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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