Its World Vegetarian Day today, which is the starting point of Vegetarian Awareness Month. What happens on days like this is that I spend a small amount of time feeling like I can lord it over everyone because I, me, Tiernan Samuel Douieb esquire, have never ever eaten meat or fish. This is true. Well not entirely. I once ate a shrimp tempura because I was very drunk and thought it was a carrot tempura but I did spit it out. Also I have occasionally swallowed a fly, but not on purpose. So apart from those I have never ever eaten meat or fish. Well apart from those and at Bestival I ate lots of Rowntrees Randoms which I only found out after has beef extract in it. Admittedly I didn’t look at the ingredients but I will assume that ignorance is innocence. So I am a proper proper vegetarian apart from all that non-veggie cheese I eat. Apart from that though I’m so vegetarian that if I was to eat meat now I would probably be sick and I don’t like being sick. As I have said before on this blog, its not on my list of favourite things to do. Unlike pull faces in reflection on the tube windows and get so caught up in it that when I stop pulling faces I notice a lot of people staring at me. So using my proper vegetarianess I occasionally like to use days like today to tell people how important it is being veggie, how healthy it makes you, and how you could end animal suffering and third world famine if everyone stopped eating meat. That’s the sort of thing my parents who are active veggies would tell people and mean it. They are the sort of people who actively read what’s in everything and only eat in restaurants that have fully veggie or veg society approved menus. Before going on holiday my dad prints out lists from the internet saying which restaurants serve things they can eat in that part of the world. They are proper active vegetarians. In comparison to them, I’m really all a bit crap. Once again Tiernan’s conviction becomes so see through that someone will at some point, awkwardly try walking through it, bang their head, fall over backwards and we’ll all wish we’d filmed it to send into You’ve Been Framed.
When people ask me why I’m veggie, I give the honest truth that its entirely my parent’s doing. Had they brought me up from day one stuffing my tiny baby gob with bacon sarnies, then I doubt that today I would be conscious of that sarnie coming from a pigs face before happily chowing it down. I would also be six times fatter than I am now. Ultimately the parents Douieb were veggie, and so I became veggie too without even knowing it. My nan, grandad, aunt, uncle and various family friends were all veggie so it seemed like the easy option. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to start being a carnivore after 28 years of pure herbivore scoffing, but its mostly out of laziness. I’d love to say its because of the Third World thing. Apparently so much grain is wasted feeding animals that are slaughtered for meat and then never eaten, that if we used that grain to instead feed poor countries then we could end famine. That’s incredible isn’t it? Although imagine a life of living on grain? It can’t be that nice. ‘What’s for tea mum?’ ‘Steamed grain.’ ‘Oh good. I prefer that to boiled grain. Or barbecued grain.’ The health aspect doesn’t really work for me either as I have substitute all fat that I’m missing from meat by eating vast amounts of cheese and chocolate and ultimately gaining a meat eaters svelte figure of beer belly proportions. Yes I don’t have two tons of steak sitting and festering in my colon, but if I walk up stairs too fast I do start to wheeze.
One bit that does put me off is the way animals are treated. There is that huge argument that now with free range organic meat the animals have been treated quite nicely. No, being treated nicely would mean that they can die naturally. Letting them roam around and eat tasty goods before being sliced and diced is only as good as a last meal on Death Row before getting electrocuted horribly. And we only do that to rapists and murderers. Last I heard cows were not that guilty of such evils. Again though as much as all that saddens me, its not the reason I don’t eat meat. But although I am against all that, I would punch a sheep in the face if it cussed my mum. No the reason I don’t eat meat is because I think its really grim that what I might be tucking into was once happily regurgitating in a field. I could be chowing down on a bollock or a stomach. What about all the really icky looking creatures too? How on earth could anyone eat a prawn? Its as though someone filled in an insect with a pink marker pen. Its disgusting. And lobsters. And snails. You can’t wince at dickheads on ‘I’m a Z list celebrity who will lower their standards for a tiny temporary amount of fame’ when they eat grubs only for you to then scoff some calamari. Its a shit reason really. It joins the long standing wuss part of me that is frightened of pirate ship rides at fairs and does not like getting muddy. I am a disgrace to the veggie community, but its ok because if they try and chase me they won’t have the energy. Ha. You see what I did there? I took a really crap old joke about veggies and used it. Even though its not true and there are many veggie with far more energy than meaties because they eat beansprouts instead of cow faces. RZA from the Wu-Tang is a veggie and its safe to say that he could happily kick the bejesus out of most people. Or at least rap about doing so.
So if you are a veggie then sorry to let you all down, and if you’re not a veggie why not have a look at this:
http://www.worldvegetarianday.org/
And maybe try not eating quite as much meat and when you do tuck into a chicken kiev or Big Mac then try and imagine cutting that shape out of the animal its from and leaving it standing there bleeding while you digest its flesh. Actually Big Mac was a bad choice. I’m fairly sure there’s no meat in there at all. If that’s true then veggies, lets all tuck in. My last words on the matter, here are some things that get me annoyed:
– Fish is still meat. If you eat it, YOU ARE NOT A VEGETARIAN. You are a pescatarian. Fish have little faces. Vegetables do not. Except potatoes. They have eyes.
– Maybe people were originally ‘designed’ to eat meat, but not cooked and stuck between a bun so that it fills your body with three times as much fat as it should have. Also back in them old days meat was hunted for, which required exercise, and not eaten as regularly as you may think. Native American’s would be very careful about how much they ate in order to let the flock of ie bison rebreed and not die out.
– Because you eat vegetables does not mean I will try meat. You should be eating vegetables anyway. Its not the same. This is the same as saying because I give you a Lucozade tablet why not let me inject you with my insulin.
– MEAT backwards is TEAM. VEGGIE backwards is EIGGEV. I know which I’d prefer to eat. I don’t really know what this means.
– I eat meat substitutes because making a veggie sausage sandwich takes ten minutes and I am lazy.
– Yes I own a leather jacket but a) Layla bought it for me and b) I don’t lick it.
Right, today’s rant over. I’m off to Staffs University tonight. I might spend sometime telling them how, ironically, the lack of jobs in the real world means they will never be staff for anyone anywhere. I hope this makes them cry.
