You will have gathered this cat is a confirmed meat eater.
Indeed, cats are ‘obliged carnivores’, ie we must have a meat in our diet because our bodies are not adapted to a vegetarian diet.
Cats also don’t do alcohol – well, I may be the exception! So, I am always amused when we emerge from the Christmas excess, we are encouraged to forego meat and booze for a month.
My question is a simple one: Why?
Yes, if you have overindulged over the past few weeks, or if your body is crying out for you to detox, then rearrange your diet. Is there anything fundamentally wrong with having salad in winter, maybe for a light lunch alongside some oatmeal for breakfast and a hearty homemade broth for supper?
Porridge is a wonderful way to start the day. Studies have shown it can reduce cholesterol and help balance the blood sugar levels, assist with gut health, and keep away any hunger pangs until lunchtime.
Winter broths with plenty of vegetables, pulses, especially that oft overlooked grain, pearl barley, something I can’t mention without singing “won’t you come home Pearl Barley”!
Made with a beef bone stock and loaded with carrots, turnip, celery and onion, it is guaranteed to warm the cockles.
This is an almost meat-free diet but at Cumbria Crack Towers, the broth is made in a slow cooker, over several hours, with shin of beef which ends up melting in the mouth. Or try it with leg of mutton or as a Cumberland tatie pot with neck of lamb and plenty of butcher made black pudding.
And how can you do Burns Night justice with meat free haggis on January 25? It would hardly be the Chieftain o’ the Pudding Race if it didn’t contain meat.
And while I’m on the subject, why do you think vegetarians want to create meat-free sausage rolls or haggis? If you want to limit your consumption to non-meat products, stop trying to make them sound and look like meat products.
Detoxing, surely, is about getting back to a balanced diet where everything you need comes on the plate or in the dish.
Likewise with the drink. My problem, at Christmas, is not the quantity of booze, but the range of booze.
Bucks’ fizz while the presents are opened, a robust white wine with the turkey dinner – Pouilly-Fuìssé is quite glorious although I did find a great English Vineyard, Furleigh, in Dorset which does a delightful Bacchus Fumé.
Follow this with a robust red to go with the Christmas pud, a late bottled vintage port for the cheese, a brandy for the toasts and a whisky cream liqueur with the obligatory evening chocolates.
It is easy to see I like a range of drinks and, on the big day there wasn’t a beer, my normal tipple, in sight so, my rebalancing will be about getting back to the beer focus. It will never be a dry January.
BTW: when I say beer I mean proper beer – a decent session ale or a healthy stout. Back in the day, Mackeson, a mellow milk stout, was recommended to nursing mothers and for the older Corrie fans, was the drink of choice for Ena Sharples and her geriatric gang in the snug of the Rovers’ Return.
Recently, on a trip ‘down south’ I was pleased to see a mild ale on draught, and I travelled down memory lane with a half of ‘best’ bitter and half of mild – the original ‘half ‘n half’.
The other reason is that I can’t look my local pub landlord and landlady in the eye and order a soft drink when they are facing increased winter energy costs and, on dark nights, many stay at home and cuddle up under a blanket!
Yes, I know the mark up on soft drinks can be as much if not more than on booze, but I am likely to only have one or two soft drinks whereas, when I get a taste for the beer, it may be three, four or even several more.
Life is about living and that should be even more important in the winter months when so many of us go to and from work in the dark. Not having some decent meat and a few drinks, adds to feeling low.
So, no, there will be no Veganuary or dry January at Cumbria Crack Towers, just maybe a period of, as my grandmother used to say, of “moderation in all things”.
About Cumbria Cat
Born in Cumberland and, from later this year, will be back living in Cumberland, having spent most of the past 50 years in some place called Cumbria, this cat has used up all nine lives as well as a few others.
Always happy to curl up on a friendly lap, the preference is for a local lap and not a lap that wants to descend on the county to change it into something it isn’t. After all, you might think Cumbria/Cumberland/Westmorland is a land forged by nature – the glaciers, the rivers, breaking down the volcanic rocks or the sedimentary layers – but, in reality, the Cumbria we know today was forged by generations of local people, farmers, miners, quarriers, and foresters.
This cat is a local moggy, not a Burmese, Ocicat or Persian, and although I have been around the block a few times, whenever I jump, I end up on my feet back in my home county. I am passionate about the area, its people, past, present and future, and those who come to admire what we hold dear, be it lakes and mountains, wild sea shores, vibrant communities or the history as rich and diverse as anywhere in the world.
