Veggies/ vegans- does this clip annoy you? (Giles Coren on veganism)?

[Mysterious World]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RzN8kubyKY&t=120

The relevant section of the clip lasts about 6 minutes, if you can stand it that long

I'm vegan myself, and I'm furious! Food writer Giles Coren on the BBC radio 4 show "I've never seen star wars" broadcast last week, tries veganism for a week and then slags it off.

He seems to go for the blandest foods possible- vegan cliches. It's not even made clear what he's eating in most of that section, it's just him moaning on in a negative way. You could find poor meals from any food group- I could announce that I was going to become a carnivore for a week, and then just eat spam on toast! He is rude about everything, repeats dull old jokes 'vegans are so weak they blow away' ('oh Oscar, my aching sides!') and factual inaccuracies. 'Hitler was a vegan' he crows- he wasn't at all! There is even debate about whether he was even vegetarian, as the popular myth has it. Do some research!

Vegans are “pasty weak and stupid”? Pot to kettle! Also, I looked on twitter after the show, and the (friendly and helpful) suggestions from vegans were NOT 'all basically lentils'.

As a food writer, he should know you can make tasty food that is vegan! The man's an idiot!

All thoughts and opinions welcome.

[hissingcar975]

He is obviously just trying to make vegans look as bad as possible, no matter the cost. There was once a man that was against veganism. So he took a bunch of starving African kids and fed them small quantities of corn and rice. After a week he fed them meat and said "See look. They are healthier now."
Of course they are going to be healthier. All he kid was use starving kids to try to make a group of people look bad. So sad and pathetic if you ask me.

[highfinger939]

I dunno if it makes me angry, then again I don't really take my diet all that seriously. I do have a mainly vegetarian diet as I don't believe in factory farming. I would go as far as to say that I sort of agree with him. When I first started out I had a very difficult time finding foods that fit into my diet, I ended up living off of candy and potato chips for that first 3 months. A lot of vegetarian foods are not very mainstream in our culture. You don't hear about people eating Thai food as often as you hear people eating Chinese for example. Regardless of if he is a food writer, certain people find it very difficult to even imagine a life without steak and fried chicken. I do, however, agree that as a professional and as someone that is supposed to be a key source on the subject of foods, he should have taken his attempt a little more seriously and tried more exotic and lesser known vegetarian foods.

[Annie M]

It doesn't bother me to be honest. I think he's vaguely funny. I laughed at "it's like eating a shoe." I don't think anyone will take it seriously so I wouldn't worry about it. It's just a joke.

x

[Pooscifer]

Can't watch it at the moment (on a school computer) but you should post your objections in the comments. Apparently there are none at the moment, so it'd be nice to have a little objectivity added to his ramblings.

EDIT: kk saw it. lolol I don't think it's supposed to be legitimate, so it's not too big a deal (it's sort of like south park making fun of vegans, except they were actually funny when they did it). Doubtless, I bet you my big toe some moron anti-veg will end up quoting him in hopes that someone will take their threatened views seriously.

[too.muchtv]

It's a comedian trying to go for an easy joke. No one is going to take it seriously, but yea, it doesn't make people WANT to go vegan either.

It's like when Dr Oz tried to do Paleo for a day on his show. He completely screwed up what the supposed diet was supposed to be, then completely dismissed it on the show (even though he was more open on his radio program).

If people are genuinely curious, they'll do their research, and if they aren't, they'll listen to guys like him.

[Carpetshark]

Giles Coren is an a*hole with offensive opinions on everything. He is a racist who made offensive statements about the Polish and used slurs against them, wants to "ban all dogs" from being kept as pets, and made comments about having sex with and the killing a child on his Twitter. He is a class A nobber, don't listen to anything he has to say, he's just a miserable, grumpy old idiot who probably hasn't had sex in years.

[Over Me Yet]

No, because veganism is a lifestyle, not a diet.
Factual inaccuracies (on his part) aside,
until he takes on the ethics of opposing animal commodification...

[Colleen]

Meh, a little bit but it seems more satirical than anything else. I don't detect a lot of seriousness from him, just a lot of attempted humour and regurgitation of weak jabs at veganism (Such as the painfully inaccurate Hitler reference). He sounds like a bit of a snob to me, and I'm sure from his attitude that he didn't take veganism seriously.

[joe714]

i just view that stuff as cheap entertainment for the masses.
anybody who is on the fringe of what most people do,like vegans, are easy targets for ridicule.
there are so many people who make a living just trying to offend other people.
so i listened to a little and just find it to be drivel.