I can feel it in my bones

Back when I was a young thing, being a vegetarian was part-and-parcel of a slightly alternative, leftie lifestyle that probably also included protesting at Greenham Common and throwing paint at women wearing fur coats. I don't think I knew what a vegan was until the mid-80s (although the term has been in existence since the 1940s) when a friend of mine announced she'd "gone vegan". I remember thinking that not being able to eat any dairy products was tantamount to torture, and that refusing to eat honey was simply a bit batty.

As the 80s rolled into the 90s and I was working in London, I'd occasionally saunter off to Neal's Yard or Cranks and gobble up a plastic (hmmm) takeaway dish of something healthy. These occasions, it has to be said, usually followed a night of over-indulgence, of which there were many in those days.

I'm not sure whether I paid for this book or whether it's something my flatmate left behind. But I still have it. Sarah Brown was, I believe, the first vegetarian cook to be let loose with her own TV show.

Fast-forward 30 years and I must say that I probably hear or read the word "vegan" about four times as often as the word "vegetarian". To say it's gone mainstream is an understatement. In this article - which is already a year old - we read that a quarter of 18 - 24s in Europe have gone vegan in the last year.

The "why?" behind all this must be the direct link that is now understood between diet and sustainability. The 1980s vegetarians rarely mentioned the connection. Sarah Brown's cookbook stresses the healthiness (for the individual) and cost benefits (also to the individual) as well as the "deliciousness" of a vegetarian diet. Many vegetarians at the time would cite cruelty of meat-farming methods as well as the health benefit, but these arguments could usually be brushed aside by anyone not keen to have a nut-roast forced upon them.

With figures such as these, individual diet and responsibility for protecting the planet go hand-in-hand:

And the mainstream are already on the case:

My view is that this is going to move quickly. I foresee a not-too-distant future where meat-eating is consigned to a collection of decadent, shameful, unjustifiable crimes including smoking, drinking, driving a car, watching 1970s comedy shows and taking a flight.

I can feel it in my bones.