Driven by profit

Lone Veiler laments the folly of food fads and looks forward to Glorious Lent

The New Year – or Circumcision of the Lord as we prefer to call it – came and went without much ado until I was perusing the news and realised I was supposed to have become an alcohol eschewing vegan. Looking out of the window, dark still at 8am because of the very heavy rain, I thought how depressing it must be to believe that just giving up booze and bacon is going to get you through arguably the most depressing time of the year. If it’s not bad enough that Christmas is hijacked by a consumer orgy, fuelled by advertising and greed, everyone is supposed to now atone by jumping on the next food manufacturing and advertising scam, that veganism is somehow now ‘the way’.

Before I really tell you how I feel, I must assure you that I believe animal welfare has to be at the top of the carnivore agenda. I don’t believe anyone has to eat meat all day, every day. There’s always fish Friday. What really, really, confuses me are the chemically constructed meat and fish alternatives being sold as somehow better for the planet, oh, and secondarily for you as a human being. If you are a vegan, why would you want your fake meat pasty to taste like an animal you don’t believe should be used for food? Why would you want vegan cheese on your pizza? Are most vegans ex-omnivores who just can’t do without their hit of sour-dough-bacon-flavoured-soya-protein-strips-and-ketchup sandwiches on a Sunday morning? It’s perfectly understandable that everyone wants to reassess their lifestyle periodically, eating more healthily, starting a fitness routine, but in January? It’s the worst time of year to start anything. Even the Tax Year waits until Spring. How many resolutions are still around when the daffodils are up?

Yet much like the media-driven gender crisis, this latest fad is driven by food manufacturers’ profit margins, supermarkets needing to appear relevant and socially responsible, and people’s desire for the next new thing. Not to mention panic over their health. Not that eating a shed load of over-processed vegan meat alternatives will make you healthy. One meat alternative that’s mushroom derived can cause stomach upsets, it says so on the packet. The vegan trend has even pervaded school meals. No longer can you get a nut roast, or a cheese or egg salad if you are a lacto vegetarian, because everyone’s now a vegan with nut allergies.

'Now of course, we anticipate Lent, my favourite time of the entire year'

New has to be best, because it’s new, so food manufacturers keep cranking out re-invented products. I say food manufacturers because that’s what they do, they manufacture. They aren’t the growers, the producers, the farmers; they are the giant corporations that have dubious ethics and morals. One has been banned in our house for years – I won’t give you the name, but it’s spelled like pestle! The suggestion that any of these companies have the slightest concern for the state of the planet unless it concerns their global survival is risible, but they are very good at raising guilt levels and virtue signalling.

PETA, the animal rights pressure group, has some form when it comes to shock tactics, and absolutely yes, the track record for animal abuse in some parts of the world is just unbelievably evil, but very often so is the human rights record. In our country we have a particular sensibility towards animals that many other parts of the world do not share. We also have a disregard for human life that other parts of the world do not share. To show abortion in the kind of graphic detail PETA uses to highlight animal cruelty is unthinkable in the UK. We do live in interesting times.

Where was I? Oh yes, the dark days of the New Year. Well, they morphed through a pleasingly pie-and-cake and yes, winefilled Epiphany Octave into Candlemas, and then it was farewell Cribs (we have two), see you in December. As spring is springing, it’s particularly nice to walk the dog without everyone and everything getting covered in mud, and to walk in the daylight. Now of course, we anticipate Lent, my favourite time of the entire year. Glorious Lent, when we alter our eating and drinking habits to conform to the season, rather than to a supermarket advertising campaign. Liturgical seasons make so much sense. And of course, the great thing to be looking forward to is the re-dedication of England as the Dowry of Mary. It’s going to be wonderful. Lots of people will think we’re mad, but that’s fine, it’s right and proper that we appear a bit, well, odd. We are.