Can a Vegan Really Save MasterChef?
A new series of Celebrity MasterChef will begin next year and due to Gregg Wallace’s controversial exit from the programme a new judge will take his place. A suitable candidate would be one who is not controversial and will continue the great reputation of the show – it is broadcast in over 60 countries and watched globally by 300 million viewers. But the BBC has announced that a vegan, Grace Dent, is Wallace’s replacement, working alongside John Torode. Torode, it should be noted, was blissfully unaware of the long-standing shenanigans of his former co-host Wallace so he has survived to take his place in the MasterChef judgement seat again.
Grace is a restaurant critic for the Guardian – the most woke of newspapers, which loves endorsing all the ‘isms’, including veganism – and has been a journalist for many magazines since 1996. Adopting a plant-based diet after becoming an animal lover, she declared she does “not want to eat anything with a face”, which, perhaps explains the permanently miserable look on hers.
MasterChef will involve cooking meat and other foods which do not fall into the ‘vegan friendly’ or ‘vegetarian’ categories. With that in mind, Miss Dent also announced she is “excited that (she) can’t eat, which is severely detrimental to a restaurant critic”. Why, then, is she coming on the show, when she will not even be trying the food?
Who was the mastermind behind this MasterChef decision? David Lammy?
Dent claims to be a ‘part-time vegan’ although what this actually means is hard to tell: will she be vegan on one show, half of the week or just for a couple of hours? She calls herself a “flexitarian” (one who occasionally eats meat or fish, faces or no faces). However, both these titles do not appear to be true. Throughout her life she has made various statements about reducing her meat consumption: “In my own time, I eat vegan or vegetarian. I really abhor factory farming and its byproducts so I live a vegan lifestyle as much as I can. If you come to my house you are getting oat milk, vegan cheeses and things like that.” I’m glad I’m not going to hers for Christmas.
In the same article she revealed her typical daily diet, consisting of eggs, tofu, plenty of vegetables, seeds and nuts. In addition, she made an appearance in a commercial for THIS, a leading plant-based ‘meat’. Evidently, she is not a flexitarian and enjoys nothing but a meat-free lifestyle.
Her fun-packed life story does not end there as she became a teetotal later in life and signed up for I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here, where she lasted a whole week before quitting. She also stated that her dream is to “go full Celia Hammond (an animal rights activist) and adopt an animal sanctuary, whilst stopping wearing bras and ditching the false eyelashes”. After a few weeks of her fun-killing presence on MasterChef, the BBC may have to consider taking Gregg back; at least he was a laugh. Who could not find his trick with the sock amusing?
Planning on competing on the show next year? It’s just a hunch, but cooking vegan dishes could be the key to getting your hands on the trophy.
How long will it be before MasterChef disappears down the woke agenda hole and becomes an all-vegan show, with only plant-based dishes permitted? How will chefs be able to show off their cooking skills, which involves using meat and fish alongside exotic food products? It may all come down to how many tofu dishes John Torode can tolerate before he follows his erstwhile colleague Greg Wallace into obscurity.
The list of potential options for the role must have been huge. How about bringing back the completely inoffensive and mild mannered Gordon Ramsey? Instead, they picked a vegan who will not even be trying most of the food. It begs the question as to what the point of the show is. It’s hard to imagine that Grace will not put a dent in the viewing figures.
Jack Watson is a 16 year-old schoolboy in Year 11. You can read his Substack about following Hull City FC here.
Stop Press: According to the Mail, the market for vegan food has shrunk by £38 million in the past year. More here.
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First off and most importantly, she is not a vegan. There is no such thing as a part time vegan, you either believe it’s 100% wrong to eat animal products and avoid them full time with no exceptions (and last time I looked, eggs came from a chicken’s bottom and can’t be mentioned in the same category as tofu, nuts and seeds), or you’re just someone who chooses not to eat meat and dairy sometimes.
I will say this though, I have watched Masterchef on and off for years and she frequently pops up as a restaurant critic judge. I had absolutely no idea she was vegan (which is probably, as said above, because she is not) because as far as I remember she chows down on her meat and two veg with just as much gusto as the rest of them.
Nor has she used the show to bang on about her principles, which is perhaps the biggest shock of all.
“Can a Vegan Really Save MasterChef?”
Less of a flying f#@k I couldn’t give! Sorry
The basic premise of the article collapses as soon as you recognise that Grace Dent has regularly been a judge on the show, and has never (to my knowledge) had any reservations about eating “normal” food when she’s been asked to review it.
Wicki
‘She has been “mainly vegan” since the early 2010s, describing herself as plant based or a flexitarian’.
Typical screwed up Guardianista.
Food critic for the Guardian was enough for me!
I don’t care.
My wife, bless her, cooks every day. She has always put a tasty, nutritious meal on the table.
She has never watched a single episode of Masterchef.
As far as I can tell from watching the adverts for it, the program is not about cooking. It’s a cheap, cliched form of entertainment. Predictably “diverse” competitors, fake drama, dubious creations.
Like Bake Off it’s already in its death throes. How many more pop-up wonders and Gastro-Pub sous chefs can we watch?
A presenter with a border-line eating disorder will finish it off.
I hope so
Just the BBC doing its Masters’ bidding (hint, that’s not the Telly-Tax payers) and promoting a “plant-based” diet for the future …. basically gas-lighting their viewers, mostly now the elderly and brainwashed virtue-signallers.
They’re destroying the show, as surely as they destroyed Top Gear when they similarly disrespected their audience.
Never watched it; never will.
Given the wages Dent will be on I am sure she will quickly regain her taste for meat and fish.
No because nothing the BBC does is about the success of BBC programmes, It’s about the BBC parading their impeccable metropolitan political credentials, purposely alienating viewers they believe don’t share this moron-think, shoehorning net zero propaganda into every available orifice and committing commercial suicide across four channels.
It’s a political campaigning organisation masquerading as a media company
The media stuff is just a means to an end
Strange because the other day, she did a programme all about Greggs and had no problems eating their full range particularly the real sausage rolls
That I can identify with. There’s always time for an Uncle Gregory’s sausage roll.
Gregg’s sausage roll, otherwise known as the Manchester dummy.
“Torode, it should be noted, was blissfully unaware”
Not sure what is more laughable, this or the vegan judge.
I’ve not kept up to date, though. What did Wallace do, actually?
Keep writing, Cracker Jack!
MasterChef – repetitive, dull, boring.
She(?) has a jaw like a snowplough; or Desperate Dan. Cow Pie anyone?
There is a pic of her in oversized black framed glasses and her eyes screwed up like she has put acid in them. Not quite sure why you would ever have posed for such a photo.
Grace Dent will be fine.
We shall see, but I doubt if her choices for winner will have much to do with the food.
As I don’t watch live TV I don’t pay the TV tax which supports the BBC. I therefore couldn’t give a rats backside about Masterchef, I programe I never watched when gullible enough to pay the licence fee.
The Stop Press is interesting and explains the recent drive to once again ‘encourage’ eating highly processed crap that is supposed to look and taste like meat!
A brilliant article that had me chuckling. Well done, Jack, and thank you!!
I’m totally amazed ANYONE watches BBC anymore. I dumped then 3 years ago and I am nearly £470 better off. That’s someone’s heating allowance.
“According to the Mail, the market for vegan food has shrunk by £38 million in the past year.”
Fantastic news.
“Flexitarian” – I guess that’s like “gender fluid”. Another nonsense woke term.