QUESTION: what do you get when you cross moral snobbery with a lack of taste? Answer: a vegan.

This may be tough on a group of people who want nothing more than to live a life free of cruelty. But, while there are many things in the world that are worse than evangelical vegetarianism  pre-season football and question time spring to mind  there are few that are more joyless and depressing.

Vegans, you see, exist so that others may feel guilt about something completely normal: the desire to eat food that is tasty, nourishing and appropriate to our physical specifications.

Humans require certain basic nutrients to function, and to be vegan is to spend your life thinking about where you're going to get your next fix of vitamin B12.

Not that they'll admit it. The vegans who write letters to newspapers and ring talkback radio rhapsodise about the culinary options available to them, and many of them seem to believe it. Perhaps their brains are so starved of essential trace minerals that they really think that spurning all animal-based products improves the range and quality of their diet.