Deep fried cow

I've been arguing with a friend a bit about being a vegan. Yes, really, hard it may be to comprehend me being argumentative, but yes. And even more astonishingly, this argument is on Facebook. Shocks abound!

Anyshoes...

At this point in my life I eat pretty much everything. Mostly pizza at the moment, but the important thing is that my diet contains dairy, fish, dairy, meat and dairy. There's nothing missing. In the several decades that have passed since this blog began (all of its own accord, I rarely have control) I have gone through eating no meat (I'd say vegetarian but I never - NEVER - gave up jelly babies) at all, past not eating fish, through a brief hiatus on dairy (very brief, because cheese).

         NB I know that's not good grammar. I am On The
         Pulse but I feel the need to say that I KNOW.

I have no idea what I wrote here previously on the subject of NEVER EATING FISH and MEAT IS AWFUL. It was then and I was younger then and I have very little in the way of remembering what I thought and what I actually wrote down and nobody from then still reads it (apart from you, of course, but you are insane AND imaginary).

Now I think we probably all ought to be more or less vegetarian. Not completely, and by that I don't mean "oh I'm a vegetarian but I eat fish because they are not sentient and I'm a moron", I mean eat a little meat, from good sources, and some fish, that's sustainable, occasionally, but to have a primarily vegetarian diet.

That's my crap version of being a vegetarian where you cheerfully eat gelatine and rennet containing foods and the odd portion of black pudding or haggis. (Neither are meat as you'd know it so when you are vegetarian because meat makes you boke, they are fine. And black pudding is a superfood, which was the best news ever, ever).

These tangents are being terribly invasive today. It's 6pm so I don't have the free mind and writing prowess of 3am, but neither do I have the self hatred, feelings of persecution or depression that appear at that time. I'm simply procrastinating just now.

Back to the animals. Awww. Cute things. We shouldn't hurt them unnecessarily and I'm generally not in favour of sacrificing animals or people or anything really in the name of maximum profit.

So in this ideal world, we only eat small amounts of good welfare sustainable meat and fish. Or if you  must, no meat or fish at all.

However, if we are being saints, we would also not do any of the following:

- drive a car
- wear clothes made by badly paid children
- own items made by badly paid children
- pay children badly
- wear leather shoes
- throw anything in the bin
- shop at many places, including Amazon
- have needless materialistic possessions
- ever eat a McDonalds or drink Coke or in fact give any money to The Man at all.

There's lots of other things, mostly exploitation to give us cheap crap, or vanity, or Big Money talking.

Are you still here? Well done you.

Anyway. I could keep going on that train of ponder for a long time. I shall attempt to disembark at the point shortly.

There's a number of documentary things doing the rounds that tell you that all food which isn't vegan is bad for you, and for the animals, and for the planet, and yada yada, spread the word, shout about it, and it's almost as scary as the predominately Muslim society we now have.

Breathe.

So I don't think we should be vegan. Not just because I'm currently an omnivore. That's me being crap, just as I eat in McDonalds, shop in Primark and basically keep Amazon in business. No, because I don't believe it is healthy or right. A diet which relies on supplements is not a nutritionally complete diet. And supplements are the stuff of many hideous things that are epitomised by (shudder) Holland and Barratt.

I was curious as to where the non plant vitamins that are in supplements come from. Dr Google tells me that they come from bacteria. So not technically vegan then.

Yes I know. They're only bacteria. Fla fla fla. Vegetarians (real ones)  get in a schtoomie over cochineal beetles so maybe we should care about bacteria. Don't dismiss them the way you all dismiss fish.

I love fish. We have pet fish. I object to the lack of fish love people have. Yes, I am sad when a fish dies. Yes, I think mass fishing is cruel and not just because of the (awww) dolphins. I can only eat fish if it has been filleted and bears no resemblance to the fish. I'm crap, yes, I do mostly eat fish because it's good for me rather than a genuine desire for it. Also the fish van man stops specifically outside my door and I feel bad if I don't buy from him.

I make a lot of excuses.

The cuteness thing reminds me of one of the vegan videos I've seen, where the person was asserting that the reason we eat dead cows and not dead kittens is that we have been conditioned to eat meat. No, actually, in the West we have been conditioned not to eat cute things and we happen to think kittens are cute.

I don't like being bombarded with things. I unconnectedly HATE Michael Moore, although I generally agree with what he says. I don't like his sensationalist approach. He doesn't promote veganism as far as I know, he promotes being decent, but I hate his way.

Relevantly, in contrast, I won't be going vegan any day soon. Maybe vegetarian again, but that was meant to start this week and I accidentally had a McDonalds breakfast today.
Diet starts tomorrow.

         *****irony klaxon*****

Fine dining

Masterchef is nearly done and the cooking is vairy vairy posh.

I do wonder what you are to do if you have a limited diet in any way and go to a fine dining occasion where set menus are presented, complete with fish, meat and any manner of offal, feet or shells as garnish. Last night's Masterchef had 238 legal top boffins and it seemed all 238 were served a fish starter and steak main.

Yes, vegetarianism again. Shoot me.

In my limited experience of fine dining it does seem to be that the finer the food, the more the food consists of whole creatures. Seafood particularly is served in its entirety: legs, shells, eggs sometimes. Even in my voracious omnivore days I couldn't eat something that looked like it did when it was alive. Prawns I liked, assuming they came as little curls of meat, not with their entire being attached. Nor could I eat a fish with its head and eyes on my plate. Fish appears more as the menu gets more refined, and the finest is plucked from the sea and plonked more or less directly onto the plate.

Pork also, tasty food, but why serve the trotters and ears? The posher one is, the rawer the beef and lamb are served. Masterchef often criticises contestants for serving meat cooked to what I would describe as edible. Not well done, just cooked. They call it overdone. I've cooked a lot of meat in my time and I have never served it either dry or half raw.

I have on two occasions had genuinely fine dining. Once at a quite marvellous wedding, and once at a Michelin starred restaurant. On both occasions I had vegetarian meals as I was fully vegetarian at the time. On both occasions I was served sublime food that was equal in perfection to any meat dishes. At the restaurant I had the vegetarian taster menu and seriously, if you can get food like that without meat, why would you ever eat meat?

On both the aforementioned occasions however, I was made to feel slightly freakish. I get that most people aren't vegetarian, but there's a sense that eating everything is sophisticated and turning the pigs ears down is crass. More than that, I get the impression that vegetarianism is considered to be the premise of teenagers and tree huggers and anyone else is kind of immature or simply uncultured.

I find as I get older and, one would assume, maturer of mind, that I care more about the planet and the life upon it as a whole. I don't like being made to feel stupid and unworldly for doing so.

Gluten-free is smart and clever; vegetarianism is silly. Unless of course you know anything about nutrition.

I do eat some meat, for now and not for long. I make meat for my children. I like to choose vegetarian dishes when eating out though and I'd like to be able to do so without pasta or mockery.