Can I be vegetarian and conservative?

There is something a little petty about this. If I eat a vegetarian burger, that does not preclude you from eating a beef burger. But vegetarianism bears the whiff of judgment and — critically when it comes to politics — the implication that the old ways are worse than the new. It’s hardly a surprise if it makes conservatives defensive. As a vegetarian on the right side of the political plate, I would argue that there is nothing ‘traditional’ about modern livestock production. Pigs and cows are herded into cramped, crowded barns that bear as much resemblance to the farms of old as an apartment block bears to a cottage. The creatures are fattened, killed and carved up with sloppy efficiency, in a process few of us will ever have to glimpse. Farming, for me, is not immoral when the animals have freedom and their meat is a nutritional necessity. But when their lives are this grim and we have other options, it becomes questionable. I do not expect most people to agree with this. I eat what I like, and if anybody wants to have an argument about it, I make my case. But I will not invite friends around for cabbage with cabbage and tell them with a straight face that I am serving bigos. After a tough day at work, I would rather eat pierogi or soup, or a sandwich, or a months-old lump of cheese covered in mold and fluff. But I must make myself eat the vegan flaczki. It slops into the pan, a big lump of mushroom, onion and coagulated vegetable fat. I mash it up into soupy consistency. When it is hot, I tip it into a bowl. My fiancée and I eat it. I suggest that it is ‘quite nice, if a little greasy’. She says it is the most disgusting thing that she has ever eaten.