Sue Daniels is the fourth generation of vegetarians in her family. For her, vegetarianism is a question of principle. “I don’t believe it is right to kill animals for food.”

Not eating meat has never been a major problem. At school at St John’s Clarendon Park, there were other vegetarian families. “We tended to be given Yorkshire pudding or cheese flan for school dinners. The flans were good – the other children quite often asked for them in preference to meat dishes.

“When I moved to secondary school, we took sandwiches, but eating out was more difficult than it is now – mostly all you were offered was an omelette. Nowadays, pubs and restaurants cater far more for vegetarians, and most have at least one vegetarian dish on the menu – at one local pub, they even have regular vegetarian evenings.

“It is also much easier to shop, as labelling is much better now in supermarkets, where there are more ranges of vegetarian foods, and of course more substitutes such as tofu, soya products, and so on have been developed. Did you know, for example, that all biscuits are now suitable for vegetarians, and bourbon biscuits are even ok for vegans.!" says Sue, who has been a vegan herself for 10 years now.

Five years ago she initiated informal meetings with other vegetarians. Word got round, and now she has formed the Leicestershire Vegetarian and Vegan Society, which has 30 members, and meets regularly at the Friends Meeting House in Queens Road, Leicester.

"We have cookery demonstrations, speakers, food samplings and we have even formed our own dining club. We had an excellent vegan meal for our Christmas dinner, we shall have a stall at the Green Fair in Leicester on May 21, and special events for Vegetarian Week, which is from May 23 – 29."

Vegans are vegetarians who don’t eat either dairy produce or eggs. Surely, I ventured, this makes cooking rather boring?

“Absolutely not," was Sue’s emphatic reply, as she produced a number of impressive vegetarian cookbooks for me to inspect, plus recipe leaflets produced by vegetarian bodies.

“There are so many more products available now. Tofu is wonderful stuff – you can even make mayonnaise with it, and the smoked variety is really tasty. Soya products are versatile too – the mince is great for Bolognese sauce, or shepherds pie, and it is high in protein and very low in fat. Quorn is marvellous because you can do so much with it, I use egg replacer for baking, and there are lots of non-dairy cheeses available too. On the whole vegetarian cooking is simple and good for you.

“I use pulses and nuts a lot, and I do a good deal of juicing. I’ve always enjoyed cooking, and it is fun adapting recipes as well as making up my own. They go down just as well with meat eating friends as they do with vegetarians and vegans, because they are tasty as well as healthy".