The Chaser Report - Rage Against The Protein

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

Charles Firth is fuming about fake meat and deluded landlords. Will Dom Knight be able to calm him down? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. It is Charles Firth and Dom Knight. And we didn't get anyone else. It's just us because Charles, you look steamy, you look furious. I can see the rage in your eyes. I am angry, Dom.

I'm just so angry, Dom. And I've got two things that I'm angry about. They're very different things. You're a wealthy middle class white guy in the real. country and one of the safest places on the earth. Your life is objectively, absolutely fine, which is why you have the luxury of complaining. So what have you got?

Okay, so before this sounds like it's reflecting badly on me, I would just like to say, I am an ally of the environment. Oh, God. All right. I'm all for, you know, saving climate change and reducing waste and doing all the things. You want to preserve climate, the changing climate.

Well, no, no, like, you know, doing, the right thing, whatever that is, right? But when it starts affecting the quality of our food, and in particular our meat products, I'm sorry, but something's got to give, and I think it's going to have to be the environment. Charles, what have they done to you? Well, look, show me on the ecosystem map where they hurt you.

So my son, who's 11, is all worried about the environment now, probably because Greta Toonberg got into his ear. year and started talking about how terrible everything is, right? And as a result, he's wanted to experiment by eating vegan stuff and vegetarian stuff. You know, so instead of, you know, polluting the planet with all the methane that cows, like, in particular, he thinks cows are terrible because they create methane. Because their farts are literally deadly. Yeah, yeah.

So he's... Solid but deadly. So every time we go to the superiors. market for the last few weeks. He insists that we try these vegan meat products in particular. I want to identify one particular one. They're called unreal sausages, which is a bit of a pun, isn't it? Which I guess could mean that they're amazing or that they don't resemble food.

It's a kind of a high-stakes gamble by the people who come up with that name. And I, look, you know, in the past thought, well, actually people who have, were trying to make, you know, oat milk should be allowed to use the word milk, you know, like, and people who are making sausages that aren't beef should be allowed to at least use, you know, leverage off the, you know, sort of thing. But I've changed my mind. These, this product has changed my mind because the name of the product is plant-based beefy brat, right?

Which makes you feel like you're going to get a beefy sausage. I mean, that's a contradiction in terms. You can't have something that is both. A, plant-based, and B, beefy. That's like saying, like, a selfless billionaire. Like, it's just a contradiction in terms. You just can't have that. It's like saying, like, a good nickelback record.

You just, you can't have something that's plant-based and beefy. No. It just doesn't make any sense. No, it doesn't make any sense. But not only that, it sort of sets up your taste buds for just... For beef. Yes, for beef and for flavouromeness and for not feeling like you've just eaten some sort of, of rancid pea-based fish product, right?

It's just a horrible sort of thing. Anyway, so you put them in the pan, and you've got to add about 100,000 litres of oil just to get them so they don't burn. Because they burn at the, even at level one on the stove, they just immediately burn. Really? Yeah.

So they're flammable sausages. That doesn't seem idea. It's sort of char-grilled sausages, right? So you've got to put lots of oil on them. You oil them up. So they're not even good for you. you anymore. They're just basically floating in oil, right?

So we've been trying this all week. So we made some bolognese using their plant-based meat, right? We had one bite of it, and we decided to give it to mum, right? Which is like even worse than throwing it out is the give it to mum sort of thing. Yeah, that seems cruel. After all, she's done for you over the years in the, in the, like, the latter years of her life, right? She shouldn't have to eat rejected plant-based food. No, and she wholesale rejected it.

She just went, no, I don't want that. Right. We then try these sausages, and what happens is I find myself just subconsciously. You know how vegans, when they come over for a barbecue, are really annoying about, oh, don't barbecue my vegan sausages on the same grill. Grill of my plant-based things. Not that I'm sending up your family at all time. Well, I found myself doing the exact same thing with these sausages,

which is they were so disgusting that, you know, like anything that had, like, I found myself like, after, you didn't want any nice meat to touch the grill. I didn't want. I wiped down the vegan, where all the vegan stuff had touched before I then cracked open the real meat sausages and put them in there. I thought you were going the way around. I thought you were desperately hoping to put. put the plant-based sausages on an area with lots of built-up meat, grease and fat,

just to make them taste better. Yeah, that sort of should have done. No, so point is, look, and I'll admit that this has been a fairly incoherent rand. Well, you know why? You haven't had enough protein. You've been on plant-based stuff. You're malnourished. But I'll just read you the packet, because I've got the packet here.

His eyes don't focus anymore. This is really sad. This is just, I mean, it's also, it's so boring. It's a, oh, fuck, just don't eat them, okay? Well, Charles, look, I have some expertise in this area because I'm married to a vegetarian, my children are vegetarians, and I have been down the same path. Oh, what? I'm attempting to have stuff that is kind of like meat.

Yes. And yet vegetarian. And I'm here to tell you that that is the worst idea in the history of the world. And my wife, very sensibly says, I don't eat meat, I don't like meat. Why would I want something that looks? or in any way resembles meat. So we never get that stuff. And I've tried them all.

I've tried the Beyond Burger. I've tried the impossible burger. And it is impossible to have a plant-based burger that's good. That's why they shouldn't have tried. It's impossible. No, except I disagree, which is the one type, which is the stuff you can't get in Australia, is the impossible one.

You can get that in Australia. You can get it at grills. Can you? Yeah, I think so. Oh, really? Then the only reason it tastes good is because it's smothered in ketchup. Smothered in ketchup, yeah. If you actually, if you actually try it.

as I have done, they have just a bite just of the burger. You go, oh. You go, it's a sort of pea-based fishy meat. It's just, it's just stodge. It's just kind of stodge that what I think the impossible people have done that the other brands haven't is that they've managed, you know how

when you have a really big meat-based meal you feel sort of sick? Yeah. They've captured that. They've captured that. The regret. They've captured the regret. They have, yeah. No, but it's terrible. So the point is, don't even try.

I've tried everything in the supermarket all the, like, oh, it's a chicken something, or it's a chicken schnitzel, or it's some of the curries, even with a very, very strong flavor, like a Thai green, not quite chicken curry. No, it tastes shit. Don't have any of that stuff. All the good vegetarian food doesn't try to be meat. It's just like, have an eggplant, have pumpkin, have things that actually taste good, and just have fewer meals with meat in them.

And then just, you know, a toasted cheese. sandwiches and you don't go oh i wish just had a steak on it yeah that's true although actually i do have steak on my yeah so the thing is so wait a minute you're saying don't even don't even eat meat at breakfast time yeah that's right you have to have it less oh you just have it less yeah so you just what you need to do and this is this is a great part of the solution is that my theory is right yes as long as you're not eating the meat okay doesn't matter so you can eat as unhealthy as you like you can have cheese you have chocolate yeah I mean, you can have, you can have, like, cookies, loaded cookies with chocolate.

They're very, they're vegetarian. They're vegetarian. They're eating all the shit you like, as long as there's not meat in it. And my nutritional theory is that, you survive. Not bacon. Oh, really? No. It's bacon, what's bacon? Bacon's meat.

Ah, I thought bacon was one of the five crops. Have you tried bacon milk? It's vegan. Anyway, Charles, that? Look, I'm with you on, though. That was a big mistake. Don't try a fake meat. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser report

should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report. That's not the only reason I'm grumpy, Don. The other reason I'm grumpy is actually probably more politically sound in a way. Okay. Which is I wrote, on Friday, I wrote for our sister publication The Shot. Oh, yeah. An article about how investors should get out of the...

the property market to allow people who are sort of first home buyers who are in their 20s, 30s and early 40s to actually own their own. That's really selfish. What a lovely idea. So all the, all the people who've clogged up all the property, you know, purchases with investment properties, it's selfish. Yes. They should just sell them to first.

That's a really lovely idea. What's the problem? So the problem is that I then got massively attacked online all weekend by these people who clearly owned multiple properties. And what I realized, which it had never even occurred to me. Like, I can understand owning lots of property and thinking, well, I'm very clever because they now make lots of money. Yeah.

What, it never occurred to me that they would be going, okay, I bought up a whole lot of properties. I'm doing this because it's a social good. I'm doing this for the benefit of the renters. I'm making money out of renters because that's what they need me to do, right? Oh, that's so kind. When you think about it like that, that's so selfless and kind. Yes, exactly. And so I had this person actually compare the idea of property ownership,

which is where you buy a house, you don't do anything to it. You just own it. Yeah. And you make money off it. He said, that's, that's exactly like Woolworth. Like Woolworth gets to make money out of, you know, creating a very complex supply chain and distribution machine that then distributes food, which is a necessity all around the country, right?

He said, owning a house is exactly like that. And so we should both be able to make money out of that because we're doing, you know, shelter is a necessity. By owning this shelter, I am providing for the masses, right? That's incredibly kind. But also when you think of all the first, like the 20 and 30 year olds who want to own a major supermarket chain. And they can't do it.

They've been frozen out of it. But it's for their own good. It's to help them with their need for food. But it was so weird because they couldn't get her. Because I said, well, why don't you just not own your home and just invest in Woolworths? If you think that's, you know, like, you know, and then that's an actual productive thing rather than just owning it and doing nothing with it except making money out of it, right? And they, but they could not get their head around the idea that it was.

would be a good thing, and that would then make space for other people to buy that thing? They said, but who would own it then? Who would own this house? But this is the thing you've missed in your analysis. You've made a huge and incorrect assumption. Right. And your assumption is, if all the Burm is in the country, sold their thousands and thousands of houses that they used to gouge money out of people with very little income.

Yes. They wouldn't be sold. Young people would not be able to buy those houses, Charles. Why not? They couldn't afford to. They don't have enough money. Because they've been paying rent all these years. They have no savings.

Inflations through the roof. Checkmate. They have all that, you know, they have job insecurity, wages haven't been going up. There's no way. No bank's going to approve them to buy the house from the boomer. Well, it'll just sit there empty. Especially as the banks are all run by boomers. That's right.

So the house would just sit there empty and no one will be lucky enough to live in it and pay rent to some fat fucking boomer who owns 10 houses. Yeah. They should be grateful. Okay. They should ripe the boomer who owns their house. Thank you, note, every month. Yes.

Just for the privilege of getting to live in the house, they pay almost all of their disposable income to fund. You know what I'm going to do, Dom? Buy an investment property. Yeah, I'm going to go out and buy an investment property. I heard there's some great tax breaks about it. Well, Charles, I'm inspired with that. I think it's an excellent idea.

I think I'm going to follow you. I'm going to go and buy an investment property. But hang on, you don't even own one property. Oh. That's true. I'd have to have one property before I could buy it. Can I tell you the other annoying thing was My complaint was, actually, if you're going to own something which is a basic necessity,

you shouldn't be allowed to just jack up the price of rent by 40% because your interest rates have risen. Like, the problem in Australia is essentially housing investment is seen as a riskless asset. You know, the renters should cover all your expenses. Yeah. The taxpayers should give you tax deductions for all your interest costs. Because of the social good of what you're doing. Yes, the social good of what you're doing. And then you should, you should just benefit personally from all the capital gains

and all the rent that then accrues to you. Like that's the triangle of the perfect asset that property is now enjoying. But Charles, I mean, what's the alternative? The alternative would be some sort of nightmare world where the government built lots of apartments and houses and things like that and rented them out to people who needed them on the basis of their need, not looking to make a massive return out of them. And just the public collectively owned, all these houses, people could live in and get shelter and live safely and not live in

absolute terror of losing their home. What kind of a nightmare world would that be? What, Singapore or something like that? It does sound very disturbing. No, but the other alternative is that, you know, like, what about a rule, which is you're only allowed to own two homes after everyone in Australia has owned their first home, right? But it's like... That sounds like sharing.

Like, that's the kind of way you'd run like a kindergarten or a children's birthday party. That's not the real world, Charles. That's some fantasy land where everyone gets a fair turn. Why do we want that? And where's the incentive to the billionaires? Where's the incentive to the billionaires to gouge harder and screw harder to get all the money to buy all those extra investment properties? But I love this idea that there's no...

Like, we have some of the most expensive property in the world that there's a problem with incentives. You know, because I was saying, you know, show me the statistic that says that we have a problem with, you know, underinvestment in the property market in Australia. Next, you'll be saying there's some fundamental human right to shelter. We should actually have a place to live even a very basic place so that we don't have to just die on the streets and raise our children in some sort of slum.

It's all unworkable. It's kind of ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. That'll teach you to write for the shot. Yeah. I know. What was it thinking?

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