Bone to Pick With Anyone Who Says Meat-Free Manifesto is Easy
IT IS no coincidence that on the Vegetarian Society’s website, on a warning list of stumbling blocks for those setting out on the path to veggie Valhalla, in at No3-with-a-bullet is alcohol. The purpose behind the good people at Green Towers bringing this up is to warn of possible animal extracts which may crop up in certain tipples. But what the alert should also acknowledge is that between the hours of 3 and 4am, outside any given city centre takeaway establishment and with an alcoholic intake the wrong of side of upstanding, the temptation of some red-blooded meat can tip a girl over the edge. Even this girl, who hasn’t, to her sober knowledge, eaten meat in the last 15 years.
In a notable coincidence, tomorrow marks the start of the 15th National Vegetarian Week. This year’s event has launched in part already, however, for those who keep abreast of scurrilous film activity on the internet. In an Abi Titmuss-style release – in other words, it’s only viewable on the web – the society has produced a film which aims to ‘sex up’ the reputation of vegetables and those who rely on them fully for their daily sustenance.
The slogan to accompany the film is: ‘Can you keep it up for a week?’ In the cleverly executed reel, asparagus tips drip with butter, chillies sizzle on a hot griddle and rice sprays itself over a kitchen table with abandon. All very phallic and funny. But sexy? Who can seriously say that they find vegetables attractive? Maybe Paul McCartney and his tub-thumping wives past and present, but not me.
It got me thinking. Sometimes I worry I won’t even be able to keep my ethical end up for another day, never mind seven of them. It is quite something to admit, to myself at least, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to recall why I started this meat-free manifesto in the first place. Rather than my principles becoming more devout and dogged with age, they are weaker than the knees of a teenager in the first flush of love. My yearnings for the taste of meat are becoming almost animalistic in their fervour.
And, far from my taste buds being turned by the waft of a five- star serving of Chateaubriand or the like, it is for the cheapest of cuts that my morals appear to go out the window.
This is not the only time I’ve struggled to keep up the good fight. The first was the worst. Working in the local cinema kiosk has its bonuses, namely getting to see films for free, but what they didn’t tell me at the interview was that I would have to spend at least two hours every weekend night serving at the hotdog machine. Any self-respecting 17-year-old vegetarian would have flounced away in disgust, but instead my response marked the first flicker that my veggie years may be short-lived. As soon as the cinema-goers at the Elgin Playhouse had filed in, you’d find me wafting the hotdog pan lid open and closed with a fetishistic glee. It was like scoring a fix without the guilt.
The Vegetarian Society confidently cites statistics such as that there currently around four million vegetarians in the UK, and that with 5,000 people a week turning we could all be vegetarian come 2030. What they need to be honest about, however, is that once a vegetarian, not always a vegetarian. I’ve lost count of the amount of people who have told me over dinner, or in the work canteen, about how they tried being vegetarian but either didn’t want to or “couldn’t keep it up”.
In the past, they’ve been on the receiving end of what were most probably fairly patronising glances from me – looks that were trying to say “what a shame, you spineless fool” while not being branded the ‘type’ of vegetarian who preaches across the plate at you. Whereas now, when people say the same thing, I find myself wanting to leap into a confessional box to relieve myself of what feels like impending soya sacrilege.
A totally vegetarian society would be the stuff of nightmares. On that front I agree with Gordon Ramsay, who in the past has made no bones about his distaste for we veggies.
In the first episode of the new series of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares the ‘effing one’, however, takes things too far by allegedly feeding a vegetarian a pizza with Parma ham on it.
As much as the Vegetarian Society are barmy to be considering whether this could be a test case under the European Convention on Human Rights, on the basis he deceived someone into doing something in breach of their moral philosophy, I have to say I laughed at Ramsay’s gall before I tutted in sympathy for the passer-by.
For as any honest vegetarian will tell you, it is not easy, it is not particularly sexy and it is certainly not without temptation to convert back to the ‘other side’.
The Vegetarian Society should be honest enough to put that on their website warning list.