Vegetarianism is a "wholly unnatural" practice without support in biblical teaching, according to Mr John Gummer, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Addressing an audience at Butchers' Hall in the City yesterday Mr Gummer, who is a member of the General Synod of the Church of England, said: "I consider meat to be an essential part of the diet. The Bible tells us that we are masters of the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field, and we very properly eat them.
"If the Almighty had wanted us to have three stomachs (like grass-eating cattle), I am sure he could have arranged it, but he chose to make us omnivores instead." Mr Gummer, speaking at the biennial luncheon of the International Meat Trade Association, drew enthusiastic applause from an audience mainly of butchers and meat merchants. He said he was tired of reading in the press about the 10 per cent of the population who had turned vegetarian or reduced their meat intake. "I want to see more articles about the sensible 90 per cent who are still eating meat."
Warming to his theme, he said it was time to go on the offensive against "deeply undemocratic food faddists who want to impose on the rest of us views which come from their own inner psyches". Food was becoming a "religion substitute" which enabled people "to make themselves feel more moral by the diet they choose".
He said he particularly resented "those who encourage children to become vegetarian on grounds which have nothing to do with truth and everything to do with prejudice" a reference to a video which the Vegetarian Society has been showing in secondary schools since last December.
Miss Juliet Gellatley, the society's head of youth education, immediately retorted: "It is a totally factual video, and much of the information in it comes from Mr Gummer's own ministry. It looks at the way animals are kept and slaughtered, health and nutrition aspects, and the effect of meat-eating in affluent countries on the developing world, which is forced to grow grain to feed Western animals."
People who labelled takeaways as "junk food" were snobs, Mr David Maclean, Parliamentary Secretary for Food, said last night at the International Fast Food Show in Wembley. He urged the takeaway industry to hit back at its critics: "We have to fight the food snobs, particularly certain media writers, who would condemn all fast food as junk food. It simply isn't true."
