Fixing Dinner

1976:

Animal Rights is the ultimate confrontation. It is social justice put to its test, arguing why animals deserve rights and why we no longer need to be imprisoned with animal issues stirring up our guilt.

So, people are reluctant to discuss it. Surprise, surprise! You can understand why though, because there’s nothing to discuss. The society we know, accept, and have become used to, has been built on our right to exploit animals. Dismantle that ‘right’, by giving animals rights, and immediately the abattoirs are closed, and meat, milk, eggs, and cheese automatically disappear. Is it any wonder that people are reluctant to lose these ‘goodies’ and the thousands of edible items made with animal derivatives?

Plant-based diets seem so radical and, one might presume, difficult. The very thought of restricting one’s eating habits to foods from the plant kingdom is probably unnerving. But from our side, it doesn’t seem that way at all. Once the safety of the diet is established, and some of the ‘replacements’ are discovered, ‘going vegan’ isn’t such a big deal. We hope many others will do the same, because it follows that the more who go vegan the greater the variety of vegan products that will appear in shops. Then it will all become that much easier for people to make the transition from omnivore to herbivore.

That isn’t going to happen until vegan food stops looking like war-time rations, especially these days when food has become such a comfort. The health-only vegans might mean well, but their emphasis on whole foods, raw foods and plain-eating might be off-putting, whereas ‘wicked’ vegan food, which emphasises good-tasting food, might serve as a better transition.

In this highly-pressured society, where we do seem to need so much comforting, our security blanket is food. And that’s why is has to be attractive, look attractive and be attractive to the taste. That can be quite a challenge for home-cooking. It’s not just at the restaurant where we can enjoy our food, it’s at home where food must be able to rival the omnivore’s so called ‘cuisine’. Many of us can’t afford to visit restaurants however good they are.

For most of us food means preparing our own, and that means every night’s dinner, which has to have a looking-forward-to feel about it. Only then will ‘being vegan’ be something to look forward to.