The Modern Diet
Honestly, I don’t even know why I’ve been eating less meat in the past few weeks. And when I say less, I actually mean a lot less. It just happened that way. At lunchtime, the cafeteria always served a portion of French fries with ketchup and mayo for a buck—and that was enough for me. Out of curiosity, I picked up a pack of vegan salami at the supermarket, which was actually quite good. And a little avocado, hummus, or pickles with the cheese sandwich: Best.
I’m not concerned about health, climate, taste, culture, or even the animals in my newly discovered meat reduction. Let the critters be chopped up. Preferably quickly and efficiently. Why does everyone want to eat only happy animals? The unhappy ones would be much more worthwhile to be torn out of life. Then, at least, it would be over for them.
I can think of at most three reasons why I don’t have to think like a psychopathic Patrick all day long of roasted pigs, fried chicken, and freshly butchered cows just because I’ve stuffed myself with nothing but fruit, vegetables and cereals for a day.
First, I don’t give a shit about what I eat. I’ve long since reached a redemptive point in terms of nutrition, where the focus is on coffee. And everything else is second to seventh priority. Whether I’m shoving a veal cutlet in my mouth or some soy wheat bean mash-based alternative pudding, I don’t give a fuck. It’s all good—as long as it doesn’t make me throw up.
Second, it makes me feel better than everyone else. At least secretly. When I put the vegan cold cuts on the conveyor belt at the checkout and the guy behind me has his half a kilo of mixed mince for 2.99 dollars, I think to myself that I’m the more modern person of the two of us. Of course, I don’t tell him that. But I let him know it by placing the sliced, rancid sunflower seed porridge with shredded vegetables in it in such an optimal position that he can read what’s written there in big letters under the supermarket logo: I’m better than you!
Third, I am a follower. And that’s probably the most important reason of all. You just have to tell me certain things often enough, and eventually, I’ll believe them. When I watch more or less secret recordings of some redneck slaughterhouses, where chickens are trampled, piglets are castrated, and cows are mistreated, then it has at most a short-term effect on me. But the more often I witness such things, the more I think to myself: Okay, okay, from now on more cucumbers, tomatoes, and potatoes should suffer. I get it.
A few years ago, I wrote an insanely important literary text with the brilliant title Vegetarians, fuck you! Meat is for eating, in which I vehemently defended my desire for dead animals. And when I read through this, you can’t call it anything else, philosophical masterpiece, I actually continue to stand by everything I wrote back then. Especially the first three words of the headline are still very close to my heart.
But I have learned in recent months that it is extremely important to try something new and only then decide whether you want to continue on this path—or not. After all, we live in a time that often seems overwhelming and thus equally depressing due to its countless possibilities, but on the other hand, it has never been made easier for us to simply dare to do something different and thereby develop an eclectic view of the world, society and, hopefully, ourselves.
By the way, before any militant vegetarians or even, God forbid, vegans celebrate me now for being the first person on this planet who has at least somewhat reduced his meat consumption, I would like to clarify something. Because I have three more than important rules with this newly discovered life feeling, which I use myself to keep almost rigorously.
First, although I actively do not buy meat and sausage produced from cattle, pigs, chickens, turkeys or, what do I know, monkeys. But I do eat these products when they are offered to me somewhere. For example, when people invite me to eat. The reason is that a little meat can’t hurt. Possibly to prevent some ominous nutritional deficiency. Besides, I assume that this meat, in restaurants or at people’s homes, is of higher quality than when I get a bag of frozen Chicken McNuggets at Aldi.
Secondly, I am not a vegan. It doesn’t matter if it’s milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, eggs, honey, or whatever else you can squeeze out of the critter: It ends up in my mouth. I don’t feel like giving up eighty percent of all food just because, for whatever reason, it contains milk proteins, has been filtered through some fish bladders, or once a chicken egg flew past it. Give it a bone! That amount of boomer mentality is necessary.
Third, I eat fish. Ha! I can already see the surprised look on your face. I love fish. Salmon, pike perch, dorado, trout, halibut, herring, scampi, tuna, clams, crabs, eel, squid, cod, mackerel, plaice, oysters, shrimp, and sardines. Whatever is crawling around in the sea, I will find it, catch it, and inhale it on the spot. And you can send me as many links as you want to some pseudo-scandalous documentaries in which seventy thousand fish have to spend the rest of their lives squeezed into a rain barrel, just so I can slap them on my sushi: I don’t care.
As I write this, I’m stuffing myself with a cheese sandwich with the last vegan salami slice that was still lying around somewhere at home, and I just can’t find a reason why I should have bought the ones with cows, pigs, or horses in them instead. But maybe this is just the beginning of my journey. Possibly I will eventually evolve into a higher being who can live on nothing but sun, air, and coffee. And probably only then would I be truly satisfied with myself and the world.