Then there’s the problem of insects in things.
https://projects.ncsu.edu/cals/course/ent425/text18/food.html

Looks like you are.

Oh the irony

So a cafe is refusing to take them. Can I assume that there is no trace of animal products in anything they have in their cafe? Are you allowed to eat there (or work there) if you’re wearing leather shoes?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-38184599

My only hope is that all this fuss leads people to think a little more about what things are made of and make better informed ethical choices.
Unfortunately, it appears to be following the usual media fuelled public outrage trajectory of “this thing is bad so we hate it”, regardless of how many things around us are as bad or even worse.
As has been pointed out already on this thread, so many products use tallow that we are surrounded by but are oblivious to.

My main ethical reason for pursuing a vegan lifestyle is that, in the current system, eating meat and using animal-based products is responsible for so much harm, not just to the animals involved but to the wider environment. There are situations in my life where I have to make choices between using an animal product or another, non-animal based product whose environmental impact may be greater, but this is very much my choice.

As usual, thousands are up in arms over the use of 1.5 cows to make millions of bank notes, but, compared to the daily horrors of the meat industry, ever increasing climate change and deforestation, a £5 note is irrelevant. Imagine if the media spent as much time talking about those issues as they’ve spent talking about fivers.

I’m not in the business of telling others how to go about their business but I hope that my choices may inspire others to reduce or remove animal products in their lives. I’m not sure anyone’s being inspired by a bunch of people crying into their lentils* about trace elements of tallow in £5 notes.

* I like lentils, I eat them all the time.

Fin, that’s fine but your ethical choices are not the same as others. I’m not a vegan or vegetarian so can’t get excited about animal products being used elsewhere. I respect others opinions and lifestyles there are limits and I don’t appreciate being lectured to by others pushing their own personal morals and issues onto me. I have strong opinions on a great many subjects, but also realise that the world cannot operate in an uncompromising way in accordance with my views and opinions.

There are many causes of deforestation and actually the demand for palm oil and Soya beans is the biggest cause of deforestation.

If we were to take into account every objection people might have about the new fivers then it would be impossible to manufacture them from anything. In the global world we live you can’t be uncompromising on anything. Everyone has to have a bit of room for give and take. Even/especially Vegans.

Now that contactless and Apple Pay is becoming more widespread I actually now rarely use cash at all. Often i’ll go out without anything other than my phone. Maybe that is the solution.

Wobbliscott, did you read my post, or did you stop at me being a vegan, because we’re saying the same thing. Yes, palm oil is bad and I avoid it. About 85% of soya is grown to feed cattle, so we can eat them and drink their milk, hence I don’t eat them or drink their milk.

My only hope is that all this fuss leads people to think a little more about what things are made of and make better informed ethical choices.

I’m not in the business of telling others how to go about their business but I hope that my choices may inspire others to reduce or remove animal products in their lives. I’m not sure anyone’s being inspired by a bunch of people crying into their lentils* about trace elements of tallow in £5 notes.

This, absolutely.

As you say it’s often a choice between an animal product or something more harmful (more than likely a product of the petrochemical industry). I know which I would prefer. That said, how far is too far? It’s all well and good talking ideals but unless we all go back to subsistence living a lot of things would vanish from our lives. It’s about making an educated choice and making that choice the best it can be (in getting to that final outcome). Animal welfare is a very low hanging fruit IMO.

If we did go back to subsistence living would it be easier or harder to then be vegan? I mean small holdings where 100% of the animal would be used with the tallow making candles/soap, the skin being used for leathers and the dung used as fertiliser would be then way it was done before.
I understand the objections but governments make choices based on the majority and the rest of us have to accept it. I wonder if the formulation is any different to the one used to make the Australian plastic money. They have had that stuff for years now

Internet tells me that all plastic money seems to have a single source for the raw material so Australia and Canada have the same issue, it just seems to not cause such a fuss despite the large amount of vegans especially in oz..

I respect others opinions and lifestyles there are limits and I don’t appreciate being lectured to by others pushing their own personal morals and issues onto me.

Isn’t that what you’re doing, by pushing the use of animal products onto vegans?

There are many causes of deforestation and actually the demand for palm oil and Soya beans is the biggest cause of deforestation

This I don’t get. You understand the issue and the cause, but won’t do anything about it. Essentially saying deforestation on the other side of the world is someone else’s problem.

This I don’t get. You understand the issue and the cause, but won’t do anything about it. Essentially saying deforestation on the other side of the world is someone else’s problem.

Pretty standard whataboutery, unfortunately. I get it every day. It usually backfires when people find out that most of the world’s soya is grown to feed cows, not vegans. Also, most vegans avoid palm oil and some meat eaters do, too.

I’m also not a great fan of soya products, but do use them from time to time. But obviously, all vegans are the same, so soya use is all my fault.

If we stopped eating palm oil and switched to something else, say coconut oil,then demand for that would rise and it would become a major cause of deforestation. Just because a product has lower global production doesn’t mean it has a lower environmental footprint in per capita terms.(personally I avoid palm oil because products containing it tend to be not very nice)

Coconut oil demand is already a problem (I was reading about this just yesterday).

This guy knows the answer

Soylent Green is people!

Three pages on a non-story that has been created by a load of people wanting their five minutes of fame.

If anyone asks me for a defining example of “First World Problems” I would refer them to this non-issue.

Anyway, I don’t recall anyone suggesting you actually eat a new fiver(?)

The story, danny, is the way a non-story has been turned into a significant issue (whilst ignoring the far more significant ones).

If we did go back to subsistence living would it be easier or harder to then be vegan? I mean small holdings where 100% of the animal would be used with the tallow making candles/soap, the skin being used for leathers and the dung used as fertiliser would be then way it was done before.

And still is, tallow is still used for those products, as well as a lubricant in the production of polymer pellets for a great many plastic products that everyone uses daily, the skin is used for many leather products, bones rendered down, marrow used, etc.
I have no issues with animal products, provided the animals themselves are looked after correctly, treated respectfully, and slaughtered properly.
Far better an unlimited resource than using non-replaceable petrochemical products.

provided the animals themselves are looked after correctly, treated respectfully, and slaughtered properly.

Where is this utopia you speak of?

Three pages on a non-story that has been created by a load of people wanting their five minutes of fame.

I guess this is at least partly aimed at me, as the OP. Rest assured, of all the things I’ve done, and of all the things that I consider as 5 minutes of fame, this is not it. 🙂 (and, in fact, I’ve had what I consider the only one I’ll ever have long ago 🙂 and it was better than this but still really, really not much cop 😀 )

I have no issues with animal products, provided the animals themselves are looked after correctly, treated respectfully, and slaughtered properly.

Do they use organic tallow for fivers?

Far better an unlimited resource

Is there an (organic) tallow mountain somewhere that we don’t know about?

The bad news is that tallow is used in many polymer ingredients. In other words any of the rubber components on your bike could contain tallow in the same vanishingly small amounts as the new fivers…

Alternatively – what else should we do with a by product of the meat industry which would exist whether or not we used tallow for things?

Some googling appears to suggest that many of the polymers we use for packaging, food storage etc. could have some animal derived products added for lubricants or property enhancers at some point along the way.
So that would mean many many more things would not be vegan..
If people get upset this may not be a bad thing. Less packaging or at least biodegradable packaging.

I can’t wait until they start farming us humans to feed the trees

You know how trees work, right? We’ve been doing exactly that for millennia.