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Apparently The New Fiver Isn't Vegetarian

CAM

By CAM
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witch

witch

Posted
Posted

The issue about traces of whatever on things isnt really something you can do anything about. There is probably fecal matter and human urine traces on many things, money included.

You can only do your best with the facts in hand.

As for life being important - vegetarians don't eat fish or insects either. Plants do not have any sort of conciousness as far as I know. If they do - I shall be starving very soon :)

BTW- there are many reasons for being a vegetarian. I do not like the way we treat animals raised for meat, and we eat far too much animal protein. I know that humans are carnivorous, and I have no problem with that per se.

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Garacesh

Garacesh

Posted
Posted
The issue about traces of whatever on things isnt really something you can do anything about. There is probably fecal matter and human urine traces on many things, money included.

Wasn't the figure quoted at something like 90% of dollar bills have traces of cocaine on them?

 

Anything that changes hands frequently is going to find itself 'contaminated' pretty quicksmart.

pcstru

pcstru

Posted
Posted
Morals based on what the law says? That's a little bit limiting...

It is not a limit but it could at least be argued that it is a necessary starting point against which to judge a moral/ethical position.

So what you're saying is that other people should decide their lives based on what you think rather than their own thinking and decision making?

I'm not at all sure how you get to that from what I wrote. The simple answer to that would be no.

As I said before, everyone draws their line in a different place. It isn't hypocrisy and it isn't strange - it is their decision, not yours and not the government's. They should be able to make an informed choice about something they are going to come into contact with every day - money.

I haven't mentioned hypocrisy. I'm sympathetic that anyone has a right to know what is in a product. I'm interested in how far that might extend since it does not currently seem to cover things like currency or other paper/packaging products. Perhaps people are being forced to handle tallow at work? Perhaps we are all involved in that? There is also an obvious problem in that things will get contaminated along the way (and the amount of tallow in currency might be comparable, so who am I to say that will not be a problem for someone). I don't think bringing up these points is accusing anyone of anything and I don't see how your response actually addresses any of them. Perhaps you were replying to a different post than the one you quoted?

elsiegee40

elsiegee40

Posted
Posted

A Very Precise Calculation of Exactly How Many Cows Are Being Murdered to Make the New Fivers

Tallow is rendered cow or mutton fat, but for the sake of argument let's go with cows here.

 

How much do cows weigh? Between 1,100 kg for a male and 720 kg for a female. So, on average, a cow weighs 910 kg.

 

The body fat content of an average cow is 25 percent. Therefore, the amount of fat in an average cow's body is 227.5 kg.

 

How many kilograms of this fat is contained in offcuts you could use to make tallow?About 40 kg, according to a man at the James Elliott butcher in Islington.

 

How much tallow is used in one note, according to the Bank of England? "A trace", which chemically means less than 100 parts per million, or 0.01 percent. A polymer consultant I called confirmed that the tallow present in a given polymer would be a fraction of a single percentage.

 

New £5 notes weigh 0.7 g, therefore there is roughly 0.00007 g of tallow present in one £5 note.

 

How many fivers are in circulation now, and therefore will be around by May of 2017, when all the old paper ones have been phased out? 329 million notes.

 

To work out how much tallow will be used in total in all of these fivers, we need to multiply 0.00007g by 329 million, which gives us 23,030 g, or 23 kg.

 

And if you get about 40 kg of tallow-worthy fat from the average cow, how many cows would you need to make every single £5 note in circulation?

 

JUST OVER HALF OF ONE COW

pcstru

pcstru

Posted
Posted
The issue about traces of whatever on things isnt really something you can do anything about.

You can avoid sources of potential contamination. People with severe allergies do exactly that.

There is probably fecal matter and human urine traces on many things, money included.

Yes. The question is whether that matters to you sufficiently to act in some way to avoid that or ask others to act in some way to inform you of that. Should the Bank of England list poo in the ingredients so you can make a reasoned choice to avoid handling it too?

You can only do your best with the facts in hand.

Indeed. But an important part of this issue is who is responsible for ensuring the 'facts' are put in hands. The owners of the hands or those who should be in control of the facts?

As for life being important - vegetarians don't eat fish or insects either. Plants do not have any sort of conciousness as far as I know.

As far as I know, there is no model of consciousness that could exclude plants or include insects. There are reasonable ways of looking at the world in which rocks can't be excluded from 'consciousness'.

sparkeh

sparkeh

Posted
Posted

It's funny, I've never understood why some meat eaters get so irate about vegetarians/vegans. I've had the discussion often enough to know that this is generally the way it goes. On the whole I've found us veggies to be a pretty relaxed bunch. Is it too much to ask for a bit of consideration for those who want to avoid animal products for whatever reason (ethical, religious etc). Hey ho people are weird right?

 

I'm glad that the bank has seen sense and is looking to change the notes now. I mean why use tallow, we aren't living in the Middle Ages and there are plenty of serviceable substitutes around now.

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Garacesh

Garacesh

Posted
Posted (edited)
It's funny, I've never understood why some meat eaters get so irate about vegetarians/vegans. I've had the discussion often enough to know that this is generally the way it goes. On the whole I've found us veggies to be a pretty relaxed bunch. Is it too much to ask for a bit of consideration for those who want to avoid animal products for whatever reason (ethical, religious etc). Hey ho people are weird right?

As always, the nasty ones are the loudest, on both sides. My sister is vegan, but she's just like a regular person with a regular opinion*, she doesn't "go on about it", and neither do the majority of vegans, who are content with living their lives and letting others live the way they want to. Most vegans (like most people with an opinion) simply just get on with it. But then you have the vocal minority of vegans that are pushy and aggressive with it, and as a response you get a vocal minority of meat-eaters that push back just as loud.

 

I mean why use tallow, we aren't living in the Middle Ages and there are plenty of serviceable substitutes around now.

Because it's readily available, usually a waste byproduct, and possibly most importantly, it already exists. Yes, we could synthesise a polymer with the same properties** by crafting a new water-resistant substance, but that's more work for the same result. Cows are still being killed for meat, and that leaves the fat left over. People are always campaigning for less waste, so we find uses for the waste. Somebody has to do something with it. To somebody in the banknote biz, this seemed as good a use as any.

 

* Not that being vegan is irregular or abnormal. I mean no offence.

** Probably important to make note of the distinction between 'create' and 'invent'. Yes, water-resistant polymers have already been invented, but we'd need to create more of it to use on the notes, when we already have the fat sat around doing nothing.

Edited by Garacesh
CAM

CAM

Posted
  • Author
Posted
It's funny, I've never understood why some meat eaters get so irate about vegetarians/vegans. I've had the discussion often enough to know that this is generally the way it goes. On the whole I've found us veggies to be a pretty relaxed bunch. Is it too much to ask for a bit of consideration for those who want to avoid animal products for whatever reason (ethical, religious etc). Hey ho people are weird right?

 

I'm glad that the bank has seen sense and is looking to change the notes now. I mean why use tallow, we aren't living in the Middle Ages and there are plenty of serviceable substitutes around now.

 

Probably because vegans practically write their own parody headlines. "Bank of England Considering Vegan Bank Notes" just last week would have been a headline you find on The Onion.

witch

witch

Posted
Posted
Should the Bank of England list poo in the ingredients so you can make a reasoned choice to avoid handling it too?

Not sure what that is supposed to mean - the Bank of England doesn't make notes with poo so that is a pointless statement. :)

sparkeh

sparkeh

Posted
Posted
Because it's readily available, usually a waste byproduct, and possibly most importantly, it already exists. Yes, we could synthesise a polymer with the same properties

According to the notes makers (Innovia Films) the tallow is there for its anti static properties. And the good news is that there a vegetable oil based substitute that is already widely used in many industries (did you know that fabric softener and tumble dryer sheet manufacturers have pretty much all stopped using tallow now). Its called dipalmethyl hydroxyethylammoinum methosulfate if you are interested :)

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6Foot2

6Foot2

Posted
Posted

Link: Bank of England asking supplier of currency to find animal fat alternative | Reuters

 

The Bank of England said its supplier of currency, Innovia, is working toward removing the use of animal fat in the production of its new plastic five pound note after objection raised by thousands of vegetarians.

 

The bank said it did not know about traces of tallow, which contains animal fats, in the production of the currency when it signed the contract with Innovia...

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claireadams

claireadams

Posted
Posted
I'm having one very quick say in all this and that's me done. I don't get why the comment 'people who've handled meat have touched the money'. That's not at all relevant to something that's been made of an animal product. All that being said and done, I never actually have money, ever. I just don't see its needed anymore. I've not been somewhere they don't accept cards for years and years so this isn't an issue for me.
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LeMarchand

LeMarchand

Posted
Posted
All that being said and done, I never actually have money, ever. I just don't see its needed anymore. I've not been somewhere they don't accept cards for years and years so this isn't an issue for me.

 

I read a conspiracy theory yesterday that the reason why plastic notes are coming in is because people won't like them and so won't use them, leading to less use of cash which is what "they" want as electronic transactions are easy to keep tabs on. :tinfoil3:

claireadams

claireadams

Posted
Posted
I read a conspiracy theory yesterday that the reason why plastic notes are coming in is because people won't like them and so won't use them, leading to less use of cash which is what "they" want as electronic transactions are easy to keep tabs on. :tinfoil3:

 

Maybe lol. I've not used physical money 6-7 years.

MrMat

MrMat

Posted
Posted
I don't see the relevance of the amount of animal in them :confused:

 

How so? :confused:

 

It does seem a little odd that 40,000 people are more upset that their fivers contain a trace amount of animal fat than they are about the thousands of Badgers being killed?

 

I don't share vegetarian/vegan views etc but understand their reasoning however, it does feel like all the 'part-time' folk have jumped on board the bandwagon with this one.

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