Veggie shoes

It's the Pitts:
Veggie shoes

July 8, 2000

By Lee Pitts

Some animal rights and vegetarian groups want you to boycott the stuff that holds animals together: leather. Or what the People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals refer to as "hairless fur" or "dead cow skin". They want you to, in their words, "exfoliate your closet." This means getting rid of all leather, thereby creating a "cruelty free wardrobe." PETA presents Internet sites where you can buy mail-order non-leather shoes. Now there’s an idea! Wearing a pair of shoes that arrives three sizes too small and blisters your feet is NOT my idea of "cruelty free."

PETA suggests there are several non-leather options for shoes, belts, bags, wallets and clothing. Among these are cotton, linen, and rubber. Can’t you just see a motorcycle gang giving up their leather jackets for ones made from linen?

PETA also suggests wearing shoes made of hemp, a byproduct of the marijuana industry. I guess if you are stoned you aren’t going to notice that your feet hurt because you have no "sole." PETA contends that leather shoes are not "green." Which all depends on where you’ve been walking. They say that leather is not biodegradable and pollutants such as hair and salts are left behind in the tanning process. This is as opposed to plastic shoes made from petrochemicals.

One of the problems with traditional vegetarian shoes made from hemp is that they do not "breathe." Which is like saying they don’t inhale. Or exhale, for that matter. Shoes that don’t breathe tend to make your feet smell worse than a pair of sheepherder’s socks. Talk about air pollution!

You could wear wooden shoes like they do in Holland. Can’t you picture an iron worker thirty floors high walking thin iron beams wearing a pair of wooden clogs? Or a cowboy getting a wooden thong hung up in a stirrup? A CIA spy is going to have trouble sneaking up on bad guys wearing wooden shoes. To be fair, non-leather shoes do have some advantages. When you quickly tire of wooden shoes or hemp thongs you can burn them for firewood or smoke them.

There is also the option of going through life barefoot. This might be all right for guitar players and poets but it’s a bit impractical for welders. How do linemen strap on their spikes or skaters their skates? How does a stonemason or a carpenter protect his or her feet? Steel-toed sandals? Not to mention ranchers who have been known to tip-toe through the tulips and other organic matter on occasion.

It may be true that there are machine washable options for athlete’s feet these days but last time I checked most of the balls they throw, kick and shoot are still made from leather.

PETA also wants people to give up leather upholstery, but I understand this is not going well. Although PETA says it takes eight cow skins for the interior upholstery of a Rolls Royce I’d be surprised if a single Rolls buyer requested vinyl instead. And even if they did they’d probably cover it with fluffy sheep hides, which I would assume is also totally taboo. When JetBlue Airways was asked not to use leather for the seats in their upscale airplanes because they were made from animals, an official responded: "Tough beans. Real leather is much more comfortable."

PETA is using Hollywood stars to push their anti-leather campaign, including The Artist, also known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince. At least that’s the name he prefers to go by. Personally, I think he’s been smoking too many shoes. I seriously doubt if a rock star who can’t even remember his own name is going to convince anyone to trade in their leather cowboy boots for ones made from canvas. Besides, those Hollywood types are going to look even more ridiculous accepting their Emmys, Grammys and Oscars wearing tuxedos, formals and a pair of tennis shoes.