I think I’m turning into a militant vegetarian. I get asked often why I choose not to eat meat, and it’s for a few simple reasons

• The climate. Farming animals for food is very unfriendly for the environment.
• And of course it’s bad for the animals. It’s very bad.
• We don’t need to eat it to be healthy. And I’m more healthy without meat.

The last one is really important – if I was stuck on a desert island with nothing to eat but rabbits and bugs, of course I’d eat them. But I’m not, we’re not – we live in a country we’re we have too much food, and we can make it simpler and cheaper by cutting out the meat. Meat is just a status symbol.

We just don’t need to eat meat – we can get everything we want from plant based food, and food that is produced without killing and harming animals.

This year I also moved on in my thinking. I love cooking, and for a while I was happy to prepare and cook meat for friend. This stopped one Christmas to my friends big disappointment. She’s got over it since and loves my vegetarian roast dinner, along with all the other tasty things I make.

This year I also went a step further and refuse to buy meat. So if I’m doing a shop, I won’t buy meat for anyone. This includes my Mum, and my girlfriend – and it also extended to buying a take-way or eating out. If you want it – buy it yourself, don’t get me involved with your murderous ways (OK, that last bit might be a bit far – but you get my point I hope).

I’m just not going to enable it anymore.

Why Not Go All The Way? Vegan?

I hear you – what about cow’s milk – OK I’m working on it, but I’m not there just yet. I never buy ‘real’ milk and only drink plant based milk (soya being my favourite). The difficult one is cheese – and if you’ve ever tried to make cheese (I have, and it’s easy to make paneer – try it super tasty in a curry) – it uses a lot of milk. I have cut down on cheese.

Vegan food is often highly-processes and marketed to towards people who have to swap a piece of meat for something else (very much the wrong way of thinking in my opinion). I rarely use meat substitutes, and these over processed food are required if you actually cook from scratch.