I shall start by saying that I’ve been there, I’ve been deceived – I used to follow a vegetarian diet.

I chose my words there with care; vegetarianism is a diet and the significance of this will, I hope, become clear as you read on. Until I found out about veganism, I had a nagging but unexamined notion that my consumption of eggs and dairy had to be done in an ethical manner, so I always chose ‘organic’ and ‘free-range’.  Looking back, it will always mystify me why I was able to recognise the moral significance of my victims to the extent that I realised the need to try to reduce their suffering, but I was somehow incapable of doing the tiny amount of research that it eventually took in this age of Google to realise that:

• contrary to what many believe, all ‘products’ derived from the bodies of sentient creatures result in…