Recently I had had to attend a dinner for my mother’s birthday; a curry night. The options were vast, with the selection of meats being the most notable part of the entire night. Family had spent the better half of the waiting time leading to the main dishes arriving anticipating the diverse order.

I’ve never been a very big meat eater. This hasn’t always been because of ethical or moral implications. I have always cared deeply about animals, yes; I would argue it’s hard to find any child who actively doesn’t care about at least one type of animal. But meat was never really my favourite parts of a meal for a long time.

So I had opted to avoid the meats for the night. I thought this wasn’t terribly unusual of me nor not understandable. My mum was electively pescatarian and often ate vegetarian, so surely it would be a candid choice.

The remanning half of the wait for the food then became conversation solely oriented around the practicality and logic behind my choice to avoid meat for the night. Some joking comments remarking I “didn’t know what I was missing out”, a single genuine concern regarding my potential conversion to “hyper-wokeism”, and then finally a reasonable question asked by mum; simply “why?”

Beyond the details of ethical philosophy I could relay onto them; the flimsy distinctions in a deference to species-based accounts that barely defend a position to ethically consume meat, or an argument that falsely presumes a justifiable and scientifically-accurate difference in consciousness between livestock and human, I only replied that I just wasn’t in the mood.

This isn’t to promote veganism or virtue signal. I just found this recent intersection of culture and ethical discourse quite interesting. Mostly, I still remain perplexed why my choice mattered to them that much at all.

Toby Bower