A family butcher in Edinburgh, Scotland has drawn the ire of many vegans with its “ignorant” sign placed outside the shop. The chalkboard sign, which was placed outside W.M. Christie Butchers in Bruntsfield, claims that “thousands of innocent plants” are sacrificed every day thanks to vegetarians and the only way to save them is to eat more meat. Hilarious, but not everyone thought so.
Edinburgh vegans fume over 'ignorant' butcher's sign – but not everyone agrees 👀
⤵️https://t.co/AzT9TDa9tT pic.twitter.com/cbhHdrr4xT
— Edinburgh Live (@EdinburghLive_) January 10, 2022
- The sign is actually pretty humorous. It’s meant to make a statement. Many vegans and vegetarians always accuse meat eaters of destroying the planet by killing animals, so the butchers wanted in on the fun as well. The sign reads: “Every day thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians. Help end the violence and eat meat.” Come on, that’s funny!
- An image of the sign went viral on Facebook. Local Jakub Dragon posted a photo of the sign, captioning the post: “Spotted at family butcher in Bruntsfield sooo funny!” The 22-year-old student told Edinburgh Live that while that might make it seem like he found it funny, he most certainly does not. “I just think it’s nonsense, I don’t understand, how can they justify killing an animal like that. It only brings anger, and fights and I don’t find that funny. Surely eating plants is less damaging to the environment, and plants, unlike animals are not sentient.”
- People had some pretty strong reactions to the post. Many vegans take their beliefs about animal welfare quite seriously, so they failed to see any humor in the post. In fact, one commenter named Shay-Li Menzilevsky called the butchers “f***ing psychopaths” while Kevin Johnson wrote: “Jeez, the ignorance is astonishing. Plants are not sentient and exist in synergy with humans and animals as a food source. You just can’t say I murdered a carrot. People will cling to all sorts of nonsense to justify murdering animals….animals that have exactly the same fundamental wishes as us – to be happy, safe and free from suffering.”
- Some commenters went to the extreme. Adam Rennie decided to take the argument many steps further by claiming that we’re one step away from cannibalism. “So if I interpreted that right we need to eat the humans because it was humans that killed the plants too?” he wrote.
- Of course, there were some more level-headed responses. Someone called Gilly Billy remarked that we should all be able to see the funny side, writing: “These people are running a business that has been in their family for generations. It doesn’t mean we all have to eat meat. It can’t be okay for Vegans to fly the vegan flag, and not okay for meat eaters to do the same. Regardless of our reasons behind being Vegan.”
- Willie Christie, who runs the family establishment, thinks everyone needs to calm down. The butcher’s shop, which was established in 1889, was simply promoting its product and the sign isn’t meant to be a moral directive. “As it’s veganuary, isn’t it fitting it could be meatanuary too? It wasn’t malicious in any way, just a simple joke and banter,” he explained. “People have taken it wrongly. we are surrounded with people telling us to go vegan and vegetarian, yet my business is a butcher. We sell meat and I’m promoting my business. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I respect that, I’m just expressing mine. And it seems to have worked, given the attention my Butchers has now received.”
