The Beef With Vegetarians.

In the pages of my student newspaper a few months back, a response was published to a previous article called "Ten benefits of being a vegetarian" from a seemingly devoted meat eater who took it upon themselves to rip the piss rather joyously out of the growing number of individuals in our society who choose not to eat meat. While trying to be vaguely funny, the author of said piece managed to unequivocally prove the missing link in the battle ground between vegetarians and their meat eating counterparts; humour.

Firstly, the single biggest reason for a lack of people being persuaded to 'Go Veggie!' (or shock horror; Vegan.) is due to the inability of my herbivorous brothers and sisters to laugh at themselves. Second, and of near equal importance is the need for Veggie's and Vegans not to react with raised voices and wagging fingers when their flat mates cry; "But kebabs taste good!". The crazy guys who barks at shoppers on most city streets to 'accept Jesus before they burn in hell' takes that approach, and from the pages of myspace to tv skits, look what it earns them; nothing but mockery.(not to mention harm to the representation of their so called 'cause'.)

As both a vegan and incidentally, someone who finds faith and inspiration through Jesus Christ, I find myself cradling my head in my hands with embarrassment as much with the things people do in the name of Jesus as with the way my dietary choice is misrepresented. And today dear reader, I would like to set the record straight; not all Christians support the actions of nutty street preachers or war mongering politicians, and not all vegans had their humour glands forcibly removed at birth!

Vegetarians, let alone vegans are very often mocked by carnivores for eating 'rabbit food'. On top of that there is the ridiculous notion of veggie 'chicken style' nuggets, which are surely even more pointless than the existence of non alcoholic beer. They ridicule us for being self righteous, do good-ers who seek to make the rest of flesh eating world feel guilty for grabbing a burger for lunch.

And why are we mocked so frequently? Because, a lot of the time we DO act like self righteous bastards looking down from our high horse (who incidentally, we do not keep in a confined stable, or rear on GM feed) at the unenlightened McDonalds loving, leather wearing, milk drinking world that is so far beneath us.

It's time to wake up folks, if we've got a bad rep; it's up to US to fix it. It's up to each one of us to show the world that actually, contrary to popular stereotypes, Vegans aren't all dread locked, dope smoking anarchists who can't wait for the chance to chuck petrol bombs at science labs screaming; 'Animal Liberation!' at the top of their legume fuelled lungs.

Look, I know we want to protect innocent animals from being butchered simply for the gluttonous palette of the Supermarket shopping "meat and not very much veg please" public. And as herbivores, we know that a vegetarian diet simply IS healthier; that it significantly reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease and impotence. But we're not going to convince the world by force, or by flyering them with top ten lists (well meaning as they are). Sadly we are also not going to convince them on the strength of Vegan chocolate (which tastes and looks like solidified horse crap for anyone who hasn't tried it).

Never the less, we also believe that a vegetarian diet is a more enlightened choice because of the devastating effects the livestock industry has upon the earth. There's huge scale deforestation, the forced eviction of poor communities to make way for grazing land, the thousands of litres of clean water that (in our view) are wasted on feeding cattle, while children die daily of thirst and dysentery. But despite these injustices, I beg you; don't loose your sense of self deprecation. Keep your ability to look in the mirror and grin at the slightly weird individual staring back, and we'll press our case by more sophisticated methods, not by angry marches on parliament buildings.

My plea is an urgent one. If we don't address this problem now, I can see what's coming. Vegetarians will be imprisoned for inciting food related hatred, and burning effigy's of Bernard Matthews & Ronald McDonald in the streets following the publication of cartoons that have a poke at our dietary beliefs. There will be a mainstream backlash to Vegans. We'll be banned from taking Soya milk or any other liquids on air planes. They'll extradite our recipe book authors, accusing them of stirring up nutritional segregation; and worst of all, Tony Blair will appear on the telly, telling us that we have to integrate into the mainstream of beef loving Britain or leave.

Lets not let it reach that point fellow bunny huggers. Lets embrace the ridicule and be honest; cheese substitute tastes like something scraped from the scrotum of Satan himself, but this isn't a reason to not promote healthy, nutritious alternatives to meat and dairy products.

Also, read up on your beliefs, so that when you're asked about your 'freakish' diet, you can offer some facts rather than just emotional exploitation. Heck, if you're really daring you could come up with a vegan ending to the classic 'Why did the chicken cross the road' quip; bet that'll catch them off guard. One of the more cynical motto's I live by at the moment, is rather than even trying to save the world in some naive hippy way, I see the choices in my diet as way of fucking up the world a little less. It serves a double purpose: the swearing makes you me sound serious, but with such a potty mouth all the cool kids will let me sit with them in the canteen too (as long as I don't eat salad, coz that's for pussies innit?).

It was a bearded (and probably rather un-cool) individual named Leo Tolstoy, a man more famous for writing books that double up as door stops than for his side splitting one liners, who said "A human can be healthy without killing animals for food. Therefore if he eats meat he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite." So why not attempt to live by that healthy and conscious example, and prove to the world with actions rather than judgemental words that we can live healthier, shag for longer and combat global poverty, all by making a simple choice that comes down to our appetite; well that's if you fancy taking advice from blokes with beards.....but that's ANOTHER story...