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Farewell vegans, you will not be missed
After being internationally shamed by a plant-eater, I’m rejoicing in the downfall of this moralising craze.
Good news, folks. It seems that
veganism is on the way out. A report by the Good Food Institute Europe has found that
sales of plant-based food in Britain fell by 4.5 per cent to £898m in the year to January 2025.
My early collisions with the discipline were charming. A first cousin from the West Country which, to this schoolboy, was a sort of Wild West, would present his credentials at Christmas. David Taylor was a long, red-haired hippy, a litter picker at Glastonbury, a committed member of the Green Party and an ardent vegan.
On long walks in the Northamptonshire countryside and then as we sipped drinks by the fire, he would argue his cause and always do so with great charm and logic. How, for example, he once challenged us, can you say you, or anyone, owns land? How can you own this mud and this turf?
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It was as persuasive as it was impractical. Back in Somerset, he ran, as he still does, a retreat with lashings of yoga, long, heartfelt conversations, sessions in the large hot tub and various tantric shenanigans that remain beyond the realms of my strait-laced existence.
He also developed druid-like manifestations and once conducted a marriage ceremony of another first cousin, decking the couple’s heads in antlers and summoning, as we stood in a wide circle holding hands, the spirits of east, west, north and south.
He was Green to the core, becoming principal speaker for that party (the position now called leader), mocking my Tory-leaning, conventional outlook. If only all vegans had that kindly, gently persuasive outlook. Because by the 2010s, vegans had started to shed their rustic image, discard any attempts at charm and vociferously decry
meat-eaters as murderers and climate-wreckers.
In 2021, I had a head-on collision with one that changed my life. As editor of a leading food magazine, Waitrose Food, I’d been at the forefront of encouraging
a measured attitude to meat consumption. We published large numbers of vegetarian and vegan recipes – one entire issue was devoted to veg, and I refused advertisements from the meat sector.
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It wasn’t enough for
one young woman, who messaged a non-work email account, where I generally collected loonies who disparaged my appearances on
MasterChef. She suggested that she should be given a column on vegan eating, and I suggested a column on how we might force-feed vegans meat and red wine, and went one further, suggesting we kill them one by one.
This flippant joke wasn’t well-received, she leaked the emails to the media, an international incident ensued, I quit my job, made headline news across the world and joined The Telegraph.
Part of the reason I quit was because I had embarrassed my former client, Waitrose, which was, that week, launching a brand-new vegan range. Whoops! And what a grovelling and shallow move that was, as it devoted sections of its stores to vegan produce, which, naturally, given its customer base, was wholly ignored.
But it wasn’t alone. Publishing houses genuflected at the feet of a new coterie of vegan cooks and chefs, whose YouTube channels pumped out drivel about how their food choices would save the planet. Specifically, I once interviewed a pair of lads who went by the name of “Bosh!”. They suggested that Cumbrian hill farmers should stop rearing and tending sheep, and do something useful like grow lentils.
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The vegan craze grew. There were restaurants, the very worst of which being one backed by Lewis Hamilton called Neat Burger, where I, quite literally, ate, under torturous bright lights, one of the filthiest meals of my life.
High-street bakery chain, Greggs, then launched a vegan sausage roll, and we entered the realms of deranged fantasy. The vegan wagon had gone from a pure, holistic, respectful entity to a raging, hand-wringing stream of incoherence. This mania was encouraged by a group of rangy social media influencers, all of whom were doubtless popping vitamin supplements, especially B12, to counter their lack of iron, calcium and zinc to stop their bones from crumbling, and their nerves and brains from wilting.
Although no supplement could prevent them from their irritating moralising and holier-than-thou posturing.
One knows the world has lost its sense when I, licking my lips at the prospect of the sheep grazing in the field opposite, am confronted by vegans waving their 3D-printed, plant-based shawarma kebabs shipped from factories in Israel.
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Finally,
the vegan boom has bust. As retail expert, Ged Futter, puts it: “Veganism sits within vegetarianism, and no one really talks about vegetarianism any more.” The vegan food chains, such as Neat Burger, have folded, and the likes of Flat Iron, a chain of impressively good steak restaurants, are booming.
I dined at one in London last week and saw people seemingly of every colour, creed, demographic and age queuing madly to get in and devour some red meat.
And cousin David? Well, guess what, he’s now eating meat – twice a week, carefully sourced – and he looks mighty fine on it.
WILLIAM SITWELL
After being internationally shamed by a plant-eater, I’m rejoicing in the downfall of this moralising craze
www.telegraph.co.uk
plantbasednews.org
vegconomist.com
viva.org.uk
www.veganfoodandliving.com
