Charity reveals the ‘Ultimate New Year’s Resolution’ 


Kate Warner

A promise of a fresh start is in the air, the Christmas leftovers have all but gone, and Mari Lwyd is doing her rounds. New Year’s is on the horizon, and with it, a chance to make a resolution that’s not only personally empowering but also globally meaningful.

If your goal is to do more with your fresh start than merely make a promise you’ll later forget about, I have the perfect New Year’s resolution for you: going vegan.

Every year, the average vegan spares the lives of as many as 200 animals, each of whom is someone with their own thoughts and personality.

An animal-free diet also generates 75% less heat-trapping gas than diets containing 100 grams of meat daily, drastically reducing your carbon footprint.

Research shows that vegans also have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer, and experience improved digestion and easier weight loss. Going vegan is one of life’s few instances where a simple shift can have a profound impact.

From fighting to preserve and promote our language to securing improved water safety, we Welsh are no strangers to “people power.”

But, when every second ad normalises eating animals, despite it being cruel and one of the leading drivers of climate catastrophe, it’s easy to forget that we can each affect huge, positive change just by rethinking how we view animals.

Thanks mainly to advertising with which we’re bombarded from birth, there’s an illogical invisible line drawn between, for example, dogs and chickens, despite them both being curious, playful, loyal, and capable of feeling pain.

This leads to a significant discrepancy in their treatment, which, upon critical consideration, makes no sense – and harms us all.

Surveys consistently show that Welsh people are committed to animal protection, with a recent RSPCA survey finding that 75% of Welsh people call themselves “animal lovers.”

But because many of us see dogs as “friends” and chickens as “food”, we’ve painted ourselves into a corner where Wales now has almost 8 million more chickens than humans.

Breeding birds into a hellish existence on filthy factory farms where they never glimpse sunlight and can’t stretch a wing isn’t only cruel, it’s also polluting our environment, and putting us at massive risk of a fatal avian flu epidemic.

Wales’ Intensive Poultry Units (IPUs), where millions of birds are crowded in their own filth, have been flagged as key drivers of river pollution, with poultry in Powys, Shropshire, and Herefordshire contributing up to 12 times as much manure in the Wye and Severn catchments as sewage from the entire human populations of all three counties.

Experts have also flagged the UK’s increasing number of avian flu outbreaks – 68 this season and counting – as an ‘urgent warning’ to move away from intensive animal farming.

Despite being immensely powerful, withdrawing your support of animal abuse is incredibly easy. Once you make the connection, it becomes easy to pass up the dead bodies of other animals, and difficult to imagine you ever fell for the meat industry propaganda that it’s OK to violently kill others for a roast.

Besides, nowadays, you can make or buy an animal-free upgrade of almost every food you currently enjoy, and I can attest that Wales is bursting with delicious vegan options.

There’s the famous Queen Inn in Cwmbran, which once served animals but reinvented itself as a fully vegan establishment in 2022, and has never been busier; The Pie Box, Cardiff, which sells the UK’s biggest range of homemade vegan pies and baked goods; and Heavenly Vegan Coffi in Barry.

I highly recommend the Queenie sandwich! Vegan options are also readily available in supermarkets and on the menus of non-vegan establishments (even Dexter’s Steakhouse in Carmarthen offers a vegan menu).

You can really eat anywhere as a vegan.

Some New Year’s resolutions, such as promising to run at sunrise every day, going without tea or coffee (Dim diolch), or saving more money, can be a drag, but adopting a vegan lifestyle is simple, enjoyable, and brings about positive change.

It’s the only way to end animal suffering, our best hope for subverting climate catastrophe and another deadly animal-borne pandemic and can improve our everyday health.

This New Year’s, I urge you to please go vegan, and don’t do it now, in a minute, do it now!

As someone who has been where you are now, on the precipice of a powerful change, I can assure you: you’ll only regret waiting this long – and yes, there are vegan Welsh cakes, and they’re lush.

Kate Werner is Senior Campaigns Manager for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, PETA.