Veganism. It's a growing thing at the moment isn't it? KFC, McDonalds, Burger King, and even Pizza Hut have their special vegan fast food. So many people have the opinion that we should all be vegan in order to 'save the planet', some even attack those that aren't vegan and say they're terrible people. It's all getting a little too much for me so I thought I'd write a few reasons I will never go vegan.
Vegan cheese is awful
When KFC released their vegan burger we (the Hubby and I) decided to give it a try. We're always looking for something new that is nice to eat, and if it's a little bit healthier then great. We headed to KFC and bought the vegan burger - and it was disappointing. While the publicity images show the burger itself looking pretty much like the regular chicken in reality it's not. It's coated in something, could be breadcrumbs? But the burger is very dry, not like the chicken at all.
Mozzarella, so much better than vegan cheese!
On another day we tried the Subway meatless meatballs on a regular sub and were pleasantly surprised. They weren't horrible and actually I'm not sure I could tell the difference when compared to a regular meatball sub. What I didn't like though was the cheese, that was bad. I'm not a huge cheese fan but on a sub it's lovely, just not vegan cheese. I would describe it as tasting of feet, not that I go around tasting feet! It was not good. If I was to have another meatless meatball sub I'd add regular cheese instead of the vegan cheese.
And of course once I'd discovered that I didn't like vegan cheese that completely put me off trying the pepperphoni pizza from Pizza Hut, which is a shame.
Veganism is not more healthy
Just because you're vegan does not mean you have a healthier diet than someone who isn't. It is possible to have a healthy diet (even when eating meat) as long as you don't overindulge. Add to that the fact that vegans have to take supplements to get all the vitamins they need.
As a species we were made to eat meat, since the dawn of man we have been eating meat and just like lions and tigers, it's what we're programmed to do. Now I'm not saying that just because we've always been doing it we should continue to, I'm saying that we only get certain nutrients into our bodies by eating meat and dairy. It is not a terrible thing to want to eat animals or foods that come from animals, it's nature.
Going Vegan won't save the planet
I've heard the argument that everyone should go vegan so we can save the planet. We should stop eating meat, and using animals for dairy, and get everyone eating a vegan diet because then we'll have less impact on the planet than we currently do. And I guess in part that might be right, we wouldn't be using energy to slaughter animals or make milk and cheese, but we would be using to create the other meals we'd need instead.
Stopping eating meat won't save the planet.
The thing about saving the planet is not about what we're eating it's about how we deal with our waste, how we can more effectively take care of the planet, but most of all it's about the number of people. No matter how much we change our habits if the population continues to grow so will our impact on the planet. Nothing can change that. But anyway, back to veganism...
I like meat
Meat is nice. Beef, Pork, Lamb, chicken. All of it makes my mouth water and I look forward to meals everyday. Spaghetti Bolognese with minced beef - lovely. The thing is, we as a family don't eat a lot of red meat at all, it's mostly chicken, and I spend a lot of time trying to make sure we have a healthy diet but it does include meat or poultry.
We do have some meals, admittedly not many, that don't include meat at all, but they all include some form of animal involvement. And that's the biggest thing for me, when you go vegan you're cutting out all produce that comes from animals including milk, honey, and eggs. I think that's a little too far - at least for me and my family. If we were to cut out eating meat that's as far as it would go, we'd be vegetarian rather than vegan.
Having a balanced diet is important, and getting nutrients from animals is part of that. So while the world is trying to make life for vegans a little easier (which is not a bad thing either) I'll stick with my carnivorous diet thank you very much.
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