An omnivore’s definition of a friend

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If an omnivore said that ‘animal-food’ was okay (despite knowing what happens to animals and what eating it to excess is likely to do to our health) they’d look foolish or heartless, or both. Most people like being known for their casual, anything-goes, easy-to-be-with personalities. None want to be made to look stupid. And most want to keep up with progressive thinking, and be abreast of the latest information; it’s how we form opinion, based on that.

Fashions are changing. For all the popularity of animal based fast food, people are realising that it is not good food at all. Meat is suspect, dairy products are suspect, the writing’s on the wall with the trend away from animal protein. And perhaps there’s an understandable fear for many people, that if they don’t steer clear of all of it, they’ll be left behind.

With that in mind, the food industry’s chemists are being pushed to make animal-based food taste good and look good. They are backed by clever advertising and special deals on price. But, the harder they try the more suspicious is the customer. Since there’s not much more to be fiddled with, to make their foods more attractive, the Animal Industry is starting to get nervous; the novelty of artificially-flavoured, processed foods is wearing thin. The more sophisticated customer is demanding foods which are less highly salted or sweetened or enhanced by the use of mono sodium glutamate. Our over-stimulated taste buds will not tolerate food that tastes like cardboard. So foods are no longer what they seem.

As faith in popular food wobbles it might occur to the more intelligent person to move towards foods which come from better quality raw materials (organic, home grown). And if these foods are more highly priced and out of our reach, then we will go for plant-based foods in general. Simultaneously, the move to eating more plant-based products coincides with more alert taste buds, which adapt to a new type of food sensation. As this occurs, so the allure of meat and dairy fades. Healthier foods become more attractive than rich foods in much the same way as children’s toys lose attraction to grown ups.

Maybe you have already considered this sort of diet change. But it’s the initial stage of the change-over that’s hard, leaving behind a familiar food source and taking up with another. And the difficulty is compounded by the social implications of no longer eating what most others are eating.

In order to successfully abandon animal-based foods, we need a leap of faith. We need to build up a new type of relationship with our food. Instead of the more immediate yet ephemeral satisfactions and explosions of taste, instead of short term stomach-filling satisfaction, we might prefer something else; the satisfaction that whole plant-foods bring.

There are all sorts of psychological and physical challenges to face here. Not for the faint hearted. For many people, these challenges are too difficult to face, and those difficulties can act like brakes on an otherwise willingness to change.

Perhaps the final straw that breaks our back comes when we realise how animal food betrays us, when we see how it fails to keep us strong and healthy. It’s only then that we have good reason to move away from the unquestioned habits of the past.