My beef with the Avocado Army!
Eating meat is out of fashion, and even McDonald’s now has a plant-based burger. But carnivore KATE MULVEY is tired of being steak-shamed
Last week, I attended my first post-lockdown dinner party — a medley of middle-aged couples and singletons, seated around a table, relaxed as we swapped stories about rainy staycations and overseas PCR tests breaking the bank.
Just as I was feeling that warm glow of camaraderie, and tucking into a lamb steak, one guest let out a shriek.
the host had forgotten she was vegan and accidentally served her a plate of ‘murdered animal’, as she called it. Cue an hour of vegan outrage as she launched into the usual ‘meat is murder’ rant while the rest of us squirmed in our seats.
What was going on? this was meant to be a convivial get-together, not a Peta meeting. But it seems nowadays there is nothing like an enraged vegan to remind you that eating meat is taboo.
there has been a huge shift in the past few years — the number of vegans in the UK reached 600,000 in 2019, 1.16 per
cent of the population. this increased even more during lockdown. Polling by Mintel reveals that 12 per cent of Brits said the pandemic had made it more appealing to go vegan.
Even McDonald’s has hopped on the bandwagon with its new McPlant, a meat-free burger, and the first in a range of plant-based products, including veggie McNuggets.
I think people should be free to eat what they like, I just wish vegans would afford me the same courtesy. My beef? I’m sick of being preached at because of what I like to put on my plate.
this issue is something that has become all too obvious on my dates. Research from recipe-box service Green Chef shows that half of vegans and vegetarians aged 41 to 50 would only date someone who followed the same diet. and 40 per cent have called off a date because they discovered their prospect was a meat-lover.
ThE first indication my diet was a potential dealbreaker was when I started dating Paul. It never crossed my mind he would find me unattractive just because I chose the steak tartare.
‘sorry, I don’t approve of eating meat,’ he said, reeling back in horror. It went downhill from there. It was so silent, I could hear him chewing his grass. Needless to say, there was no follow-up.
and he’s not the only one — I saw another date implode like an egg-free souffle, and never even met the man who blocked me after I asked to go to a restaurant which served meat and vegan dishes.
this antagonism seems to run both ways. that same Green Chef research found that a sixth (15 per cent) of meat-eaters aged 41 to 50 have considered disinviting vegans or vegetarians to get-togethers, as they find the lectures hard to swallow.
While we all know a modest restriction of meat and dairy and increase in vegetable consumption has benefits, criminalising certain foods (since when did eggs become a no-no?) and cutting out entire food groups is an all-ornothing absolutism.
Of course, this increase in veganism is partly down to a wish to save the planet. the environmental argument against eating meat, they claim, is that animals contribute greatly towards CO2 emissions. Methane is expelled by cattle, so meat consumption means a bigger carbon footprint.
But this is not hard science, and there are arguments which say growing vegetables harms the environment, as fields lay fallow and chemical fertilisers are used.
I see myself as eco-conscious and attempt to live in a way that limits harm to the environment.
I think I do my bit: I am an assiduous recycler, I abhor plastic and have a reusable bottle for water, I don’t have kids and I don’t drive (I walk everywhere) . . . but I draw the line at giving up sausages.
however, in this brave new vegan world, freedom of choice has been thrown out, and meateaters like me are now pariahs.
this is something I know to be true from experience. Ever since the vegan debate cleaved a kimchi-shaped wedge in society — which has resulted in the broccoli brigade taking the moral high ground — I’ve been called a murderer, a bigot, and have had friends try to bully me into changing my carnivorous ways.
When one vegan acquaintance told me I was an animal torturer, I challenged him to have a grownup conversation about it. an oldfashioned debate. Yet he refused.
Of course, if this had happened, we might have ended up in stalemate, but at least there would have been some kind of respectful awareness on either side, instead of the food totalitarianism.
those of us who don’t agree with the veg-orthodoxy are realising it has become too dangerous to say what we think.
If I do ever recognise a fellow meat-eater, it feels like we’re in a secret resistance group quietly giving each other the thumbs-up and trying not to trip over the tofu-shaped minefields that litter the new social landscape.
at one joyless supper months ago, where pale plant-eaters chomped on chia seeds, it turned out I was the only meat-eater present. I was astounded at how they turned on me, once my crime was uncovered. they were like a cult, vegan-bombing me with the verbal equivalent of rotting veg.
One pink-haired woman even grilled me on my carbon footprint. I wanted to point out that half of them had jetted off on planes pre-pandemic, but bit my tongue. the stress of dealing with the avocado army isn’t worth it.
Inwardly I was fuming. Who do they think they are? surely what I eat is my business? Not what one group decides for me. I am a committed non-vegan. there, I’ve said it. I enjoy the smell of a roasting side of beef, I salivate at the thought of lamb chops marinated in jus, and don’t get me started on the foodie joys of goats’ cheese salad and smoked salmon with scrambled eggs.
But I love plant foods, too. there is nothing nicer than lentil stew and spinach salad with avocado and tomato. and I only eat grass-fed meat, which is healthier for the consumer and the animal. also, I make a point of going to butchers who source their meat responsibly.
What I’m not going to do is give up my steakfrites and pander to the veganocracy. they can keep their soya-protein burgers, which taste like cardboard. Food to me is about satisfaction. there is evidence the joyful response to food improves health. spooning mouthfuls of seaweed when you are a meat-eater is more like a prison sentence than a pleasure.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to co-exist with vegans — I don’t care if they eat a compost heap — what annoys me is the need to defend my meat-eating.
so what next? has it really got to the point where well-educated carnivores like myself feel the need to hide our lust for ribeye? I say we start fighting back before it’s too late — to do anything else would be chicken.