Vegetarian Rant
By Mad Man

So this week is the National Vegetarian Week and with one member of the Community Friend Team is already a vegetarian and another is going vegetarian during the week to see how it goes and maybe stay veggie after. I soon feel that I am to be outnumbered by the leaf-eaters!

I must admit that I do like vegetarian food but whilst we were looking into vegetarian week I noticed just how much you need to give up to become vegetarian or even more so a vegan!

Now things can get rather complicated and I am going to be really picky here with what I bring up and I suspect a lot of people will read this and tut. Tut all you like but I like to have a good poke and annoy people, it gives me a purpose in life!

OK so to be a vegan you give it all up. Meat, animal produce, the whole job lot. But let's take a simple item such as your breakfast cereal. Now there isn't much going into that so 99% of all boxes contain "suitable for vegetarians on the box" but is it? I'm sure that the product contains no animals or parts of animals but just how many animals dies in the making of the product? Just how many field mice were caught up in the blades of the combine harvester? Or what about that nice carrot that you will be putting in your stew tonight. It may well be organic but were any slugs killed to save that carrot how do you know that Farmer Giles didn't swat a fly or two? To take it even further you really have not only stop eating and drinking animal products but you also have to stop using them every day.

Currently my two vegetarian colleagues have about them a few items that should send shockwaves through the vegetarian world. There are leather bags. Leather belts and wallets as well as leather uppers in their trainers. Now I always look for leather uppers in trainers as I was brought up to believe that this was a good quality item to be making them out of. I know that they have been passed now by man made fabrics and materials but still got to love that new leather smell! How dare they call themselves vegetarian when they are quite happy to wear or have accessories made of animal products. How many vegetarians and vegans are true vegetarians and vegans? Must take a lot of effort to simple cut it all out of your life. Ensuring that each and every item - not only food - has not used animals in the production of the item. Good luck to you as that would make a trip to the shops a pain in the backside!

So this brought me onto what would happen to all of the lovely cows and chickens if we all went vegan. For a start we couldn't eat the eggs or drink the milk or make cheese from the milk. Nor can we use any of the products that they give us. Maybe we could use the gas from the cows and the chicken shit to power our cars but unlike sheep we can't shear them and make nice jumpers. Cows and Chickens are domesticated farm animals and we wouldn't be keeping them all as pets nor would we be setting them off into the wild Free Willy style - they just wouldn't survive or be a worth while wild animal. Can you see yourself going to a safari park and running past the lion enclosure to see the Jersey Cow or Free Range Chicken? I can't. So by giving up beef and chicken and all their produce vegetarians would be putting them onto the endangered species list.

So how do we stop the cows and chickens being put onto the endangered species list? We the simple solution is to eat them and use their by products. That way the farmers will continue to breed them and we will all be happy.

Admit it you veggies you need us meet eaters around to keep a nice balance if not you'll be killing off the cows and chickens quicker than the Dodo!

Save the cows, eat a cow!!

PS. No cows or chickens were harmed in the making of this rant but I did have a nice ham sandwich.