Matilda Welin, a writer for the BBC, wants you to be disgusted by your next sirloin steak or salmon filet. The more grossed out you are, the better!
In an article entitled “How a month of abstinence can lead to ‘meat disgust'” Welin encourages readers to give up meat in anticipation of the New Year, during “Vegan January”, or “Veganuary”. While her article includes most of the usual vegan talking points, she focuses on the idea that meat is disgusting:
‘The more meat people managed to cut out during Veganuary, the more their meat disgust grew over that month,’ says study author Elisa Becker, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford in the UK. “When you stop eating meat, that disgust ramps up, which is really interesting. “This suggests that just one month of meat abstinence changes how you view meat.”
Perhaps. A few years ago I spent two weeks in Japan. During this time, I subsisted on slivers of raw fish, rice, and seaweed. When I returned to the USA, I craved steak, chicken, and eggs, like a ravenous Viking. No meat disgust for me!
From a purely clinical perspective, though, meat is disgusting. So are childbirth and sex. (Most vegans, being the ultimate killjoys, are against these, too.) And for that matter: the inevitable bodily functions of anyone who eats anything (vegan, carnivorous, or otherwise) can be quite disgusting. Should we stop exercising those body functions, too?
As Tennyson said, “Nature, red in tooth and claw”. Nature is not vegan, and human beings are part of nature. (Just try to sell a great white shark on the idea of going vegan.)
Like most articles on veganism, Welin’s piece is political, both in what it emphasizes and what it omits. I would love to see the British government ban halal slaughter. (Perhaps London Mayor Sadiq Khan could lead the effort.) But the BBC is much more concerned with lecturing ordinary Brits about the evils of eating bangers and mash.
-ET