Co-Founder Ed Looks Back on Meat Free May

Meat Free May is done. So what have I learned by going veggie for a month?

Well, it reminded me that I’m not very good at thinking things through. When it comes to deciding on new or improved recipes at COOK, the buck has to stop somewhere … and it stops with me. The trusted members of the taste panel play an important role, of course, but I make the final call on each particular dish. Every week I go to at least two tastings of all the dishes in development. I had naively thought that during Meat Free May I could just try the sauces of the various Christmas dishes currently in development but, after the first two tastings, I realised this was going to lead to some bad decisions. If you are developing an extravagant duck pie, it’s kind of important to try the bit that quacked.

That is a rather long-winded way of saying that my Meat Free May hasn’t exactly been entirely free of meat. However, outside of tasting meetings, I’ve been clean apart from one indiscretion: after our recent supplier conference we were having a few drinks and I scoffed a few of our sausage canapes before remembering they were off-limits.

Oh, and there was also one moment of weakness in a Thai restaurant. I just had to try their Larb Gai – basically minced chicken and toasted sticky rice (which was great). Actually, mea culpa … as I write I’ve remembered that seven-course tasting menu in a rather fine restaurant in Barcelona, which I mentioned in my last blog post. My host had told the restaurant that I would be eating veggie but the message hadn’t got through. Rather than skip a meal, I did the honourable thing.

I realise that seems like rather a lot of indiscretions over the course of a month, but without a doubt I’ve eaten far more vegetarian food than ever before. And, genuinely, I have thoroughly enjoyed it. To get the obvious plug out of the way, I have eaten every COOK veggie meal at least once and enjoyed each one; my personal favourite is the Vegetable & Chickpea Tagine, although the new Veggie Cottage Pie runs it very close. My wife Sophie is a great cook and she has been experimenting with various things, all of which have been delicious, the highlight being some cauliflower fritters. I haven’t lost any weight, as I’ve eaten more bread and cheese than usual (and beer!), but at least I’ve been more regular (too much information?).

Now my vegetarian-ish month is over, I’ll go back to eating meat. But there’s no doubt the experience has made me more aware of what I eat. Our choices have an impact of the world’s resources and occasionally swapping to a veggie option really does make a difference (to see just how much of a difference, check out this online calculator). So I fully intend to go meat free more often. And, with my COOK hat on, I can promise we’ll be doing more to promote the flexitarian diet for the long term. I’m particularly taken by the idea of Meat Free Mondays…even if that is the same day of our weekly development tasting.

I’d like to encourage my fellow carnivores to swap to a veggie option now and again. It’s really not a big deal. I might even have another go next May. While it’s not entirely compatible with my job, I found it had real benefits and was definitely better than Dry January. Now that really is rubbish.