Unreasonable speed limits

September 5, 2019 · 0 Comments

Written by BRIAN LOCKHART

People who are vegetarian have been around for years – a lot of years.

Vegetarianism is not something that started 20 years like a lot of people believe. There are societies that did not eat meat going back thousands of years.

There are a lot of different versions of this practice and a lot of different reasons people choose not to throw a steak on the barbecue.

Some people don’t eat red meat or poultry, but do eat dairy products and fish.

Then there are Vegans – those that don’t eat any products that have animal based proteins. So eggs, milk cheese, and anything made from animals is off limits.

Some people won’t even use any product that comes from an animal. Leather, wool, feathers – all off limits. Although I’m pretty sure those people cheat a lot but just won’t admit it.

Then there are groups that take this philosophy of eating only natural foods to the extreme limit.

I once saw an interesting documentary on a group that practice ‘fruitarianism.”

Fruitarians only eat fruit because they consider harvesting a vegetable to be harmful to the plant. In fact the group I saw only eat fruit that has fallen naturally from the tree because they think if you pick an apple from a tree you are causing it harm.

What they don’t tell you is that eating only fruit will not supply your body with the proteins and vitamins you need to survive. You will be starved for calcium, protein, iron, zinc, vitamins D and B, and essential fatty acids. A strict fruitarian diet will result in death by starvation and there have been many cases recorded of people wasting away to nothing while on that diet.

How people choose a lifestyle is up to them. If you don’t eat meat, that’s a personal choice.

I would never invite a vegetarian to a barbecue and tell them they must eat a hamburger. If I knew a non meat eater was going to be arriving, I would have the courtesy to make sure to have extra salads, pastas, or similar foods so they could enjoy themselves.

I would also expect the same courtesy to be reciprocated.

Years ago I worked in a small office setting. There was one guy who was assigned to our office on a temporary basis and would be there a couple of times each week.

He was a vegetarian. He told us so – several times – although no one asked.

Apparently his former girlfriend who was also a vegetarian had enough influence on him that he stopped eating meat to appease her.

He was also a bit of a know-it-all jerk, but we tolerated him as a co-worker.

One day our group decided it was a good night for pizza.

This vegetarian fellow just happened to arrive so we included him in on the plan and asked if he wanted to join us in the cafeteria for dinner.

“Pizza?” he replied sarcastically. “Will it have pieces of murdered animal on it?”

It went from a group inviting a person in on a social aspect of the office to a very sour situation.

I asked him what part of being vegetarian meant you were supposed to act like a jerk?

I explained that we had just invited him to dinner with us and he needed to brush up on his social skills, adding that there are vegetarian pizzas, or the exotic pizza order of asking for pepperoni on only half of the pie.

I was trying to be diplomatic, however my other co-worker told him off in a more explicit fashion. It was the last invite he got to our social office fun.

So this brings me to the point of this writing.

There is a current novel fad in the fast food business.

There is a new trend of providing plant based products that look and taste like breakfast sausages, hamburgers, and a few other meat products.

Why would you claim to be a vegetarian then order something that tastes and looks like beef or pork?

Obviously you enjoy the taste of meat if you order that from the menu.

It’s like having an aversion to hunting because it’s cruel but spending your evenings playing a video game where you can pretend to blast people and animals into oblivion with your Wi rifle.

I don’t know what a ‘plant based’ sausage tastes like, but if it tastes like meat, no doubt it’s some kind of soybean / tofu creation with added artificial flavours and something for texture and cooked up by a scientist in a laboratory.

I don’t car if a person prefers a vegetarian diet, but to eat something that looks and tastes like the very substance you’ve sworn to avoid seems like you’re enjoying that steak on a technicality.