alexist

Annoying article in today's Independent trumpeting the ethical and health benefits of veganism.

Several problems:
- in my experience, vegans are all self-satisfied, smug goits. "I'm so wonderful and virtuous!" No, you're not.

- Veganism misses one of the greatest points of food, that it's enjoyable! Milk substitutes are a great boon to the dairy-allergic and to pareve cooking (though, like with all good things, they have been taken too far by some), but fake soya cheese is no match for a nice farmhouse Cheddar.

- It is impossible to lead a truly exploitation free life unless you set yourself up on a completely self-supporting farm somewhere in the wilds of New Zealand. You're still exploiting plenty of people, so why not exploit a cow and a few chickens? Personally, I'm more worried about the Brazilian peasants who have been displaced to grow your GM-free soya. Besides, don't you need manure for your organic vegetables?

Heather Mills-McCartney wins the prize for dumb statement: "Every time I crack an egg now, I think 'could that have been a baby?'" Aside from the general moronitude of the statement, it's scientifically ignorant. Given that commercially available eggs are unfertilised, they're no more potential babies than anything in your ovaries. Those chickens are going to lay eggs whether we eat them or not. (And the cows will need to be milked, although I agree that current intensive dairying is far from ideal.)

(Speaking of which, where do vegans think all these farm animals would go if we all went vegan? We should just prevent them from reproducing and let them die out?)