TABLOIDS joke about it. The supermarkets pretend it is no big deal. But as a middle-class vegan, vegetable rationing is life-threatening to me.
When I saw that supermarkets were limiting sales of cucumbers, broccoli and bell peppers, I fell to my knees in my open-plan kitchen-dining area with cedarwood countertops and cried out ‘Why?’
I’d seen the writing on the wall already. Since January I’ve been forced to surreptitiously serve my children non-organic vegetables on occasion. They didn’t notice, though I’m sure their cognition is impaired.
But for this to happen? For tomatoes and cauliflower to be restricted to two per customer? For the iron walls of an invisible prison to crash down around us, condemning us to starve for our ethical beliefs?
What next? Aubergines? Rocket? Avocados? Without these staples of our selfless, planet-saving diet, how can we be expected to survive?
I was called hysterical when I said Brexit meant death for vegans like us. I was told to accept the democratic will of the people, even though they had voted for me and my blameless family to be cleansed from the country. Well, you can’t call me hysterical today.
Soon, five-bedroom households across the country will fall silent, the only sound drifting from behind closed curtains the babble of Radio 4, or 6Music if my husband’s home.
We cling to the lifeline that is Waitrose, the last bastion of vegan freedom, the only supermarket courageous and expensive enough not to impose any restrictions.
If we can make it to summer, the tomatoes in our greenhouse will ripen and we will be saved. Though that will, heartbreakingly, mean a Christmas without chutneys.
