The Idle Spectator would like to issue yet another apology for a prolonged absence from electronic print, it appears that while time does not actually fly, it can get away from one when other concerns take precedent over that which is is business here at this esteemed journal. The reasoning this time was not due to an ongoing legal process, but simply because all of our key members of staff were involved in a exercise of investigative journalism that will now, if you will permit us, be revealed below.
Over the last twenty or so years there has been a slow but distinct rise in the number of those among the populace that choose not to eat the flesh of beasts, some call these people vegetarians. While TIS has nothing against these people per se we do hope that this article will give them pause for thought next time they are poised above a plate of Quorn or Soya, slavering with anticipation, for we can now reveal that those products are not as friendly to either the environment or the animals of the world as they might have us believe.
Let us take first Soya. The common conception is that this product originates from some kind of bean of the Orient, a similar etymology to the Soy sauce that is popular in the cuisine of that part of the world. Our interest piqued, TIS dispatched an investigative team to that part of the world to track down a supplier of such beans. After an extensive period of investigation, centred largely around the opium dens of Shanghai, our man found someone willing to talk, at great risk to his own neck, about the true origins of Soya.
Firstly, our correspondent, who asked to remain anonymous, asked if the product did come from the beans, to which our informant replied, ‘the sauce, that comes from the beans, sure… but the other stuff, the stuff people eat… you don’t want to know where that comes from.’ Our intrepid correspondent pressed that source from more information, but all he gained was the cryptic message, ‘look west’, and the address of a warehouse.
A few days later, having tracked an incoming Soya shipment back to its source, our man found himself in the back of a truck, heading along the ancient silk roads to eventually, the Ukraine, specifically, Chernobyl.
Our man was in a pig farm far inside the zone of exclusion and in this dark, desolate corner of the world the truth was learnt, Soya comes not from beans, but is, in fact, irradiated pork. Here at TIS we had long suspected something was up with such a product, but to have the sickening truth exposed in such a way was beyond our wildest nightmares. The Food Miles that product undergoes our, frankly, outrageous and as such, boycotting is the only viable course.
Running parallel to this investigation was another into the true origins of Quorn, However, the truth behind this product is so sickening, so vile, that it can hardly be discussed in good conscience. But it is our duty to do so, and we can now reveal that Quorn is not, in fact, people, as was the common belief in our offices, but made from protein rich Fungi. There is only one word to describe this, and that word is EW. I mean, really, what’s wrong with a good steak?
Yours, The Idle Spectator.
1 Comment
July 7, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Hmm. Is it true?