Some thoughts about the increasingly vegan world.

I went out to lunch with an old friend the other day. We just went to the pub next door - next door to me that is - my friend comes from a bit farther afield but she probably lunches there more frequently than I do. As a result she has tried every single item, and probably every single combination of items, on the pensioners’ special menu (also for people with a smaller appetite, as the notice outside the pub tells us). This led to some commentary about how it is time the pub varied their old biddies’ menu. The food is always good but maybe they need to vary the offer from time to time.

At some point we talked about pets. I am a decidedly no pets person. Animals are fine in their place, which is not in my house. When our daughter was eight or nine the mother of one of her friends bought her (our daughter, that is) some goldfish for a birthday present. This was because she felt that every child should have a pet. I was more than a little cross, as you can imagine! There is a certain arrogance required to start organising other people’s children’s lives!

Anyway, my friend, who had had cats for almost as long as I have known her, admitted that really the animal lover in the house was her late husband. When the remaining cat pops its clogs she will not replace it. We both agreed that we would never harm an animal but neither do we really want to live with one. And most of all we bonded over the question of where pets should sleep. Definitely not on or in owners’ beds. Sleeping with animals is wrong!

We also expressed mutual horror at the new mums who post pictures of their small offspring curled up with the family dog or cat. Really! At a stage when you sterilise anything and everything that comes into contact with your precious bundle, you let the child curl up with a creature that uses its tongue to clean unmentionable parts of its body

So there I go, telling other people who to run their children’s lives!

Which brings me, via animals and lifestyles, on to veganism. Veganism appears to be everywhere at the moment. In an article in today’s Guardian Weekend magazine is an article about people bringing their children up vegan from birth. Which is fine, so long as you can manage to breastfeed. And with what they refer to nowadays as “baby-led weaning”, where you offer the baby tastes of stuff and see what s/he will or will not eat, you can probably do the vegan lifestyle thing from the word go. You might need careful planning to make sure they get the right nutrients though.

It’s a lifestyle choice and as long as you don’t impose it on the whole world, then it’s all good. It just gets a little extreme at times.

One in eight people in the UK are apparently vegetarian or vegan. I got that figure from the BBC Radio 4 arts programme last night. According to the article in the Weekend magazine, there are about 600,000 vegans in the country. Nearly half of all British vegans are aged between15 and 34. So maybe social media and trendy food fads have quite a lot to do with it.

Okay. Don’t get me wrong; I have been vegetarian and still eat more vegetarian meals than other types. And I don’t cook red meat, or even eat it unless absolutely obliged to do so. I fail to understand so called vegetarians who eat a lot of tofu. If you miss meat so much that you have to eat pretend meat, then why not actually eat meat? And I find total veganism, as I said, just a tad extreme. So long as hens and cows are not ill-treated, why not consume dairy products. After all, not all the eggs laid are going to be fertilised and turn into more chickens people won’t eat!

On the Radio 4 arts programme, they posed this question: is there such a thing as vegan art work? Oh boy!

A film maker, whose name escapes me, was praised for having a vegan film set, which meant that all food on the set was vegan. Artists materials in other fields, however, contain animal products. Red glaze for ceramics contains animal bone. Bone china contains animal bone. The clue is in the name. Artists should avoid using these products.

In the discussion this idea came up:- we are brainwashed from an early age into thinking of animals in categories - pets, animals we eat, wild animals, vermin. This should not happen (?) as we should have a completely open view of all animals as we should be tolerant of all people.

Here’s another question: can a book be written in a vegan way or be read in a vegan way?

Writers should avoid describing their characters carrying leather bags or wearing leather shoes.

A place called Wool in Dorset has been contacted to see if they will change their name to Vegan Wool, to draw attention to the whole vegan question.

Now, really, are there not more pressing issues in the modern world to get all worked up about?