Sir , – Laura Kennedy writes ("The Yes Woman: Vegan for a week and hungry the entire time", October 3rd) that she tried a vegan diet for a week, was hungry all the time, experienced intense cravings for meat, had intensely negative emotions towards vegetarians and vegans and ended the week by going for a steak.
As a vegetarian for the past 34 years I feel qualified to comment on this article. A vegetarian and indeed a vegan diet is infinitely varied; for a person who eats in this way there is a vast choice of healthy foodstuffs. Ancient and advanced civilisations lived long and healthy lives, free from animal slaughter, respecting and honouring the lives of their fellow creatures.
A meat-centred diet for society has many far-reaching consequences. In Diet for a Small Planet, written in 1971, Frances Moore Lappe pointed out that an acre of cereals can produce five times more protein than an acre devoted to meat production; legumes 10 times more; and leafy vegetables (spinach) 15 to 20 times more. The sustainability of feeding grain to livestock to produce meat for human food, when much of the world is starving, is not sustainable. Much less so when vast tracts of rainforest are felled to produce soya farms to feed livestock.
Loss of this carbon-sink is irreplacable and, coupled with the fact that methane produced from the vast numbers of animals reared for human consumption contribute more to global warming than motor vehicles, it is now time to consider what it is that we put on our plate.
As for animal welfare, many creatures are reared and slaughtered in cruel conditions, with many such animals never seeing the natural light of day. Many health professionals now recognise that a meat-centred diet contributes to many of the serious diseases afflicting modern society. George Bernard Shaw, a lifelong vegetarian, described this as mankind digging their own graves with their knives and forks.
If Ms Kennedy has been bred and sustained on a diet of meat all her life, it is understandable that when she abstains for a week that she will have cravings, much as the abstainer from alcohol, cigarettes or sugar does. And so it is that she goes for a steak. If she tried for a little longer she might acquire a higher taste.
As a thinking journalist she might also consider some of the issues touched upon above, which underpin the substance on the end of her fork (the flesh of a dead bullock), before she puts it in her mouth. This will take courage. – Yours, etc,
GABRIEL TOOLAN,
Ballinamore,
Co Leitrim.