I know there are meaty arguments in favor of the vegan way of life. Still, Anthony Daniels has a beef with vegans (he’s reviewing a book entitled “The Bloodless Revolution: Radical Vegetarians and the Discovery of India”):
“George Orwell was deeply hostile to vegetarianism. Vegetarians were of ‘that dreary tribe of high-minded women and sandal-wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come flocking to the smell of ‘progress’ like bluebottles to a dead cat’. And before the days of South Indian restaurants in London, one had only to go to a vegetarian eating establishment to see that he had a point. It wasn’t only the beards that wilted (to quote Orwell again): it seemed that nut rissoles had an existentially wilting effect on those who subsisted on them. Of course, one might have mistaken cause for effect.
“…Vegetarianism seems to have attracted resentful cranks and prigs from the beginning of its revival in the 17th century. They were mainly radical political idealists, but, as we now appreciate, such idealism is likely to lead to more brutality and mass murder than mere cynicism. To say that someone is an idealist is not automatically an indication of approval.”