One day I'll be vegetarian

Saturday 8.30am

I envy my cats straightforward views on life and death. If they are hungry, if it moves and if they can catch it - they will eat it. No questions asked, be it bird, rabbit or grumpy cicada. There is none of that tortured worrying that I go through.

But actually, lately I have noticed that my animal nature is not so far below the surface. When my youngest caught a fish recently (much to the surprise of both of us), it was only on the dock milliseconds before I had it whacked on the head and in a plastic bag ready to take home and cook. Youngest was a bit miffed though because he had wanted to keep it alive in a bucket to take to school!

And again yesterday when he dug up shellfish on the beach (Tuatua, a type of clam I think) it did not take me long to swap from "lets put them back" to "I wonder how you cook them?" Youngest will again be disappointed because he has plans to breed and sell them from home. Strong entrepreneurial tendencies there I think.

So I have no problems with wild food it seems, I just feel that if we are going to farm animals then we should treat them well and not as some sort of machine put here for us to use and then discard. The future lies in the organic movement I think along with education and knowledge helped by people like Jamie Oliver.

And vegetarianism? Well meat of course is the original fast food. The sheep and cows have done all the work of converting grass etc into something we can eat. But being vegetarian involves a lot more thought, cooking from the basics, and being the sort of person who deconstructs everything and anything, I think that this is the next step up in my cooking education and once the children have left home I'll be giving it a go.