“…Vegetarians: We’re not just feckless hippies…”

“..I’m 35 years old and I became a vegetarian at the beginning of this year as a new year’s resolution.

It all came rather suddenly and a bit unexpectedly – (to myself as well as others).

I had always found a certain moral argument for vegetarianism persuasive: -

- that we shouldn’t kill another living creature for food when our survival doesn’t depend on it.

Should a life be taken away just to satisfy a desire for a certain sensory transaction between our tastebuds and our brains?

I think probably not.

Most rational people would find it abhorrent that animals were killed in the making of a film for example – which provides a similar sensory stimulus.

I’d also developed a mid-life environmental conscience and joined Greenpeace.

As a consequence I’d discovered that cutting meat out of your diet is the Carbon-footprint-lowering equivalent of giving up driving.

This is because the millions of animals reared for meat production generate methane – a greenhouse gas which is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Maybe, like many people, I had just liked meat too much and lacked the willpower to give it up.

Now my heretofore limp and pathetic willpower had been hardened and purged in the crucible of cigarette-quitting the year before and this -

- in combination with the moral and environmental concerns was probably what tipped me over the precipice and sent me freefalling into action.

Whatever the reasons for giving up meat – what has followed has been a meandering journey of discovery encompassing in varying parts: -

- a bionic immune system (surprisingly); weight gain (surprisingly and also annoyingly) – and an over-familiarity with lentils.

In terms of the weight gain I had gone into the whole thing with little or no planning -

-and so instead of preparing balanced nutritious meals -

- I carried on eating the same dishes but without the meat.

This led to making up the deficit with more carbs and dairy products -

- (the classic nouveau-veggie mistake I’ve since learned).

When you first become vegetarian you tend to rely on the most familiar and palatable non-meat alternatives such as pasta and pizza dishes -

- and it doesn’t take a dietician to know what a diet of pasta and pizza does to the waistline…”

(ed:..of course making the change direct to vegan means you don’t get that dairy-belly..)

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