The vegan who wants to eat a grilled chicken
"I don't eat meat unless it's very well prepared"
Once upon a time, there was a vegan. A dedicated, conscious, conscientious vegetarian who photographed oatmeal in the morning, posted hummus at noon, and dreamed of tofu at night. Then came the grilled chicken.
Not just any grilled chicken. This chicken caramelised and crispy, with a rosemary and garlic robe, and a smell that would make a Buddha statue lick its lips. The vegan stopped in front of him, looked, swallowed - and spoke:
"I don't eat meat... unless it's very well prepared."
And voilà! another gem of postmodern ethics was born: the gastroethical relativism.
In a world where credibility is stored under Instagram filters, it's no longer enough to "eat well" - you have to eat ethically. Food is not nutrition, it is identity project. The question is not whether it is delicious, but whether am I authentic from him. And when the grilled chicken makes a better argument than your philosophy degree, the meat melts in your mouth - and your principles with it.
Today, "flexitarian" is no longer a biological status, but cognitive status. Someone who feels like both the reincarnation of Gandhi and the nephew of Jamie Oliver. Someone who can live without meat - unless the presentation is really tasty.
And this is where the gastrocarma.
The essence of gastro karma is that what you condemned yesterday, you eat today, recycled - and all as part of the path to enlightenment. It's like a New Year's resolution that you only keep if you're not tempted by a peppery steak. Gastro karma is nothing more than the culinary manifestation of our inner contradiction - ambivalence cooked to the ribs.
Moral consistency in our time is too much work: instead, there is the gastronomic exceptionality, as a universal justification. "I don't eat meat, just this onebecause it's my grandmother's recipe" - as if my grandmother's recipe were a moral amnesty at the pig roast.
And of course, when the vegan swallows the chicken, the guilt follows. But postmodern guilt - which is not crying on the pillow, but a 1TP5Most important moment post on Insta. Caption. I regret it. But it was delicious. Will start again tomorrow. 1TP5Self-awareness 1TP5No conviction".
It's not cognitive dissonance - it's self-awareness adventure park. A moral rollercoaster ride where the safety belt of morality has long since come off.
What happened to our principles? We pull them out like a straw when they stick in our throat. A temporary morality, like the Christmas diet - only it doesn't work on 24, 25 and 26 December. The other days we are principled people.
A vegan who wants to eat a grilled chicken is not lying. Just selectively real. Like the adulterer who "is not unfaithful except when he is lonely". Or the politician who "doesn't steal, only when he can".
Meat is not a problem. The lie is. The smell of bacon is not a sin - false holiness is. And the biggest problem is not that one eats meat, but that one eats meat while believes itself to be morally superior to someone who does it openly.
Because the world is not like this because there are meat eaters, but because there are people who eat chicken, and still fancy themselves as spiritually vegan.
This is gastro karma. And that makes it... our stomachs are churning.
