I haven’t felt so apprehensive in quite a while, but as I wheel my case out through the deserted customs lobby and into the arrivals area of Heathrow Terminal 4 it turns out that my fears were unfounded.

Time flies when you’re turning your entire life on its head.

So here I am, 348 days after I first arrived dazed and jetlagged at SFO, about to head back to London for the first time in nearly a year.

Blimey.

So after the extensive preamble of the last 3 posts we get to the heart of the matter – my actual plan for experimenting with a meat-free lifestyle.

At the centre of this plan is my “Meat List” – quite simply a list of all the meat-based dishes that I really like; the things I might miss if I turn my back on a carnivorous lifestyle forever.

Bloody hippies.

That might seem like a strange sentiment given the content of this blog so far but here’s the thing: I’m not really a hippy; probably more of a pragmatic idealist. I know how I’d like the world to be, but I understand that it’s unlikely and I prefer focussing on what I can do right here and right now, rather than on the general state of humanity.

The problem with your real “I’m a world-changer me” nutters is that they pursue their beliefs about wrong and right with an almost religious fervour, thrusting leaflets into your face at Muni entrances and preaching every-which-where about the dangers of capitalism.

“Could you become a vegetarian?”

It’s a topic of conversation which has come up with friends from time to time over the years, especially, say, in the middle of a steak dinner. And my answer has always been “no”, followed by various reasons (not quite excuses, but close) for that being the case.

But I’ve been examining some of those reasons recently.

It’s been a recurring theme for me this year that 90% of the meat I eat is horrible, horrible crap.

Factory farmed, treated with anti-biotics and growth hormones, it’s not even really meat. And when it’s added to a pasta sauce or risotto, made up into a stew, minced into flash-fried burgers  or roughly cubed and wrapped in tortillas, it becomes little more than “generic protein” – something to bulk up a meal without adding anything much in the way of flavour and texture.