‘I gave up being a vegetarian and started eating meat again – to save the planet’ When food writer Clare Finney looked into the environmental impact of the meat industry, the findings challenged all of her preconceptions Clare Finney had turned her back on eating meat when she was a child Credit: Andrew Crowley I’ve been a vegetarian since I was 12, but while I’ve come close to renouncing my vegetarianism on several occasions, I chickened out because taking up meat at a time when the tide was turning towards vegetarianism felt counter-intuitive. In the past year, some 500,000 Britons have moved to “plant-based” diets, many citing eco reasons for doing so. As a vegetarian of some 20 years’ standing, admittedly it was only in the past decade that I’d pinned my dietary preferences to the planet. But for a girl who’d spent her school years clad in Cotton Traders and playing the bassoon, to feel ahead of the game was a seductive experience.