--- title: "Animals, Children and Vegetarianism - IVU - International Vegetarian Union" description: "Animals, Children and Vegetarianism: IVU News Animals, Children and Vegetarianism by Adelaide Carvalho (translated by Bettina Myers) from IVU Newsletter, February/March 1996 IVU Newsletter No.13/94 published a poem written with great pain and suffering by Nicola Thomas. It tells the story of the" url: "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=5544:news-95-96-children&catid=228" date: "2026-11-06T00:01:26+00:00" language: "en-GB" --- # Animals, Children and Vegetarianism ![Animals, Children and Vegetarianism](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/banners/news-95-96-children.png) **IVU News** **Animals, Children and Vegetarianism** by Adelaide Carvalho (translated by Bettina Myers) **from IVU Newsletter, February/March 1996** IVU Newsletter No.13/94 published a poem written with great pain and suffering by Nicola Thomas. It tells the story of the animals bred in factories, which, after a long chain of suffering, come out chopped up and steaming on the plate of the average person in these final years of the twentieth century. The poem suggests two main themes. Firstly, the importance of the fight to give animals the right to live in the most natural conditions possible: in the open air rather than within four walls and walking on earth rather than on metal grids etc. If we insist on treating animals more and more brutally, this behaviour will make the human race even more brutal. Secondly, the common citizen should convince himself that human beings can live much better consuming little or no meat, relying on animal by-products like eggs and dairy produce, yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese, keffir etc. How many health problems, how much pollution caused by sewage, how much emigration caused by poverty would be eased if awareness was spread that human beings do not need to gather their strength at the cost of animal life. In the poem called An Instant one great Portuguese poet, Miguel Torga, shows the tenderness he feels for animals. A person who is not a writer, but is more sensitive, strokes the flank of the cow or the head of the lamb when he goes to a cattle market, or pets a rabbit when he goes to visit his homeland. How can we understand the common citizen who, just after his strokes and caresses, sits down and treats himself to a meal made from bits of animal? This is something of a paradox, but is understandable. Some still remember the meals they ate when they were children. Others, who do not have such good memories, notice what so many mothers and fathers still do nowadays. With caresses, kisses and slyness - look here comes the aeroplane - or a cuff round the ear, they stuff food into their childrens mouths which they often feel the greatest aversion to. What a smell, what a texture! - it is no coincidence that children reject meat and fish. Conditioning at such a tender age by those who nurture us and defend us from so many dangers is difficult to lose. It takes years to understand that not all which is taught by the family, teachers, friends and the media is salutary for the human race. > ### An Instant > > The scene is hushed and brief: > In a pasture, > A lamb > Gently grazes, > Enraptured, > The mother sheep pauses in her chewing, > And life > Also stops to gaze. **Miguel Torga** --- Contributions to IVU News are welcomed. Material published does not necessarily reflect the views of the editor or the policy of the International Vegetarian Union. A note on this archive. The history section of this website is drawn from a body of legacy content originally compiled by John Davis, former manager of the International Vegetarian Union. It represents his curation of historical material, and in places includes passages written by him directly. Over the years, the IVU website has migrated between several different hosting servers. In the course of these migrations, a number of PDF files were unfortunately lost, and **some links to PDF documents may no longer function**. Where this is the case, we have chosen to leave the original link text in place, as it may itself carry information of historical value. - Hits: 1256 ## Schema ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=5544:news-95-96-children&catid=228","url":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=5544:news-95-96-children&catid=228","name":"Animals, Children and Vegetarianism","inLanguage":"en","isPartOf":[{"@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html#archive"},{"@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=5543:news-95-96-baltic&catid=228"}],"publisher":{"@id":"https://ivu.org/#organization"},"description":"IVU News Animals, Children and Vegetarianism by Adelaide Carvalho (translated by Bettina Myers) from IVU Newsletter, February/March 1996 IVU Newsletter No.13/94 published a poem written with great…"}]} ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://ivu.org" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "History of IVU", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "History of the Vegetarian Societies", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=category&id=46" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "news", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=category&id=221" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 5, "name": "95-96", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=category&id=228" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 6, "name": "Animals, Children and Vegetarianism", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html" } ] } ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html" }, "headline": "Animals, Children and Vegetarianism", "description": "Animals, Children and Vegetarianism: IVU News Animals, Children and Vegetarianism by Adelaide Carvalho (translated by Bettina Myers) from IVU Newsletter, February/March 1996 IVU Newsletter No.13/94 published a poem written with great pain and suffering by Nicola Thomas. 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