Furious vegans have slammed an Edinburgh butchers for putting up an 'ignorant' sign aimed at plant-eaters.
The chalkboard sign was put up outside W.M Christie Butchers in Bruntsfield and the owners have been dubbed by some veggies as being 'psychopaths'.
The fifth generation family butcher decided to poke some fun at a common argument used by vegans, which points out that thousands of innocent animals are killed every year by meat eaters.
The sign's tongue and cheek message reads: "Every day thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians. Help end the violence and eat meat."
The photo uploaded onto Facebook was sarcastically captioned: "Spotted at family butcher in Bruntsfield, sooo funny!"
But not everyone found the message humorous as a 22-year-old student who was angered by the message told Edinburgh Live: "I just think it’s nonsense, I don’t understand, how can they justify killing an animal like that.
"It only brings anger, and fights and I don’t find that funny. Surely eating plants is less damaging to the environment, and plants, unlike animals are not sentient."
Shay-li Menzilevsky branded the family butchers as "F*****g psychopaths."
One user commented: "Jeez, the ignorance is astonishing. Plants are not sentient and exist in synergy with humans and animals as a food source.
"You just can't say I murdered a carrot. People will cling to all sorts of nonsense to justify murdering animals... animals that have exactly the same fundamental wishes as us - to be happy, safe and free from suffering."
A second wrote: "So if I interpreted that right we need to eat the humans because it was humans that killed the plants too?"
A third added: "And what does their meat eat?"
However, not all were as offended from the sign.
One said: "Surely we can take this in good humour.
"These people are running a business that has been in their family for generations. It doesn’t mean we all have to eat meat. It can’t be okay for Vegans to fly the vegan flag, and not okay for meat eaters to do the same.
"Regardless of our reasons behind being Vegan."
W.M Christie was established in 1889 and is currently ran by Willie Christie.
Willie runs the butchers alongside his brother and was amused by the online reaction.
He said: "As it’s veganary, isn’t it fitting it could be meatanury too? It wasn’t malicious in anyway, just a simple joke and banter.
"People have taken it wrongly. we are surrounded with people telling us to go vegan and vegetarian, yet my business is a butchers. We sell meat and I’m promoting my business.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I respect that, I’m just expressing mine. And it seems to have worked, given the attention my butchers has now received."
Topics: Vegan, Vegetarian, UK News
Anish Vij