Food; fads, fetishes and fascism

New year, new you; it used to be just ads for the gym and soon to be abandoned personal resolutions to somehow or other be "better", to lose a bit of weight, to give up smoking, chocolate, biting your nails.

But we are now faced with the Instagram onslaught of Veganuary and dry January.

What you eat is up to you, what we eat is our choice.  If I choose to eat jam and cauliflower, I don't expect you to follow suit (I don't by the way)....as a teenager my brother put Marmite on custard creams, it was just a phase which I put down to a lack of psychotropic drugs in rural Yorkshire.
I like to think my choice is well informed, balancing pleasure, nutritional needs, budget and a respect for the environment.  But researching this piece made me realise how hard this can be, how contradictory and confusing.

I do not take issue with meat free Monday, if you are already following a vegetarian or vegan diet, you are doing it any way and omnivores get to exercise a little imagination once a week.  But the on-line pressures to swap, whole-heartedly and without guidance, to a vegan diet present issues, as I see it.

Obesity, alcoholism, drug addiction, food banks, eating disorders, food allergies and a general lack of knowledge about basic nutrition and cooking skills are headline grabbing topics. Yet all of these are deeply complex and need to be explored from all angles.  There is no "one size fits all" solution, no magic bullet.  Knee jerk reactions, TV campaigns and sound bites are not enough.  

There are choices to be made and actions to be taken at individual, national and international levels, but the right choices and the right actions are hard to delineate.  Cooking from scratch and using cheap cuts of meat sound like a panacea to all our food issues, but if you haven't got the money to feed the electricity meter, a cheap takeaway may be your only option.  

As I started reading material relating to the things I was trying to get clear in my own mind, I felt like I was being sucked, like Alice on her trip to Wonderland, down a rabbit hole, only to end up on the dark side of the moon.  The sheer volume of material on all sides of the debate was overwhelming.  Some was carefully researched and scientifically beyond my comprehension, some bordered on dangerous lunacy.

If you then throw global famine, war, nuclear and chemical weapons, rising sea levels, plastic pollution, climate change, religious intolerance, refugee crises, modern slavery and terrorism into the mix, I feel like I have catapulted on to Ultima Thule, whose very existence was unknown to us until recently.

A quick scan of food trends for 2019 shows vegetarianism and veganism are on the rise. And fast food outlets and food processors and retailers are joining in.  The launch of Gregg's vegan sausage roll, the uproar it created and their magnificent PR handling of the entire event were as enjoyable as the product itself.  Try one, you never know, you may actually enjoy it.

No bad thing, but there are arguments on both sides.  It is generally agreed that we should reduce the levels of intensive animal breeding to reduce their impact on the environment and on the factors influencing climate change. 

Whether you eat meat or not, there can be no justification for intensive farming, poor animal husbandry and inhumane methods of slaughter.

But remember, when you campaign to save an endangered species, that many rare British breeds have survived to fill their place in our biodiversity, only because they have been bred for the table.   

These 2 articles demonstrate why we need to address a global uptake of veganism more carefully and not see it as a simple answer to an increasingly complicated question.

The first discusses how intensive dairy and meat farming is damaging, but so too are farms producing purely arable crops. A balance, well tended and managed, creates a richer biodiversity. 

The second addresses non dairy milks, hailed as healthier, more natural and more environmentally responsible than the dairy equivalents.  Like many vegan food products, the problem lies not in the ingredients, but the processes. 

And finally, this article touches on the concerns for the individual in swapping their diet for the promise of a "better" self. 

This is what causes me anxiety about the Veganuary campaign, the power of social media is a potent force and not everyone has the strength to resist its allure. A lot of people lead very healthy, active and happy lives on a vegan diet, but any and all diets need to be balanced, to give you everything your body needs and, in this writer's opinion, should also give you pleasure in your food.  

So, if you are well informed and sure that you are getting what you need, throw yourself in to Veganuary and don't be surprised that it is tastier than you think, but please make sure you know what you are doing.

And if you type vegan or vegetarian into the search box at the top of the screen, you will find some recipes to try out!  We are all for a more plant based diet, but please do not ask us to give up cheese!

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