Sunday Sermon XIX: No Beer. No Bread. No Beasts, the pre - 40 detox; I've Discovered 'Meaganism'...

Happy mid-January my friends;

So, whilst most people are either detoxing, dieting or whatever, either for them/yourselves or for Dry January (great charity by the way), I'm clearing out the toxins in the run up to my 40th birthday. 3rd Jan - 3rd Feb. I've devised my own dietary detox plan, it's the 'No Beer. No Bread. No Beasts' Diet. Hopefully I’ll be slightly less jowly, and wobbly bellied at the end of it. 

Day 9 and I have to say, despite all the cliché’s about not consuming loads of processed pig, thick wedges of fried bread and copious amounts of Stella multiple times a week, I feel pretty lively. 'The Driers' as I've heard it so affectionately called in Bristol this month, is making think about longevity and the rights and wrongs of shovelling dirty swine’s and chemically enhanced 'even purer pure milk' into this theme park/temple over the coming years. 

So, I'm looking at Carnivorous, Omnivorous, Pescetarian, Vegetarian, Vegan and Fruitarian diets and wondering which is the best for me. There’s no way I could live on meat or ‘fallen fruit’ alone, so Carnivorous and Fruitarianism are out of the picture. I can’t fathom out whether or not the Homo Sapien is a natural omnivore or not. But I have had a moment of clarity about Pescetarianism and Vegetarianism; bear with me.

So, I either believe that eating meat is natural and is good for me and that we, as a race, are the hunter gatherers and we eat meat for protein alongside fruit and veg. Or, I believe we’re not designed to eat meat, which includes fish and the by-products of meat (i.e.: dairy). Which gives me 2 options; I am an Omnivore in it’s fullest sense, or a Vegan. We’re narrowing down my options nicely here huh?

But no. I’ve realised that there’s a 3^rd option. The way I see it, Pescetarians don’t care about animals or they wouldn’t eat fish/prawns/whatever else they decide is on the agenda that day. A vegetarian who eats and drinks animal by-products, such as milk, cheese and eggs clearly doesn’t have an issue with the farming of animals and their welfare (or will eat organic/free range etc, but the animals are still farmed). Veganism I’m down with, it’s a clear choice between Animal or no.

The 3^rd option I have then, I’ve called it ‘Meaganism’. Eat meat, eat vegetables, but no dairy or animal by-products. This is crazy Jez, surely this is a contradiction of terms. Eating meat and Vegetables but not drinking milk, whatever next? I hear you cry. Why has no-one ever thought of this before and given it a label, it must have a label. Well, dear disciple, now it has, ‘Meaganism’.

For me, this is no different to vegetarians who eat eggs, which are merely farmed foetuses of Chickens/Ducks etc. I’m just thinking that dairy and some other things, like bread/wheat etc seem to bloat me and slow me down. If I stick to the flesh of animals that have been reared and fed with love and consideration, surely I’m more of a vegetarian than a vegetarian who drinks non-organic, mass-produced milkshakes? My food sources won’t have been herded into sheds 500 beasts deep, and 6” deep in their own shit. My meals will be traceable, at worst to the same farm as the butter the pescetarian spreads on his artificially stabilised supermarket bread?

So, my wonderful congregation, what do you think to becoming ‘Meaganists’ as a new, more animal friendly option than many people choose? I think I might just give it a go you know…!

Amen, MOFO’s.

One Love

Jez

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