EnvironMeg

In truth, my decision to become a flexitarian didn't stem from environmental or ethical beliefs. In my first week at uni, I'd turn up for dinner, peruse the copious counters and discover that the meaty and carby options weren't really floating my boat. Of course, I would happily eat the delicious jacket spud with beans and cheese every night of the week if my health conscious compass didn't loiter around north. As Atticus Finch rightly put it, we can't always have our druthers.

 

University is about meeting new people and trying new things. So as the weeks went by, I made a new acquaintance in the form of Green & Go. It has always sounded like a spinach based health drink to me, but hey, I had found my happy hunger-busting habitat. The goulash, the casserole, the curry, all suspiciously similar give or take a few spices and all containing what I soon realised were seasonal staples : sweet potato and butternut squash. Oh how I loved those orange vegetables.

​

Missing meat? Not really. I occasionally fantasised about my mum's legendary chilli con carne, but since that was 70 miles away, it was a dream put to the back of my mind. The weekends were a little different however. Scanning the brunch menu in the town centre, my eyes would be drawn to the sausage sandwich, the full English. I became Pavlov's dog where bacon butties were concerned. By this point I had attended my first few weeks of lectures and realised that actually, not eating meat wasn't such a bad idea. Now I had my environmentally conscious compass to contend with.

 

I had always laughed at the 'What goes into a McDonald's burger?' ads, unaware that another culinary catastrophe was right under my nose. My mother's chilli con carne. Fear not, I am not about to berate the home cooking I had craved. It remains my mother's pièce de résistance and my dying man's meal. But what goes into a chunk of beef? The production of one kilogram of beef requires over 15,000 litres of water.  It's not just the meat processing we need to think about, it's the prologue to this meaty mystery. Think of the water needed to grow the grain to feed a cow.

​

I stood at a crossroads. I didn't want to become one of those people who went to uni and changed who they were . I was known to stand over the slow cooker pot with a spoon at the end of a meaty meal. But would it really be that bad? Give up the meat and save the environment. Okay, maybe a tad of hyperbole. I'm not superwoman so let me rephrase: do my bit towards helping the environment? I felt like a hypocrite. I was writing notes on the advantages of veggie-ness with the taste of a sausage sarnie still lingering on my tongue. It was time to take action. I am never going to be the oak of the eco-eaters. But I can be the willow, a flexitarian. I do meat free weekdays and meat-loving weekends. I live a double life. I have my weekdays in the city and my place in the Hamptons. I have my brunch and eat it. I make meat a treat!

​

​