Vegetarian Week

So it’s National Vegetarian Week. I used to be a vegetarian. I’ll make no bones about it (pun intended) – I was seduced by Morrissey. Now before you phone Social Services I should point out that I was a consenting adult and it was only his views on Meat being Murder that impregnated me. I’m not a veggie any more. To be honest I was never that committed – I don’t mean I used to weaken during that time (although picking the meat bits out of a Pimbletts Meat and Potato pie was stretching my credibility a little) but I was never a vego-warrior. What turned me back to omnivorous eating was practicality/laziness. My first son was starting to eat solids and I got fed up of preparing three different meals each time we ate (my wife did not take to meat-free meals as readily as I did) so I thought ‘Sod It’ and went back to it after a couple of years. Whilst not the prime reason for giving up vegetarianism the mythical bacon sandwiches were an extremely welcome addition to my diet. I still laugh at people who say, “Yeah, I’m a vegetarian – but I eat fish … and chicken (only free-range mind)”.

I still have days where I don’t eat meat but it is not a conscious decision to avoid it – it’s just that some of the meals I enjoy don’t contain meat. I have vegetarian friends (does that sound a bit like “Some of my best friends are black/Asian/delete as applicable” ?) who don’t try to convert me or constantly harp on about it. I suppose my attitude is a bit like my attitude to Christianity (as well as the ‘Been there, tried that, bought the luminous dashboard figure of Jesus) – if you want to do it fine, just keep it to yourself and don’t get evangelical on me. Nature has decided that both plants and animals are part of the food chain. We, as humans, have the capability to digest both. So let’s just agree to disagree and go eat some good food.