Guilt as an extra topping

Monday, May 16th, 2005

The true measure of how committed we are to our principles is whether we can stick to them if doing so hurts us. Anyone can boycott McDonald's if the there's a Burger King next door. But can they still do it if they're in a strange country, hungry, don't speak the language, and it's the only eaterie they can find?

I'm a vegetarian, have been since 1988. I don't preach, if other people choose to eat meat that's their business not mine. I've cooked with it and served it to dinner guests since I went veggie. I've even worked in restaurants and canteens preparing meals with meat in. I just choose not to eat anything with animal products in myself.

One the way home from work tonight I stopped off at an all-night garage for supplies – margarine, fruit juice, chocolate mini-rolls, green soup, that sort of thing. And there was a pizza there, an eight-minutes-on-220 four cheese pizza looking all winsome and lovely, and my life but I was hungry. So I bought it and took it home.

At home, hungrier still, it took it out of the packaging and looked at the cooking instructions, and my eyes slid sideways to the ingredients.

Pork gelatine.

Bugger.

Obviously, it had to go in the bin. Can't eat something as blatant as that. But crikey I was hungry. This is the time, you see, when your principles are measured and you get a lovely warm glow because you did the right thing.

And really, taking everything into account, there was only course of action to take.

Tough luck, pigs.

I ate it.

"And then he said..."

Two-fingered typing and cheap photography, since November 2002