Vegan activist group Viva! were handing out vegan plant-based mince pies and cheese and crackers to raise awareness about animal cruelty and the killing of animals during the festive period.
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00:00 Every year thousands of people will sit down at the dinner table looking forward
00:05 to a traditional turkey Christmas dinner. But how long will this tradition
00:09 continue? Are plant-based Christmas dinners the way forward? Vegan activist
00:13 group Viva were out campaigning in Leicester Square this week.
00:17 Yeah sure so we're here with Viva today and we're showing people the
00:23 reality of what's happening to animals before they get to our Christmas dinner
00:27 table. We're showing standard practice so everything that you see here is legal
00:32 and practiced. The majority of the people on this street would agree that it's
00:37 wrong to cause animals unnecessary harm but unfortunately when we buy these
00:42 products such as milk, dairy and eggs we're contributing to the suffering of
00:46 animals. Yeah so we're giving away free cheese and crackers. We have Cathedral
00:53 City with us today and Philadelphia Spreadables. So many people who have
00:57 tried it today already have loved it and yeah they're going away with a different
01:02 point of view when it comes to dairy and that maybe taste pleasure is not as
01:06 necessary when you have such great options. We're also giving away free
01:10 mince pies and yeah so we always run a Christmas campaign at Viva. This year
01:17 we're educating on three animals that unfortunately have their lives taken at
01:22 Christmas. The first one being turkeys which is obviously traditional in the UK.
01:27 Thousands of turkeys will be in factory farms and they'll die a fraction of
01:34 their lifespan when it's totally unnecessary because we don't need to
01:38 kill them. We have so many alternatives in supermarkets these days. The majority
01:43 of pigs in this country will be factory farmed up to 80% and also 80% will die in
01:49 a gas chamber which the majority of people don't know about unfortunately.
01:54 We're also educating about what happens to salmon in salmon farms. They're
02:00 riddled with lice, sea lice and there's actually an epidemic of sea lice on
02:05 farm Scottish salmon.
02:08 What makes a great vegan Christmas dinner? What are you having?
02:12 Yeah so I'm fortunate enough that my family are vegan as well so we go all
02:18 out on Christmas Day. We still have some of the main staples. We have incredible
02:24 potatoes, we have stuffing and the peas and carrots but probably the centerpiece
02:30 we have is a mushroom wellington which we make ourselves. We have some great
02:35 recipes if you want to visit the Viva website where you can find incredible
02:41 centerpieces that you can have as a Christmas dinner. There's all the main
02:45 supermarkets on this high street so Marks and Spencer's, Waitrose, Tesco,
02:49 Sainsbury's, they'll all have an alternative that you can go with instead
02:53 of causing harm to an animal.