Vegetarian Health

I’ve read an awful lot of thoroughly miserable material on the subject of becoming a vegetarian and the reasons behind it. The truth is that vegetarianism isn’t nearly as grim as it’s usually painted and the reasons for choosing a veggie lifestyle tend to be more common sense than anything else.

Maybe I’m unusual but the main reason for me to go veggie was that I actually think vegetarian food is more interesting, or it certainly is if it’s in the hands of somebody with a bit of creativity.

So what are we taking on here? I had a friend who said he could only eat meat if it was something that he thought he was personally capable of killing, and I don’t mean with a shotgun. In other words he wasn’t about to try and wrestle a cow to the ground, so beef was definitely out of the question. Which sounded like a good philosophy although frankly I couldn’t even square up to a chicken, what with their beady little eyes. The most I could probably handle was snuffing out a couple of carrots as they were wrenched screaming from the ground.

I mean let’s face it, aren’t most meat eaters just in denial, trilling la-la-la with their fingers in their ears as the carnage goes on around them? Let them do their own killing! One brief visit to a slaughterhouse and the steak tartare wouldn’t have quite the same appeal. Ok now I’m the one who’s getting miserable. But meat production is disgusting isn’t it?

Not to mention the fact that excessive cattle farming is the single greatest cause of global warming. At least that’s what Paul McCartney said, and he should know, he’s been banging on about being vegetarian for as long as I can remember. Even if poor old Linda’s burgers weren’t quite as healthy as we thought they were (apologies if this has been sorted out, don’t sue) at least they weren’t heating up the planet faster than all the world’s international flights combined.

And Meat-free-Monday was a silly idea but then you should have heard some of my ideas. Noodle-Tuesday was one. And it was mandatory.

So here I should probably tell you a lot of gloomy things you may have already read about becoming a vegetarian that will make you feel a bit smug if you’ve already gone down that road or thoroughly depressed if you haven’t. Then again maybe I’ll keep that for another day – you’re probably depressed or smug enough as it is.

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