Thinking about changing your diet?
Cheryl Colpman tells her story about why and how she became vegetarian...

When I was about 13 I was at the cinema (this was the early 1980’s when there was still a mini-film shown prior to the main one) and the mini-film was about the transportation of cattle necessary for the meat trade. It horrified me and (probably for the first time) I started to think about what was involved in farming and the production of meat. I was shocked but didn’t give up meat straight away – I think I couldn’t quite believe that the process of getting meat on the table could really be as bad as they said. I found out more from Animal Aid (leaflets in town I think) and sent off for info too. It confirmed how bad the meat industry is. It disturbed me so much I couldn’t read all the leaflets in one go – I’d read one every now and then, it turned my stomach so much.

I began by just not eating the meat Mum served up and eating the rest (didn’t take her long to notice this). I told her I didn’t want to eat it any more and why. She didn’t know what to feed me (a lentil had never passed our doorstep before) so I went on having the same food (with Oxo gravy) without the meat and a piece of cheese for protein. (I still ate chicken because I didn’t imaging chickens being crammed into trucks for transportation) I got fed up with this (Red Leicester doesn’t really go with gravy) and the following Christmas (by then I was 14) I got a vegetarian cookbook. I cooked vats of lentil and tomato soup which everyone enjoyed and then Mum started to make some of the main dishes. Dad was pleased because he’d always been interested in the Macrobiotic philosophy (which is mainly vegan). Eventually I gave up chicken too as I read more about factory farming. It was probably a year later that I realized that biscuits sometimes contained animal fat so started to always check labels.

Grandma accepted my choice, even when it meant no roast chicken on her Sunday visit to us but continued to offer me Heinz oxtail soup when I visited her – “there’s no meat in that!” – a typical meat-eaters misunderstanding of what vegetarian means!!

The more I told my parents about it the less they ate meat. They became demi-vegetarian shortly after. I ate my last tuna sandwich at Leicester train station as I waited for a train to go and visit my friend when I realised I’d have to take pack-up everywhere if I didn’t want to starve. I ate a lot of cheese sandwiches on that visit.

It was probably 2 or 3 years later that I thought about what goes into toiletries – a quiz on Radio 1 asked “what household product is made of 90% animal fat” I was mortified when the correct answer was SOAP!! I’d stopped eating it but rubbed it all over me every morning!! Fortunately I discovered Superdrug did nice vegetable soap which I made us all use after that!