Vegetarians declared an ‘endangered species'

With the vast majority of people going from regular omnivore to full-scale, edge of the spectrum vegan, it’s beginning to look like the classic vegetarian is set to face extinction.

There was a breed of people, before trends were as trendy as they are now, who would label themselves as “vegetarians”. Now, this is a term that’s gradually becoming archaic, and it was prevalent roughly until the early 2010s when the term “vegan", of which you’re likely more familiar, rushed in, catapulting it’s predecessor into redundancy.

One would not condemn a reader such as yourself for being perplexed at such a lecture, “but sir, isn’t the common denominator that they don’t eat meat". But there is a key distinction, both in semantics and in practice. The classic vegetarian refused meat just like the famous vegan, but the former failed to resist milk in their tea and cheese on their pizza. Scum, as vegans would refer to them.

But there is much much more.

Back in the day, when vegetarians roamed the earth unchallenged, there were less enforcers or “whips" around to make sure they were keeping to their vows. See, the old-fashioned breed of vegetarian just ate the meats they really liked, and absolutely moralistically refused to touch any of the other stuff.

A survey that was recently not carried out because this article is a joke, occurred where the findings showed that the average vegetarian was merely a sporadic chicken eater. A few notes gathered from the surveys said that “chicken was just too hard to avoid". For instance, Chicken Curry, Chicken Pizza, Chicken and Chips and Caesar salad (with chicken). All of these classic menu items put these poor dietary specific consumers in a bind; especially when the alternatives are just tofu and veg, *bleugh*.

Now that it’s estimated that 90% of the classic vegetarians are long gone from this earth, it’s easier to badger their choices as half-arsed, it’s easier to sneer at those dairy vices and put your own lifestyle on a pedestal. Keep in mind, that ‘free-from' products is a large industry now, not merely an adorable little niché for awkward shoppers. These brands have started to embrace their market properly and get rid of anything that could possibly be slightly harmful; much like a Buzzfeed article

Lots of research has been carried out, you can now simulate eating animals rather than carrying out the ungodly act. Alternative high-salt, kidney-decimating recipes have been drafted by geniuses that retain the tastes of all their meaty cousins. Quite simply, we’re in an era of entrepreneurs who have learned to cash in on every group of people anywhere, so long as there are enough of you to buy their stuff.

So vegans, you’ve won, I hope the products make you very happy, but I hope you use the victory to buy some humility and grace (this is a ‘Come Dine With Me’ reference, I’m not actually this annoyed). Anyway, this is quite simply a very easy time to be a vegan, even the corporate fast food companies are posting the hashtags. So enjoy it.