I’m not sure if it’s the poverty, the fear of mad cow or just a refusal to eat a bird that has been left hanging for several weeks in a larder (wood pigeon) but James and I (my instigation) have reduced our meat intake by around 90%.

And that’s not an exaggeration.

Part of it is clearly that we arrived in late summer -when everything is being harvested- and I got to have a crack at a bunch of new ingredients as well as some old favourites that taste completely different here.

And yet… And still…

These are just a few of the parts. They don’t add up to the whole.

If you’ve known me for long enough you know I’ve gone vegetarian a couple of times -and each time lasted at least 18 months.

Back then it was for spiritual reasons. I view spiritual reasons as far more valid than ‘ethical’ reasons (specifically the belief that it is unreasonable for any animals to have to die as part of a human’s caloric intake).

In fact I don’t even think ‘ethical’ reasons are even remotely valid. It’s just the same as saying “little baby jesus doesn’t want me to eat meat” but trying to dress it up as somehow scientific. It’s not scientific.  It is still making preposterous and unsubstantiated truth claims without having the bollocks to say “yes, I recognise my fluffy beliefs are silly but I am hoping the Flying Spaghetti Monster will forgive me.”

Ethical reasons are the Intelligent Design (just read the first quote) theories of the critical vegetarian debate.

At the moment the compulsions are different. Going vegetarian for spiritual reasons is like being hurried down a hallway by a sudden crowd of security guards.

You’re standing there chatting -thoughtfully taking on board a few new ideas- and then BAM! You’re buying expensive fake-on (say it out loud. It’s the nineties sitcom way of saying ‘mock bacon’) and serving an endless slugefall of ubiquitous brown mush before you’ve even had a chance to catch your breath.

These compulsions have more to do with utter disinterest.

I just can’t even pick up a meat tray in a supermarket without hallucinating all that carbon dripping down my wrist and ruining my Primark shirt.

Living somewhere like London after living for five years in NZ -where you can drive half an hour from central Auckland and see where some of your livestock comes from- makes you acutely aware of just what it takes to get fresh dead animal to this many people.

Honestly, it gives me nightmares.

As a result I am actively -and drastically- reducing the amount of meat we consume in the same way I am actively not using shopping bags, stealing SUVs and driving them to Vienna, etc.

And this way there’s no sense of loss or hardship.

For me, the trick is to say that whilst you will cook almost exclusively meat-free food at home you are willing to accept that seafood or chicken could be an ingredient in a meal you eat out.

You just don’t choose Alaskan King Crab, Swordfish, Dolphin, Unicorn or Yeti.

Alternatively you could just give up meat entirely for environmental reasons. Environmental reasons are perfectly valid. They’re based on sound science.

If you’re wondering, this post came about because exactly two people asked why the last poverty meal recipe was vegetarian.

There will be more. Many more.