A breakfast sandwich of sausage, bacon and egg has a carbon footprint equivalent to a 12-mile drive. This is according to a campaign group called the Eating Better Alliance. In terms of public health messaging this, while accurate, may well be the moment millions of carnivores show two fingers to our decaying world and order second helpings.
Similarly with alcohol, I feel sure the battle to win heavy drinkers round was partly lost the moment it was announced that no level of drinking was safe. It is technically true but, exacerbated by a fulminating press, drinkers everywhere rolled their eyes and ordered doubles.
I write this as a moderating drinker and a committed vegetarian. I stopped eating meat because I looked into a soon-to-be-slaughtered lamb’s terrified eyes and knew for sure that I never wanted another animal to die to feed me. I can live off plants quite nicely. It is nothing to do with saving the planet, but I’m happy to be of assistance.
I think back to the year I spent working for my dad’s scaffolding company. I drove lorries around all day, often eating bacon sandwiches as I did so. Imagine the harm I was doing. I’m sorry for my sins. But, my word, I performed heroics in those transport cafes. My colleagues were hardened Black Country and Brummie men who weren’t minded to respect me, this entitled middle-class nancy boy, soon to be university-educated, and never to be seen or heard of again. And who could blame them? But, I promise you, I won their admiration when we dined.
I couldn’t drink as much as them; I couldn’t lift scaffold poles as well as them; but, my God, I could eat them under the table. I well remember a cold morning in a caff in Church Lane, West Bromwich, when I stepped up and went for gold. I ordered a breakfast called the He-Man Gammon Lot (one up from the Gammon Lot, which was one up from the Lot, which was one up from the Full English).
The place fell quiet. It was like the scene in Deliverance. This dish was presented and it was enormous. I took it on, and I came out on top. I was the man.
Happy memories, but I’ve digressed. It seems to me we need to try something different with public health messaging. Take alcohol. The chief medical officer’s guidelines on safe drinking suggest we shouldn’t drink more than 14 units a week. I would turn it round and say that you can drink up to 14 units a week, pretty certain that you won’t be much harming your health. I have suggested this to many doctors and public health experts and almost none of them think this will work, but there you go.
With meat, how about this: a free, huge bacon sandwich every week if you cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die say you’ve not eaten any flesh all week. And if you go a month without, a free He-Man Gammon Lot, cooked by me if the Church Lane caff is no more. And for second prize, I offer a month’s supply of my own lovingly made vegan kebab meat. Meat eaters love it, though often with gastric consequences that make me wonder whether it’s any better for the planet than the real thing. Recipe available, if you really want it.
A lesson in humility from my friendly doppelganger
On a flight from Glasgow to London I had, as I always try to have, a window seat. I don’t know why but I lose consciousness soon after takeoff – something to do with oxygen, I suppose – and rarely regain it before the descent. In the aisle seat I have, on occasion, semi-toppled into the aforesaid aisle. In the middle seat, shoulders belonging to strangers either side of me are under threat. I have to have the window to prop my head on. And it helps enormously if the middle seat is free, so my opposite bottom cheek can encroach on that territory.
On this occasion, the flight had apparently finished boarding and the seat beside me remained unfilled. But just before the doors were closed, on strode a great big lummox of a bloke. Down the aisle towards my – MY – row he galumphed and, sure enough, dolloped himself into the middle seat, at which my left cheek was already twitching in anticipation of making it its own.
I surveyed him rudely, I’m afraid. I judged him to be a rather unattractive man with a decidedly plump face. Annoyed beyond measure, I near head-butted the window to demonstrate my disgust as I prepared to enter a light but troubled sleep while old jumbo next to me made himself comfortable.
I awoke as we circled over Hertfordshire, waiting to make our approach. Still I didn’t make eye contact with the middle-seated monster next to me.
But upon landing, he politely tapped me on the arm and said: “I’m really so sorry to bother you, but could I possibly have a selfie with you?”
“Of course,” I sighed indulgently.
“You see, the thing is,” he explained, “all my friends say I look exactly like you.”
Serves me right. He was a really nice bloke, and certainly better-looking than me.
And I’m an idiot.
My evening undercover with a mob of Moggsters
I went to see Jacob Rees-Mogg speak, promoting his book about the Victorians. Don’t judge me, please, I was just mildly interested, and I spent the whole evening being judged in the fiercest terms. Not once, not twice, the great man referred most disdainfully to a subspecies of humanity he called “Guardian readers”. And the whole audience laughed cruelly and applauded. My blood ran cold. If mention of Guardian readers elicited this reaction, in this lot, I wondered what they would do to a Guardian writer. Great way to go, though, torn limb from limb by a braying mob of Moggsters. Bring it on.
• Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
