Meat. Cheese. Chocolate. Butter. Meat. Cheese! A year ago, these were all central—nay, essential—components of my daily diet. I turned my nose up at self-righteous vegetarians, believing that vegetarianism was only for people who cared about baby animals. ‘If we’re not supposed to eat animals, then why are they made of meat!’ I used to quip, congratulating myself for sounding so clever.
At home with my family, I would never say no to weekly roasts; lamb shanks, pork crackling, bacon sarnies and the dear old Christmas turkey were all meals I savoured, and believed were my right to eat! Then I went to Vietnam with some friends and we took a trip to a traditional ‘snake restaurant’, in which we had ten courses of the slithery, scaly thing—after having watched a live snake be killed and skinned in front of us, of course. Didn’t quite taste like chicken, it has to be said. That experience made me feel deeply uncomfortable, as I realised how much of a disconnect there often is between an animal and our plate. We are given the final product, cleanly packaged, promising a delicious source of protein, which goes well with ketchup. So, that was when I decided that I’d have to be OK with watching an animal be killed and prepared to be eaten, if I was indeed going to eat it. The snake example is pretty extreme, but it served as a reminder that millions of animals are bred solely to be eaten by us—usually in fairly reprehensible conditions—but we have the privilege of distance between the farm and our food.
The final nail in my omnivorous coffin was watching Cowspiracy. While it has received mixed reactions, it certainly gets one point across: that the animal agriculture industry is killing our planet, with livestock and their byproducts contributing to more than 51% of global greenhouse-gas emissions per year. Vegetarianism wasn’t just about animal welfare anymore; in my eyes—and those of many others, too!—a plant-based diet offered a solution to the potentially catastrophic impacts of climate change and global warming.
Fast forward to the start of the academic year. I’m a fairly competitive individual, so when I saw that the #VeggiePledge involved prizes, boy, I was game. Having cut down on meat consumption a little bit, I decided to go fully vegetarian for the month. Hey! I survived, I felt good, I didn’t have ‘meat withdrawal’ and there were still a lot of culinary options for me out there. Cheese was my new best friend, and college hall provided such excellent meat-free options, that had never been easier to switch the meat out of my diet. My vegetarianism continued in earnest.
A year later, #VeggiePledge2016 stuck its head around the corner, and I decided that it was time to make a bigger difference. My pledge: all vegan breakfasts and three days a week fully vegan. To my pleasant surprise, I discovered that it wasn’t so difficult to just eat plants! And nope, my diet doesn’t consist solely of soggy salads; roasted vegetables, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, aubergines, falafel and all sorts of delicious options remained wide open for me. When I was served a vegan chocolate pot in our dining hall, I was sold. My pledge shifted to becoming vegan as much as I could. And hey Brasenose—over 130 pledges! Saving the planet feels so much better when you’re doing it all together. It was heartening to see so many people get involved; from one vegetarian meal a week, to only eating local produce, every gesture counts. If a whole a room of people halve their meat intake, that’s equivalent to half the room going completely vegetarian; it’s teamwork and ‘flexitarianism’ which can help to offset our carbon footprint and sustain a real difference.
We’re nearing the end of the year, and I’m hoping to continue this change in my diet for as long as I can. A lot of people find the topic of vegetarianism/veganism quite contentious, as they find themselves embroiled in arguments with these aforementioned ‘self-righteous’ plant-eaters, scolding carnivores left, right and centre. That is not the point. Food is an incredibly personal thing (don’t get in my way when I’m hangry!) and conjuring up images of unsanitary abattoirs and melting ice-caps might not necessarily put someone off their food for long. What I would suggest though, is that everyone does a little reading up about our beautiful planet. 2016 has been a crazy year, and with climate-change sceptics at the helm, it seems like we can’t wait for top-down, institutional reforms—we need to take control and understand quite what goes into that beef burger (spoiler alert: 2,500 gallons of water is needed to farm 1lb of beef, and cows produce 150 billion gallons of methane per day)!
Once you’ve had a vegetarian Christmas, there’s no turning back!
By Esme Ash - History student
Brasenose College prides itself in providing affordable and delicious foodfor a variety of tastes and requirements - whether meat-eating, vegetarian or vegan.