Eats shoots & leaves

A couple of months back, a friend picked up this book by Lynne Truss about grammar – aptly titled Eats, Shoots & Leaves it spoke about how Important punctuation, among other things was when it came to sentence construction. Read the book, also thought that it was not greatly written as most of us could spot grammatical errors in the book, but I did think bits were cleverly written.

Like the headline I have chosen for today’s post – which I think is befitting considering my topic for the day is vegetarianism. First off, let me tell you that I am not a hardcore vegetarian. I would like to think of myself as a moody/hypocrite non-vegetarian…what is that? Well, I eat meat on a whim – I like KFC & cold cuts, I like galouti kebab & shish tawouk, and I also like the Syrian beef fry that my friend forces his mum to make every time he goes home.

But put a steak in front of me or a completely non-vegetarian meal in front of me and I tend to grimace. No fish head curry for me, no eggs in a basket or trotters (maybe this is the Iyer part of me that kicks in on call), I seem to quite like my veggies. And much to the dismay or ridicule of my carnivorous friends, I thoroughly enjoy the idea of a ‘vegetarian steak,’ yes I know you don’t think such a concept exists and quite happily polish off my chilli cheese burger too!

I would like to make a basic point here – all of us are non-vegetarians. There is no concept such as vegetarianism (yes vegans, get with the programe)…what we can be divided into are herbivores and carnivores. While some people eat plant, others eat animals – all living creatures, only the latter expresses visible emotion, while the former portrays a stoic, dignified exterior.

 I am not taking a moral high ground or stance and condoning one diet over the other, but there are some basic ideas that I just don’t understand:

• How can carnivores love animals but still eat them? (please do not cite the 'food chain theory' to me, that is only your way of consoling yourself)
• How, why and for what practical purpose was veganism founded (yes I have researched and read every possible link on it but it still doesn’t make sense)
• Why would anybody eat soya ham, soya chicken or any soya type fake meat at all? If you so badly want to taste the real thing, eat the REAL thing!

I suspect a lot of irate readers have much to say as they read this post, so please keep the comments flowing. As you can see from my ‘About Me’ section, I do love a good, healthy argument. Till then, I shall continue to chomp away on my order of mashed potato, cheese and mushroom steak, with a portion of salad by the side. Oops, did I forget to mention the portion of bacon strips? Ah, the beauty of irony…