Tuesday 25 November 2014 7:00

Vegetarian and vegan charity Viva! has launched a campaign aimed at turning consumers away from chicken and towards a meat-free diet.

Images of poorly-feathered broilers and crowded sheds, taken uninvited onpoultry farms, form the cornerstone of its campaigning.

The charity helped with covertfilming taken by the Guardian newspaper earlier this year.

It has previously campaigned against free-range egg production, arguing it is akin to factory farming.

Viva! says it will accompany imagery with large-scale leaflet drops, and plans to distribute 100,000 in the coming weeks. It has also held peaceful demonstrations outside Nandos restaurants, encouraging diners to choose from the vegan menu rather than selecting poultry.

On 22 November, 150 Nandos were targeted in some form.

Literature distributed by the charity plays on the fact 945 million chickens are slaughtered a year accounting for 94% of all animals by headage. Leaflets run the headline: By the time you finish reading this, 3,500 chickens will have died.

Campaign manager for Viva! Justin Kerswell told Poultry World the campaigning by the charity would be ongoing, and ran under the banner Life is Cheep?

The bottom line is chickens are the most killed animal. They are plucky, delightful little animals with similar cognitive abilities to higher primates, yet are treated as commodities, devoid of hope, fear or pain.

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Vegan charity against UK poultry targets Nandos

Carrots at The Garadene Swine. (Courtesy photo by Stephen Zwick)

The tale of the Gadarene Swine is one of the best to be found in the Gospels, reported in the books of several of the Apostles, who describe Jesus and his followers coming upon two men of fierce visage who block their way. Jesus asks one of the men: What is thy name? And the man replies, My name is Legion: for we are many.

It's a wonderful line that is echoed by Randall Flagg in Stephen King's The Stand, who refers to himself as Legion. The word refers to the many demons in the Gadarene men. Jesus miraculously transfers the demons into a herd of swine, who then rush to the sea en masse and drown themselves.

Vegetables in a Box at The Garadene Swine. (Courtesy photo by Yasmin Alishav)

Now what does all that have to do with a vegan restaurant of the same name in Studio City? Well, as the notably brief menu tells us, the biblical tale inspired a philosophical conceit called the Gadarene Swine Fallacy. The explanation is reprinted from philosophicalsociety.com, saying the fallacy is the belief that Because a group is in the right formation, it is necessarily on the right course; and conversely, of supposing that because an individual has strayed from the group and isn't in formation, that he is off course ...

Is the point then that carnivores follow the, ahem, herd, while vegans go their own way? Perhaps. Though that would be a bit of an odd notion for a chef (Phillip Frankland Lee) whose other restaurant (the Scratch Bar) is well known for its omnivorous leanings.

Or perhaps he just liked the name and thought a little philosophical musing went well with the roasted garlic and fresh thyme popcorn. Hard to say. But what can be said is that the Gadarene Swine is one of the quirkiest restaurants to open on a street of many quirks.

Vegetables in a Box at The Garadene Swine. (Courtesy photo by Yasmin Alishav)

The funny thing about the current state of vegan cooking is that it's more appealing to omnivores (or flexitarians) than ever. Vegan food isn't just for vegans anymore.

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Gadarene Swine restaurant in Studio City strays from the vegan norm