The dangers of vegetarianism

I do not doubt that hot weather occasioned by climate change is the primary cause of the many wildfires we have seen in the UK this summer. But I wonder if they have also become more profuse as a consequence of various authorities desperately attempting to make the countryside more ‘accessible’ to people who, in truth, shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near it.

The more you encourage the dregs of humanity to visit ‘green spaces’, the more likely it is that they will turn up and ruin them. This is a social class of extremely low intelligence but, concomitantly, a vast gustatory appetite – they are unable to go more than 20 minutes without gnawing or slurping something. That explains why they always take with them on these unwise expeditions a disposable barbecue in order to cook their revolting sausages and burgers. Discarded barbecues have caused many of the fires you will have seen reported on your news programmes, and the fire service has demanded they be banned.

Ban the people, I say. A family of them recently descended upon a quiet spot I was enjoying by the side of the (not noticeably depleted) river Wear and immediately started ‘cooking’, sending dense clouds of noisome and quite possibly toxic smoke out and across the dancing, rippling water. Daddy Mackem, Mummy Mackem and three infant Mackems, the youngest of which was about four years old and still unable to utter anything more profound than ‘gnugh’. Having swallowed whole their burgers, they promptly got back in their puke-yellow Nissan Juke and drove off, leaving the smouldering remains behind, along with the plastic carton of an energy drink.

What on earth is the benefit of encouraging these sorts of people to visit the countryside? And yet we continue to do it, turning perfectly pleasant woodland into ‘forest parks’ with ‘forest walkways’ (i.e. paths) bestrewn with inane notices designed to be uplifting to morons. If you have ever visited one of these places – Hamsterley Forest near me is one such – you will have noticed that 90 per cent of visitors venture no more than 200 metres from the vast car park, café and lavatories. Burger, ice cream, crap; then back home for more of the same.

We are told that exposure to the countryside improves one’s temperament and state of mind, but it doesn’t if it has been half paved-over and is now prowled by the tattooed relatives of Jabba the Hutt, stripped to the waist and hurling invective at Loxley and Liberte, their awful, squalling progeny.

Still, while these people may be dim, they have enough sense to resist the continual imprecations and propaganda from authority and wilfully eat lots of meat rather than ‘plant-based food’ (as vegetables now seem to be known). Good for them, then. The incessant pro-veggie and anti-meat narrative piped into our heads – and the degree to which this guff is taken up by our supermarkets – reminds me of those other fronts in the supposed culture war: the transgender business and the fact that our TV adverts make it look as if 65 per cent of the country is black or brown. They are all part of the counter-reality business.

Just 2 per cent of our population is vegetarian, according to the latest figures. Two per cent. And yet once again a tiny minority is dictating the agenda. I read last week, in a newspaper nib, that female vegetarians are very much more likely to need hip replacement operations than their carnivorous sisters. This statistic runs counter to the narrative that vegetarianism is good for you and meat-eating will kill you, which is what we’re lectured about on an almost daily basis.

But then so do the rest of the stats. An American study has shown that vegetarians are more likely than carnivores to suffer fractures of various limbs on account of their lower bone-mineral density. Poke a veggie and he or she may well crumble into dust. The lack of zinc, iodine and vitamin B12 also contributes towards a greater tendency to goitres, fatigue, megaloblastic anaemia, diarrhoea and even neurological damage. Vegetarians are also much (20 per cent) more prone than carnivores to suffer a stroke, even if meat-eaters are more likely to cop a heart attack.

Then there’s the mental stuff. A majority of studies that I’ve seen suggests that people who don’t eat meat are more disposed to depression and anxiety than the rest of us, although it is unclear to me as to whether the propensity to go a bit doolally is occasioned by their avoidance of meat or was already present. Some studies have found a correlation between vegetarianism and memory problems.

I suppose it would be crass to add to this longish list of side effects the infamous flatulence suffered by those who subsist on a solely plant-based diet (and of course suffered by those around them). Naturally, vegetarians are less likely to be fat, so it may be that if we all went veggie our obesity crisis would be cured – and the hospitals would instead be full of brittle-boned stroke victims jabbering madly to themselves surrounded by a foul-smelling cloud of lentil-induced methane.

I joke a little, but only a little. I am sure it is right that we eat far more meat than is good for us – a problem of first-world affluence – and especially far too much processed meat. But increasingly the narrative eschews balance in favour of a wrong-headed absolutism: stop eating meat.

This is largely, I think, because meat can be costly to the planet. As a result, the deleterious effects of adopting a meat-free diet are glossed over or ignored altogether, as if they didn’t exist. But they do. A solely vegetarian diet carries pretty grave risks – and all the more so if it consists of processed vegetarian food, which is increasingly the case.