Thinking about changing your diet?
Tamsin, our group's treasurer, tells her story about why and how she became vegetarian & vegan...

I remember thinking as a child that it was wrong to eat animals but I didn’t realise I had a choice. One day when I was 11 or 12 it just dawned on me that I did have a choice and I realised that if I became vegetarian then I would be able to have salad every day at school (we’re talking early 80s here, not very culinary advanced in schools!)

As I got into my twenties I began finding out more about the egg and milk industries and felt I was being a bit hypocritical. It took Juliet Gellatley’s book The Silent Ark to finally make me take the step to veganism. My sister joined me, we set the date, pigged out on pizza and chocolate until we felt sick and on 1st January 1997 we became vegan.

Our brother used to ask the typical questions and make veggie-bashing comments. I leant him The Silent Ark and suggested that he read it and then come back to us with his questions. He read it and became a vegetarian. The power of a book!

The difference is that my sister and I became veggie, and then vegan, for the animals. Our brother is veggie for his health and the planet. The Silent Ark covers every reason for becoming vegetarian and although it didn’t convert my grandmother, it answers all the questions and makes all the connections that many meat-eaters just don’t manage to make on their own. Ten years on the facts and figures are probably a little out of date but it remains an emotional, hard-hitting, powerful and personal story from an inspirational campaigner.