Tag: vegan

The Pudding & The Icelandic Spring

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I tried cutting up a big frozen roll of black pudding (blood sausage) this morning with a bread knife. It didn’t work. I tried other knives. They too didn’t work. I even tried a small hacksaw for cutting metal but because it was too fine it’s also didn’t work. Eventually I gave in and got my handsaw that is usually reserved for planks of wood. This virus is a trying time for all of us, our worlds have been turned upside down and we’re having to approach the world in ways we wouldn’t have even contemplated in the past. I’ll be honest I probably wouldn’t have bought a foot long fat black pudding in the past even though I love the stuff and the French version is partly responsible for me not being a vegan anymore, but I did. This series of new and trying circumstances led me to that moment when I found myself in my kitchen this morning sawing congealed pigs blood and dropping blood and fat on the floor like some kind of gruesome sawdust. It was ridiculous and disgusting, also quite amusing and with blue cheese really tasty in a croissant. I just discovered it is apparently a superfood. This lockdown is great for people. They have to experience their more creative sides and whatever bizarre parts of them that rise to the surface as a result. You can’t escape yourself if it’s all you’ve got.

In other more serious news, I just read a report from Iceland that only has 218 reported cases of the virus. Iceland apparently is a very interesting case for giving a better idea of the spread of the virus as apparently they have been testing large swathes of their population. With a population of less than four hundred thousand this is seemingly quite straightforward. What they discovered was that half of those who had tested positive had absolutely no symptoms of the virus at all and that there are at least forty mutations of the virus in Iceland itself. What is important about this is that it means we could and probably are far more likely to be spreading the virus as many more of us who have it are completely unaware. It does show the importance then of social distancing to protect those more vulnerable. It also though highlights the fact this virus is far less dangerous than we are being led to believe and that the death rate will be far lower than previously thought. The fact we even have a death rate for something that hardly anyone is being tested for in the first place is completely ridiculous of course. Also if there are at least forty different mutations the report suggests we may see the virus develop into a more contagious but less dangerous mutation. It would explain why some people are barely showing symptoms while some fit, young and healthy people are unable to survive.

What’s The Fucking Point

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Jonathan Pie said it best “What’s the fucking point” and you know what the man is right. He’s also not but he is. We drink with our paper straws, carry around our tote reusable bag and eat organic tofu before driving to work in a Land Rover. Those are also more or less his words.

I gave up trying to save the world about ten years ago. I had just given up being an environmental pescatarian – completely missing the point obviously. Those were my dark days when I was oblivious to the stupidity I’ve now just learnt to shut out or laugh at. Then there are vegetarians who lead a completely pointless life; don’t eat meat but keep them in pain as slaves until they don’t serve a purpose just so you can have milk in your coffee in the morning, the dairy cows still need the soya from what was once the Amazon, they still feel pain. It has to be vegan or just eat meat and be done with it. Despite what people attempt to say there are no ethical or rational arguments for continuing to eat meat, you just eat it because you want to. I still eat meat but I do so because I like it, am lazy and manage to shut out the little voice.

But back to the main point that there really is no point. About the time I started eating meat again all those years ago I also started flying again. Apparently a return flight from London to Melbourne is the equivalent of 16.8 tonnes of carbon. If we are to do anything positive in regards climate change we need to cut emissions by two tonnes per person per year, or at least that is what it was ten years when I gave a shit. Now fuck knows, most likely a hell of a lot more. When in Greece with the refugees I discovered they weren’t all escaping war but many were arguably climate refugees as their homes had now been made inhospitable. This isn’t talked about. Nor incidentally was the massive amounts of carbon produced from the many flights people took coming out to rescue them. But then that doesn’t mean fuck all in comparison to the one hundred and two thousand flights per day in the world as a whole. It’s good business you see. Creates jobs apparently.

Clearly I am frustrated but ultimately I am just frustrated with myself. I’m not going to tell anyone what to do when I still eat meat and buy vegan vegetables which been flown in from Spain, Israel and South America. Maybe I’ll buy the vegan burger from McDonalds to show I care. The television series The Good Life sums it up best; life now is so complex it makes it almost impossible to live a good life. From the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the books we read, the vehicles we drive, the jobs we work, the batteries for our phones to virtually every aspect in our lives we are simply doing harm one way or another. If we really wanted to save the Earth we would just commit suicide as a species. That or end this ludicrous system of constant economic growth. We can’t have both. I would say it was time to choose but lets be honest it has probably been time to choose for a while now.

Meat-Free Alternative Meat

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I have just read an article about ‘alternative meat’ products and my plan when I read the title was to have a little rant about them because I take issue with vegan sausages and vegan burgers, or anything that originally was a meat dish but has had the meat substituted for something else. It may be important to stress I have in the past spent eighteen months as a vegetarian and four as a vegan, both of which ended because of foreign delicacies, so this isn’t a rampant meat loving piece. I must also stress though that despite that and certain moral understandings, there is some hypocrisy within me as I do enjoy and eat meat despite a desire to eat less over all. My issues are two pronged, firstly the vegans and vegetarian diets when done properly should be healthier than one involving meat. That does feel like a slightly general and ambiguous statement but I don’t have space to go into detail, it’s a take my word for it moment. Things such as vegan sausages are not the healthy option, they are often high in salt and artificial flavourings, and arguably akin to the filler used to bulk out a cheap meat sausage. It is just junk food but at least junk food admits it’s junk food. Secondly vegan food, especially as there is no cheese or eggs involved, can be so creative and there are so many tasty dishes out there. We eat vegan sausage, burger, lasagne, cheese and when it is shit, partly because it just is and partly because our minds compare it to the real thing, we wonder why people who don’t know vegan food complain about not being able to eat anything, or about how shit vegan food is, or about not being able to get protein from anything. Why copy the meat versions because they will never be the meat versions and struggle to be anything in their own right, when there are so many incredible and easy dishes out there. If people just knew this more may actually become vegan or at least cut down on the consumption of animal products. Persisting with vegan sausages just misses the point.

However, I did say my plan was to rant as if I then wasn’t going to, and judging by the size of that paragraph I failed, but the article made me think I was being slightly absolutist in my beliefs. This food company Impossible Foods did appear to actually create dishes, albeit burgers, meat balls et al, which were tasty. The woman writing it did suggest the strong sauce made it unclear the exact taste of the plant based version but it did seem to be a step. Which makes me think that if someone can do it well, and actually make really decent, healthy, cheap, meat-free alternatives to dishes meat eaters love they may actually cut down the consumption of meat produced and animals killed which can only be a good thing. Of course I’m sure there are some environmental arguments for the dangers of creating huge mono crops of whatever the meat alternative is made from were these things to really become popular, but it can’t surely be anything near the production of soy or consumption of fresh water used to raise cattle, pigs or other such creatures. It is the right direction then, or a small part of the collective right direction perhaps would be better.