Of the many products in my local supermarket that make me swerve away instinctively, none occasions me to do so with as much rapidity as those that advertise themselves as “plant-based”. Yes, not even “gluten-free”. I have nothing against eating plants and eat rather more of them than I do of meat; it is the glib ubiquity of the term, usually accompanied by a photograph of a sunny meadow or something, that makes me wary. Have a look inside and you’ll see some brown, compacted fungus-and-kale slurry formed into a patty, having been doused with salt and sugar. Yum.
The speed with which all the supermarkets took up “plant-based” rubbish (as opposed to, y’know, plants) struck me as being faddish top-down virtue-signalling and thus to be avoided at all costs. It kind of shouted out: “You are being had, you sad dupe.” Just because your burger doesn’t contain the shredded gristle from a pig’s nutsack, that doesn’t automatically mean it’s good for you, even if it is, for obvious nutsack-related reasons, better for the pig. This was bandwagon-clambering of the most egregious kind — and aimed at who, precisely?
- The Sunday Times. To read the full piece click here
