Someone Fell for it

Following on from yesterdays cockwaffle about pancreatic cancer being caused by bacon butties, we get the hand-wringing Guardianista peddling their vegetarian religion again.

People who’ve been informed of the dangers of meat, particularly the cheap processed variety, but who continue to wolf it down should be held accountable.

Thus speaks the fundamentalist – well, the copywriter who put together the sub-heading anyway.

The meat of the article isn’t much better though. We get the dodgy stats that the BBC dribbled out at us yesterday repeated as fact. And we get the same vague “probable” and “maybe” used to justify the charge that those of us who eschew a meat-free diet are stupid and wrong.

My conversion to flesh-eating couldn’t happen because, frankly, I’m not stupid enough. As in, I can read.

So can I dearie, and I am capable of recognising junk science when it is waved in my face. What we are seeing here is not science, it is religion –  the new religion sans God and the temple is the meat-free body. Besides, starting out with an ad-hom is a guaranteed way to win people over to your argument…

Still, Ms Ellen doesn’t confine herself to just the one:

With this in mind, isn’t it time to ask, exactly how thick, how hard to educate, are meat eaters and why aren’t they held accountable in the same way everyone else is?

Yup, there’s more where that came from. How thick, how hard to educate are nu-puritan fundamentalists in the simple process of critical thinking? Indeed, it isn’t difficult you only have to look through the so-called research and seek out all those “probables”, “maybes” and “suggesteds” –  that and the small sample numbers involved in the studies that are used to harangue us about our lifestyle choices.

Then, of course, we could look at biology –  our bodies have evolved to obtain protein through eating flesh –  those incisors and canines are a bit of a giveaway as are those forward facing eyes for triangulating prey and the inability to process cellulose.

Yet these meat eaters are rarely lambasted. If they’re mentioned at all, it’s in general poor lifestyle terms, as an afterthought to drinking, smoking, and lack of exercise.

Oh, my, she’s got the de-normalisation patter off pat, hasn’t she? Though it has to be said, meat eaters are lambasted on a fairly regular basis in the pages of the Guardian where the vegetarian fundamentalists reside.

Where meat is concerned, it is almost as if we have developed a personal responsibility blind spot. Where we just shrug and say, meat is here, it’s always been here, it is what it is. But meat hasn’t always been here in the form of additive-stuffed burgers, pork pies, sausages et al. In my opinion, it’s the meat eaters’ duty to take this information on board and take direct personal responsibility for the consequences, just as alcoholics and smokers do.

Good grief! Man was processing meat from a very early time –  smoking, salting and such, as it was a simple means of preserving it before we had refrigeration. Sausages also have a pretty long history. We have been eating this stuff for millennia and despite doing so and despite modern additives, we tend to live several decades longer than our ancestors.

Or maybe they’re just hard. In fact, when I say I’m not dumb enough to eat meat, I should probably add brave enough. With so much frightening information, so readily available for so long, the modern committed carnivore must have nerves of steel.

No nerves of steel needed. Just enough education and critical thinking to see through all the bullshit peddled by the health fascists. If you want to go meat-free, then do so. No one is forcing you to make any specific choices. Do not, however, seek to de-normalise those of us who choose not to follow your path. Lambasting me will simply see you lambasted back. And if you are a silly ‘fraidy cat who believes all the dodgy stats, fake research and junk science peddled by the health fascists, then that’s your problem –  don’t project it on those of us who can see right through it.

Barbara Ellen sets out to portray meat eaters as idiots and ends up confirming that the only idiot here is her.

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BTL comment from CouchSlob gets my vote.

How on earth did you not read this back to yourself and think……fucking hell, I’m a right pompous bore aren’t I?