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*****

Meet the veggies

There won't be any meeting of any veggies, I am afraid the title is a bit misleading and a result of a rather unfathomable obsession with Mr Bloom of Mr Bloom's Nursery and a very catchy tune entitled, astonishingly, "Meet the Veggies".

I'd link if I could. Google will help you if you care, but know not who he be or what I'm on about.

Anyway. It's a new year, again, and despite my defence of my birthday month as not being one for detox and deprivation, I do feel I need to address my general slothfulness and weight gain.

My weight has never been what you'd call a source of joy to me. It caused me considerable less duress than usual in 2009 when I shed all the excess weight to become normal weighted. Not thin, just not overweight. This was nice. Complacency set in as it tends to and I gained about 10lb over the next year and a bit, so last January I decided to shift it.

I joined Weightwatchers online, mostly because they have an iPhone app and I am a sad git. But also because it was Weightwatchers that helped me shed the three stone.

The excessive amounts of Tramadol I was taking while I was dieting may have had some appetite suppressant effect. Who knows. I shall deny that as a possibility. I ate less, I lost wheens of weight. My secret was to have Saturday off if I'd lost weight that week so if I really needed a treat, I'd have it on Saturday. Something worked anyway so I thought I'd try again.

2011 started, Weightwatchers started, 4lb lost and then I discovered I was pregnant. Woohoo! Freedom to eat doughnuts! WW were very nice and refunded my membership too.

In both of my pregnancies I gloried in the ability to pretty much eat what I wanted/could manage. After both pregnancies I was slimmer than before due to not managing much. After both pregnancies I proceeded to gain weight rapidly due to continuing to eat what I wanted and could now manage in copious amounts. The hunger took over.

So here I am. I seem to be hovering at a intermediate size just now which is not quite the size of a house but not far off. Approximately the size of a chalet or so. Either my scales are broken or I'm staying the same weight. Which isn't a good weight but it's not getting worse. I was pleased to discover that it hadn't crept up after a few weeks of not-weighing-myself denial, then I ate Christmas fayre voraciously and then was very sick (unconnectedly) for a few days. Result? Same weight as before the voraciousness.

Put it this way, I've got approaching two of the three stones to shed again, although it is a little over one stone to be back in the normal range again. But I did have a baby so I'll cling to that for a while. I have till her first birthday to legitimately have a paunch.

My paunch, my rules.

You would be correct to note that there has been very little mention of veggies.

For a couple of years I was vegetarian. Sort of. I didn't forsake gelatine or similar and I didn't stay off, erm, black pudding very long. Or haggis. It's flesh I have issue with, ok?

This came about by simply going off meat and fish. I remain off fish to this day partly because of ethical reasons, and stayed off red meat until I was pregnant when I really fancied burgers. Chicken and non fleshy meat things came back after a year or so.

But, due to another unfathomable obsession with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and the receipt of his veg cookbook for Chrismas, I'm thinking I'll go veggie again. It's easier to be diet friendly with vegetarian food, and it'll stop me eating snack scotch eggs.

Hugh did impress me by having a similar sort of argument to mine as to why we should eat less meat and fish (sustainability) and also because he likes to make the vegetable the star, rather than substituting with quorn or soya at every stage and having faux meat dishes.

Certain vegetables/pulses are fabulous. Cauliflower. Chick peas. Courgettes. Other ones that don't start with C. Hmm. Butternut squash. Broccoli. Edamame beans. Artichokes.

Definitely artichokes. They're hard to buy mostly. Grr.

Salad is also good. Iceberg lettuce is one of the greatest foods on earth so my salads always lack a little sophistication unless I have rocket in which case my salad resembles a pile of rocket.

And I am a big fan of mushrooms. Unsophisticated mushrooms though, I'm not that keen on ones that look like sea creatures. Mushroom risotto should be knighted for services to easy to cook and delumptious dinners.

Meat will be off the menu once I've eaten the stuff in the freezer and had a farewell Chicken and Cashew Nut. Sometime soon after my birthday. Maybe the first of February so I don't actively give anything up in January, just to make a point to nobody.

Meantime I'm going to experiment with a beetroot tart tatin and some fried polenta. And make a raspberry pavlova so that the raspberries purchased to be in a pavlova don't suffer the humiliation of being a healthy snack.

I shall also ponder at what point I stopped ogling attractive men and just moved onto "men".