many pets but I never realised just how much I was using my buying power to fund their misery. Now to clarify this doesn't mean I will never use a product that has been tested on animals again or eat chicken. If I'm staying at somebody's house and they cook meat I'll eat it or if I stay at a friend's house and I want to use their make-up remover I will. I know that sounds quite hypocritical but our lives are so saturated by this system it would be virtually impossible (for me at least) to swear off ever touching anything that reached me through an animal's suffering. What I'm vowing to do is never to use my money to purchase any of these foodstuffs or products. When you buy something it's like casting a vote. Companies make their decisions based on consumer demand. I'm using my money to vote for something I agree with. 

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My leap year resolution will be to follow the leaping bunny on the back of products that are cruelty free. So that I can keep a few more bunnies looking like this.

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