Esk

Wednesday 24th May was the last time I ate any food containing dead pig. (It was a ham and cheese sandwich.) The reasons for this cessation of pork consumption are not immediately clear, and weren’t clear at the time to me either. I’ve since narrowed it down a bit:

Incorrect reasons

• I’ve become a Jew
• I really like pigs
• I don’t agree with killing animals for food, but I’m taking it one step at a time
• I’ve decided I hate the taste of bacon
• I got indigestion from a sausage

Real reasons

1. An experiment in self-control: I want to see if I can do it, and for how long. I’ve not got much in the way of will power, because thankfully I hardly ever have to exercise it. I stay thin no matter what I eat, I get high marks no matter how little I revise, I have a job where warning your employer you’re going to be half an hour late is considered ludicrously precise, and deadlines are the same as “when it’s done”. I’d like to exercise my willpower muscles a little before I enter the third year and may encounter actual work.
2. It puts my eating habits closer to my ethical beliefs: Since what humans in general value is intelligence, I think we should base what it is reasonable to eat on the intelligence of the food. It is, of course, subjective, depending what you define human intelligence to be, or intelligence, and where you draw the line. I usually draw the line quite neatly just above pigs, but my suspicion is that that is because I like bacon. Whilst I do believe in our right to use animals for our purposes, I don’t think that eating pigs is an appropriate use of such a clever animal. They are on a par with dogs and horses by most definitions, and most people refuse to eat dogs and horses. I feel I should either start eating dog and horse, therefore, or stop eating pig. Maybe after this I’ll try the dog and horse thing.
3. To empathise with people who have to pay attention to what they eat: I have never been on a diet, had an eating disorder, been vegetarian or vegan, been part of a religion that tells me what I can and can’t eat, or been allergic or even intolerant to anything. In addition, I like the taste of almost all foods. I never look at packaging in general, except to check whether eggs are free-range. That makes my food choices wide open, which is nice, but also difficult: I am very indecisive. I want to know what it’s like to have to check every time you buy, and warn hosts when they are preparing you food. It’ll be a lot easier than being vegetarian, or having a wheat allergy, but it’ll give me some idea.

Hope that clears it up for any of you, it certainly has for me. I wasn’t going to bother publicising the fact, since I didn’t really know why I was doing it anyway, but now I have some idea you may as well be aware of it, in case you wonder why I didn’t want any sausage rolls or something.

I expect what’ll immediately happen is that I’ll get several comments telling me why I’m wrong. That’s great, keep ‘em coming. It’ll be interesting.