Sun, Feb-26-23, 10:18
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Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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When did meat become a special ‘dietary requirement’?
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When did meat become a special ‘dietary requirement’?
Vegan fare was the default at a recent work dinner – I spent my entire journey home ravenous and craving a Peperami
he Princess of Wales is brave, don’t you think? Not for marrying into the Royal family, but for admitting that she eats kidneys. On a recent trip to a nursing home, the Princess met 109-year-old Nora, and they discussed their favourite meals.
Nora announced that hers was kidneys and Brussels sprouts, to which the princess replied: “I love kidneys, too!” (Poor sprouts.)
I’m partial to a bit of offal myself. In fact, I’m a committed carnivore.
But this is a tricky thing to admit to in an age of climate consciousness. I don’t know, exactly, when eating meat switched from being an accepted norm to a heinous dietary requirement that needs to be specified when RSVPing to a dinner invite, but I suspect it was somewhere around the point that KFC started offering vegan options and teenagers wearing leather trainers started lecturing us all about our dairy consumption.
My nine-year-old, for example, recently announced that she is a vegetarian. Unfortunately, this happened as I placed a dinner of sausages in front of her. “That’s pig shaming!” she wailed, stabbing her fork at her peas. Since then, I’ve been trying to come up with veggie options that aren’t pesto pasta.
Then, a few days later, I had to go to one of those work dinners that seem glamorous when you are 23 – less so when you are 42 and would rather have the conversation over a platter of stale sarnies in a meeting room at lunch so you can get home and be in bed by 9pm.
“Please let us know if you have any dietary requirements,” emailed the person organising said dinner, and as I’m neither vegan nor vegetarian, and have no allergies (other than to late nights), I stayed silent. Imagine my surprise, then, when I was served plant-based ragù (mushed-up mushrooms) on a bed of plant-based pasta (sliced up courgettes).
“Oh,” I stammered politely at the waiter. “I’m not a vegetarian – meat is fine.”
He looked genuinely sad for me. “Madam, you specified no dietary requirements …”
“Is eating meat a dietary requirement?” I inquired.
“We always serve vegan options to people who do not let us know their dietary requirements, in case they have forgotten to reply. We’ve found it is safer this way, and we are less likely to offend anybody.”
I tried not to show how offended I was by my pretend spag bol, and spent my entire journey home ravenous and craving a Peperami.
So it didn’t surprise me to hear, last week, that students at Cambridge University had voted to support a transition to a solely vegan menu across the institution’s catering services. Or that chefs from across the Armed Forces have been taking part in a “plant-based culinary masterclass to learn about how to reduce animal food consumption”.
Major Javed Johl, from the Food Services Training Wing, said:
“As diets of choice increase in popularity among the UK public, the Armed Forces must reflect this in our offer to service personnel. We have laid the foundations of introducing a healthier and more sustainable diet across the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force.” (I don’t fancy going to war on tofu, but each to their own.)
Tofu, though, at least resembles food. Can the same be said for the fake meat being sold?
The other day I saw an advert for vegan bacon (no thanks!), while there seems to be a surge in brands selling things such as “chck’n” – which is chicken without the vowels, or the chicken, for that matter. You can take away our meat, but must you take away our spelling, too?
I would hope that us meat eaters could co-exist happily with our vegan counterparts, but as the Cambridge vote shows, I suspect that nothing short of a total ban on animal products will please the plant-based generation coming through our universities. Which is a shame for me, the Princess of Wales, and most of all, Nora.
But there is still hope.
Perhaps Cambridge dons who are partial to a rump steak could introduce some of the work of the great Fran Lebowitz to their students. As she wrote in her seminal book Metropolitan Life:
“Vegetables are interesting, but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat.”
Hear, hear, Fran. Hear, hear.
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columni...ry-requirement/ |
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Way to rebrand 
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