Thursday 8 October 2009

On a less fun note...

Something really weird happened the other day. I found myself being grossed out by fake meat. That does not normally happen. I've been a vegetarian for about 18 years now and a vegan on and off for what adds up to about half of that. I've eaten fake meat whenever I could afford it in any context where I'm confident no-one will try to sneak the real thing into my food.

But the other day, my boyfriend was visiting and I made us a cooked breakfast, involving tofu scrambler, Wicken Fen sausages and Redwoods rashers. The sausages and scrambler went down fine, as the latter should have since it was the only part of the whole meal to take any effort on my part. The rashers? Not so much. The boy had never tasted them before. He avoids eating meat due to being grossed out by it. I knew he may not like them. That isn't the issue. The problem came when he gave me his rasher, minus the bit cut off the end that he'd tasted. I took a bit and for some reason started thinking about pigs, pig farms, pig shit - all the most off-putting things to have on your mind when eating, even if the food contains no actual pig! And by that point, I was feeling too bad to even finish the last of my baked beans or toast.

I don't mind so much going off fake meat (provided I don't have the same reaction to the tempeh burgers at the Alley Cafe!). It isn't a huge part of my diet. I've been without actual meat for so long that I don't intrinsically need a direct replacement. There are no nutrients in these products that can't be found anywhere else, often in more natural foods. The problem is that it happened so suddenly, in the space of one Saturday breakfast! On the Thursday I was happily picking the wretched things up in the shop and feeling excited about making cooked breakfast, which I really cannot stir myself to do on the full scale when alone, and two days later I was pondering throwing up the two bites I had managed from one of them.

What sucks even more is that I have the rest of the pack in my fridge! I would offer to put it in the post to one of you, but I doubt the things would keep...

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