Pope Francis offered $1m to go vegan for Lent ...

DubInMeath wrote: »

My wife is vegan which would make me vegan by association in terms of diet 99% of the time.
No problem with the diet and it's no form of punishment to be honest as I love curry etc and alot of choice in terms of goodies now.
Have to laugh at some of the anti vegan attitudes of some posters (not the one quoted) but hey it's boards and it gives them a portal for spouting crap because no one in real life would be bothered listening to them.
The same can be said for some of the vegans also however and they don't do much for trying to further any cause that they might have.

Funny to hear people going on about the vegan and vegetarian diet being not healthy or a foreign fad, the traditional Irish diet at least for the majority of my grandparents age was mainly vegetarian, with meat being a luxury item with songbirds and rabbits being the main meat. Even my parents remember it as a rarity.

Yeah I get the dig thanks. All that's bit too much "I'm Brian and so is my wife" imo

But hey let's ignore the current News where in the space of less than two weeks number of corporate interests are feeding us the same bs promoting the plant food industry and using influencers to do so. Don't forget to shoot the messagners whilst you're at it.

Lets talk about Songbirds being eaten as the main meat??? What country your referring to btw?

Yes rabbits were and are still eaten and very tasty they are too. Btw they are considered a pest to most horticultural crops

In Ireland meat and especially pork products were a traditional part of the diet. Even in the poorest parts of Dublin there was the traditional dish of Coddle or beef dripping on bread. In the countryside a pig was killed maybe once a year to help pay the rent and cured with meat etc being hung near the fire once cured. Pigs blood mixed with oatmeal to make puddings etc. Nothing was wasted except the squeal

Offal was the food of many with tripe and all other bits of the animals eaten and relished.

Near the coast fish were cured and used as a break to the monotony of potatoes and cabbage.

And where meat was seasonally scarce there was milk, butter, buttermilk and sweet milk.

Yes people starved during the period of famine because of a policy whereby people were deliberately impoverished and forced off the land. That period was not typical of most of Irish history.

Futher back in history the Irish traditionally ate a wide range of dairy products and seasonally meat both hunted and farmed

I just love that not only are we now being fed bs on a weekly basis by commercial corporate interests - we are now expected to believe rewritten history as well ....

And if you also one of the screamers who want to know why I have an interest in pointing out what's wrong with the 'sprouting crap' propaganda about food production and agriculture which we are being force fed. Simple this is an area in which I am qualified to speak. Don't like that - tough.

Its also notable that this is not the first movement that seeks to silence its critics. What I've seen to date the extremists of this movement are little better than most of these.

No doubt another denier will be along to tell the majority of the country that we are all wrong and it's all our fault and we should all just shut up .... .:rolleyes:

Dial Hard wrote: »

I did my undergrad History dissertation on Irish culinary history in the 19th century and meat most certainly not commonplace in the diet of vast swathes of the population during that period. The vast majority of Irish people were on subsistence diets. If you were lucky enough to keep a few hens you might keep the odd egg to eat. Pork a handful of times a year when a neighbour slaughtered their sole pig and was kind enough to share it with you. That was pretty much it. Pretty much everyone was woefully malnourished.

You will note that I'm referring to not just one period of Irish history or restricted to the periods of impoverishment such as time frame leading up to and including the famine and it's aftermath. Not to get into one upmanship - I already explained I am qualified in this area.

The Irish outside the famine period were not impoverished to the point of eating scraggy songbirds as their 'main meat'. Cottiers of even middling status often kept a pig (known as the gentleman who paid the rent), even a cow and had their own milk and butter. Yes there were also the impoverished and the landless who eeked out a living. Many worked as hired labour to somewhat better of farmers because labour was cheap and hiring fairs a part of the economy. But people also hunted and fished. Many also grew much of their own produce. The slightly better off even sent their children to school. Women often kept chickens and sold eggs. There is a huge wealth of data out there that provides much of this information. I'd suggest you read for example some of the available first hand sources on the life stories of rural irish people many whilst Catholic and tenants still maintained a relatively basic but prosperous lifestyle living in a traditional way. There were far from unusual. Of course there were also huge regional and societal variations in the foods eaten and what people ate as products of what they farmed or fished or hunted . However in no way does that mean that everyone can be classed as a grass eater either.

Anyway all this is getting way of course of the main issue of the thread and the point of commercial interests pushing plant based foods. But there you go ...