True Confessions Of A Lapsed Veggie
There comes a stage in every woman’s life when she has to face facts. With January’s fresh start veneer, I’m now ready to admit my shortcomings. I am no longer a vegetarian but a lapsed vegetarian.
There, I’ve said it. The relief is some consolation for feeling a fraud. I’ve been in denial for some time, you see. All my family and most of my friends remain convinced a sliver of meat would never cross my lips.
In secret, however, I’ve been decimating sausages.
Humiliating, isn’t it. I wish I could say I’d faltered over smoked salmon or roast duckling, but to fall at the hurdle of a sausage sandwich is crushing.
The rot set in last spring. I had been a vegetarian for 14 years when I went on holiday to Los Angeles and queued for seats in the Jay Leno Show audience - it just seemed the thing to do there.
The line still wasn’t moving after three hours, hunger pangs were grumbling because I hadn’t bothered with breakfast and was missing lunch, when suddenly manna from heaven appeared. Stainless steel glinting in the California sunshine, a hot dog cart trundled along the queue.
Initially I was strong. I turned away as my boyfriend bought a hot dog and ate it beside me. The smell was tantalising. Then he had a second. As he bit in, I watched, not so much drooling as dissolving into a pool of saliva. All those years of vegetarianism were flung to the winds as I sent him after the hot dog cart for one with everything on it – including my name.
The most shameful part is I enjoyed every morsel. I didn’t feel in the least compromised and suffered no adverse physical reactions, but afterwards I decided the hot dog was an aberration prompted by trying circumstances. Vegetarianism was reinstated. Then last month I had a sausage sandwich. I still don’t know what came over me, I just happened to be there as a friend was frying up and before I knew it I was tucking in.
‘Your body obviously needs it, that’s why you crave it,’ she consoled. But this time I felt guilty. Later I chanced an experimental bite of ham sandwich and was reassured to find I disliked it, but sausage sandwiches have continued to feature in my allegedly veggie diet.
What were 14 years of vegetarianism about if I can casually flout them? I was never truly an ideological veggie, granted, it was more to do with an aversion to the taste and consistency of flesh.
Still, so much for principles. Now everything’s gone to the dogs. I fitted on a fur coat the other day and it had to be prised off my back because I was swept by an atavistic desire to own it.
I realised I’d be vilified by the fur lobby, I’d have to go about claiming it was fake and I couldn’t afford it anyway with the January credit card bill still to be settled, but it made no difference. I wanted it.
I can’t help worrying those sausage sandwiches have unleashed the savage in me.
