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Duncan Lay: Why free-range vegans would be a great food

MY mind has been turning to what useful purpose can be found for ­vegans after they succeeded in getting UK MasterChef critic and editor of Waitrose Food magazine William Sitwell fired last week, Duncan Lay writes.

Has vegan activism gone too far?

THANK goodness for vegans.

After all, if our stocks of beef and lamb ever run out, it’s good to know that there is still going to be a reliable source of (wheat)grass-fed protein that’s readily available.

Not that we’d be cruel about it. I want to make it clear it would be free-range vegans all the way.

I certainly wouldn’t want a bar of a vegan rump steak or even a bit of minced vegan that had been caged.

Naturally my mind has been turning to what useful purpose can be found for ­vegans after they succeeded in getting UK MasterChef critic and editor of Waitrose Food magazine William Sitwell fired last week.

VEGANS GO NUTS

If you missed that storm in a green tea cup, Sitwell made a very bad taste joke (literally) about vegans.

Freelance journalist Selene Nelson had suggested she could write a ­series of articles about plant-based recipes.

Sitwell responded with a suggestion for a series on trapping vegans, exposing their hypocrisy, force-feeding them meat and wine and killing them, “one by one”.

William Sitwell lost his job after he joked about killing vegans.
William Sitwell lost his job after he joked about killing vegans.
Freelance food writer Selene Nelson. Picture: Instagram/@_forkontheroad_
Freelance food writer Selene Nelson. Picture: Instagram/@_forkontheroad_

Presumably Sitwell stopped laughing when he was forced to stand down from his job of nearly 20 years.

Opinion was divided, with many furious vegans on one side and many other people feeling that was too harsh a punishment for a “stupid email” and what Sitwell himself called an “ill-judged joke”.

I find it ironic that so many vegans were baying for blood when they won’t eat it. Perhaps not being able to sink their teeth into a chop, they wanted to sink them into a chef.

BITING BACK

And I have to admit that I always thought vegans were an easy target.

Foolishly, I assumed their plant-based diet leaves them so weak they are barely able to type out a furious email.

I reckoned they could just about manage a tweet but anything over about 150 characters was too much when all they’ve eaten is nut cutlets.

Now, however, it seems that they are out there and hunting in packs, eager to bring down a juicy quarry and devour it.

So, before I find myself stunned by a barrage of hurled celery sticks and wake to find myself tied over a bed of fast-growing asparagus spears by a pack of Dr Evil-style vegans, I would like to point out everything I’ve said about vegans is a series of stupid jokes.

I don’t think vegans would make a delicious natural alternative to my favourite proteins such as beef and chicken.

Most of them would be far too bitter.

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Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/duncan-lay-why-freerange-vegans-would-be-a-great-food/news-story/de5d43e681f20e6ccab628aecdcc5c28