Lorenzo Biagiarelli – chef, TV personality, influencer and now author – is not fighting against eating meat. And it’s not because for too long food choices associated with animal proteins have been debated on a battlefield with rival factions. As a result, as in any war, no one really comes out victorious, and everything that makes sense is defeated.
In the case of meat consumption, morality is the loser, submerged by the interests of intensive farming lobbies. And pity, lost behind the inhumane treatment reserved for slaughter animals. It’s health, crouching a diet that the World Health Organization openly recognizes as carcinogenic.
I ate too much meat (Cairo publisher, in bookstores from November 21) he says all this, and he does it with an alternation of personal experience and journalistic work consisting of numbers, interviews, data collected on a journey to awareness.
Lorenzo, how did this book come about?
“The basic idea was to record a diary of my journey in the flesh. I started writing this after I returned from my last trip to China: in ten days I had only eaten four pork dumplings, while the last time was completely different. This trip marked somewhat of a change in my eating habits. But ultimately, in this book, it is not so much my journey that is central but what I saw, discovered, felt and realized in what until a few months ago was the fulcrum of my food pyramid.”
Did you enlist the help of some experts on this?
“Exactly. I think it is right to let those who know these matters better than I and many others speak. I sought out ‘precious’ interlocutors because I was not interested in finding someone who would give me confirmation of what I believed: I was looking for facts, without prejudice. For example, the nutritionist I consulted is not a vegan.”
At what stage are you in choosing your diet?
“It’s a long time to explain: I don’t eat meat anymore, I don’t cook fish, dairy products and eggs anymore, but occasionally, if I happen to find myself with no other alternatives, I eat them. The truth is, I chose not to talk about this stuff, because there is a part of anti-veganism that approaches the subject in a non-food way, indeed sometimes finds it harmful to associate veganism with communicating these issues. Those who propose the philosophy of political anti-speciesism, which I find very valid, are looking for the origin of the problem.”