Put the Vegan Menu on the Table

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Abstract

n’t say “regular menu,” or “normal menu” but “non-vegan.” Like me, she objects to anything that hints that she may be irregular, un-normal, weird, contrary, difficult, demanding, five centimeters short of a nutcase.My friend’s comment got me thinking. Unless you live in a pillowcase, you will have read in the news that meat consumption is killing the planet. A recent special report on climate change by the UN says plant-based eating is a major opportunity for mitigating and adapting to climate change.<blockquote id="61d4">“We don’t want to tell people what to eat, but it would indeed be beneficial, for both climate and human health, if people in many rich countries consumed less meat, and if politics would create appropriate incentives to that effect.”</blockquote><blockquote id="9c39">Hans-Otto Pörtner, ecologist.</blockquote>I won’t hold my breath for the politics and incentives bit. By the time politicians get around to promoting and incentivizing plant-based meals, the earth will be beyond the pale.So, I shall single-handedly — as is a lot of a visionary who leads where others follow — overturn conventional restaurant mores, channel my inner Martin Luther and promulgate my eight theses by nailing them metaphorically to every restaurant in the land:<ul><li>Let the carn

Options

ivores have to ask for their menus.</li><li>Let all waiters and waitresses be hard of hearing.</li><li>Let the carnivores have to leave their comfortable chair, their ice-cold beer, and go in search of someone in the restaurant to hear their pleas.</li><li>Let the person they eventually find, frown and say, “We don’t have a carnivore menu,” whilst moving away from the carnivore and giving the carnivore a pitying look.</li><li>Let the carnivores have to eat vegan or leave the restaurant, knowing there isn’t a restaurant to cater to them within a sixty-mile radius.</li><li>Let the carnivores huddle together at the end of the table and suffer a litany of predictable and worn-out jokes at the carnivores’ expense.</li><li>Let the carnivores be marginalized, ridiculed, stereotyped as dull-witted, foul-breathed, slow-processing oafs, who don’t deserve to step foot into a restaurant unless they abide by vegan principles.</li></ul>And while we are at it:<ul><li>Let cats and all felines be the only exulted carnivores on the earth. And any other carnivorous creature that gets its prey by honest, hard-working natural means, i.e. runs, hunts, and kills with its own paws, claws, or teeth any other creature that has led a free and natural life.</li></ul>Reasonable, rational, informational, and vegan, that’s me.</article></body>

And Let the Carnivores Sweat

I’m a vegan, but I’m perfectly happy to admit that other people can be wrong. And when I say other people, I mean non-vegans. I’m tolerance personified, me.

There were twelve of us at lunch. The restaurant was lovely. As soon as we had arrived and were seated, the waitress hastened over with menus. I asked her for the vegan menu. She smiled, went away, and returned with two, one for me and one for my vegan friend.

It’s getting much easier to be vegan in the UK. This menu had three starters, five mains, and five desserts, which amounted to vegan heaven.

Midway through the meal, I remarked to my friend how fortunate we were to come to a restaurant that had a vegan menu, let alone an extensive vegan menu. And she said, “Yes, but they ought to bring the vegan menus with the non-vegan menus. We shouldn’t have to ask.”

Notice she didn’t say “regular menu,” or “normal menu” but “non-vegan.” Like me, she objects to anything that hints that she may be irregular, un-normal, weird, contrary, difficult, demanding, five centimeters short of a nutcase.

My friend’s comment got me thinking. Unless you live in a pillowcase, you will have read in the news that meat consumption is killing the planet. A recent special report on climate change by the UN says plant-based eating is a major opportunity for mitigating and adapting to climate change.

“We don’t want to tell people what to eat, but it would indeed be beneficial, for both climate and human health, if people in many rich countries consumed less meat, and if politics would create appropriate incentives to that effect.”

Hans-Otto Pörtner, ecologist.

I won’t hold my breath for the politics and incentives bit. By the time politicians get around to promoting and incentivizing plant-based meals, the earth will be beyond the pale.

So, I shall single-handedly — as is a lot of a visionary who leads where others follow — overturn conventional restaurant mores, channel my inner Martin Luther and promulgate my eight theses by nailing them metaphorically to every restaurant in the land:

Let the carnivores have to ask for their menus.

Let all waiters and waitresses be hard of hearing.

Let the carnivores have to leave their comfortable chair, their ice-cold beer, and go in search of someone in the restaurant to hear their pleas.

Let the person they eventually find, frown and say, “We don’t have a carnivore menu,” whilst moving away from the carnivore and giving the carnivore a pitying look.

Let the carnivores have to eat vegan or leave the restaurant, knowing there isn’t a restaurant to cater to them within a sixty-mile radius.

Let the carnivores huddle together at the end of the table and suffer a litany of predictable and worn-out jokes at the carnivores’ expense.

Let the carnivores be marginalized, ridiculed, stereotyped as dull-witted, foul-breathed, slow-processing oafs, who don’t deserve to step foot into a restaurant unless they abide by vegan principles.

And while we are at it:

Let cats and all felines be the only exulted carnivores on the earth. And any other carnivorous creature that gets its prey by honest, hard-working natural means, i.e. runs, hunts, and kills with its own paws, claws, or teeth any other creature that has led a free and natural life.

Reasonable, rational, informational, and vegan, that’s me.