Food prospects

664:

The damage most characteristic of our age is that we’ve gotten used to plenty. We acquire things and we keep things. We’re reluctant to give them up. Like a small child, if you take away my favourite toy I’ll hit you and then probably burst into tears - I won’t relinquish it willingly. And it’s much the same as we grow up; we become ‘conservative’, we conserve what we have, and we don’t like missing out on anything; if anything’s up for grabs we want some of it.

But there’s another side to this, a better, more engaging side. We want the chance to try new things, to explore. It’s both tempting and dangerous, like changing food regimes, when we’re experimenting with food safety and satisfaction and resolve. We bring into play both survival instinct and our need for improvement. Food is something we make choices about every day, to eat this or not eat it, according to what’s in it or where it comes from. New diets and regimes are unknowns. We might not want to be amongst the first to risk making radical diet changes. We might prefer to wait for others to pioneer changes or for them to become widely accepted. We might be unwilling to be part of ‘a vegan experiment’.

So for those of us who have dared to do it, it’s down to us to demonstrate how it’s done, and then wait for others to come around. But this is no ordinary experiment. It might take a generation or more for most people to break down their reluctance and take on these issues, and alter the foods they eat. In the meantime vegans must pursue their own goals whilst swallowing their impatience and unrelentingly continuing to educate whenever we get the chance.