Contentious issue: Jodie March poses for PETA to promote vegetarianism

Christians have been asked to opt for a vegetarian diet throughout Lent. But increasing numbers are seeing it as a life-choice, as Christine Miles discovered

TEN YEARS AGO, the organisation now called Veg4Lent wrote to Anglican and Roman Catholic clergy around the country to ask whether they and their congregations would consider undertaking a vegetarian diet as part of their response to Lent.

Veg4Lent had a long religious tradition to appeal to: it reflects the centuries-old tradition of abstaining from meat in the 40 days before Easter Sunday. In countries where Shrove Tuesday is known as Carnival — Italian: Carnevale — the name itself derives from the Latin for "meat" and "putting away".

For the tenth year running, Veg4Lent is now asking Christians of all denominations to think about a vegetarian diet during Lent again, as a way of identifying with not only Christ’s suffering, but that of creation.

For an increasing number of Christians, however, vegetarianism is an issue of conscience for life. Reflecting this growing interest, the Christian Vegetarian Assocation UK (CVAUK) — which supports Veg4Lent — was formed 15 months ago. (There is no equivalent vegan association.)

The association’s aim is to promote the care of all God’s creation through the adoption of a vegetarian diet and avoidance of animal-based products. It also endeavours to alert the Church to the contribution a vegetarian diet can make towards human health and world stability — through its contribution to the environmental agenda and poverty reduction.

"It’s been very difficult to get the issue of vegetarianism talked about seriously in the Church, and we get very little support," says Don Gwillim, spokesman for CVAUK.

It is a position that does not wholly surprise him. "Within Christianity there have often been radical individuals who have pushed for change, but it’s often not the Church as a whole that is radical. The greatest movements have, when they first began, often not had the backing of the wider Church. That includes people like Martin Luther King and Wilberforce."

The Church of England’s policy adviser on the environment, Claire Foster, says that, to date, the Church has not done any work on considering diet as part of the environmental agenda; but this may change. "Vegetarians have often been seen as a bit cranky or come across as a bit cranky, as if they’re making a big deal out of it, but actually they’re right. Some people have become vegetarians because it is such an inefficient way to get protein to eat meat; so maybe we’ll see more of this."

This inefficiency in sustainability certainly contributed to the Bishop of London’s recent decision to become vegetarian, she says.

Mrs Foster is in sympathy with the biologist Dr Colin Tudge, author of How to Feed the World. "His argument is that the best land should be given to growing crops, and that your diet should be much less animal-based," she says.

"He doesn’t come from an ethical view that it’s wrong to eat animals, but argues that there’s an environmental value in cutting down on meat-eating. It would be my view, as policy adviser, that if we’re not for vegetarianism, then we should consider cutting down on eating meat."

Studies of the volume of grain per kilo needed to produce a kilo of beef differ, depending on methods of meat-production and feed. "What is certain [however] is that meat is a wasteful method of producing protein," says Tina Fox, chief executive of the Vegetarian Society.

"It’s not just the issue of grain; in general, meat production uses a lot more water. There have been studies showing one of the major environmental crises we are going to be facing concerns water shortages."

In addition, slurry contributes to pollution, as well as global warming, says Ms Fox. It is also well documented that beef production has contributed to deforestation in parts of the world.

"I don’t think the association between vegetarianism and the environment has clicked home," says Mr Gwillim. "At the moment it’s not considered a vital part of the environmental agenda. It’s not the whole answer, but it may be part of the answer. People must be prepared to make sacrifices in their lifestyle to help sustain the world."

The Bishop of Ely, Dr Anthony Russell, a former president of the Royal Agricultural Society, says that the issue is more complex, and that livestock contribute to a balanced farming industry.

"Across the world, there have always been some wholly vegetarian diets and some wholly livestock diets, such as Eskimos. The vast majority of farming practice is mixed farming, whereby animals eat low-grade vegetable matter and turn it into high-grade protein. In so doing, they are often consuming vegetable matter that humans cannot consume, and are fertilising the ground.

"The reason we have a mixed farming industry in this country is because the best thing we produce is grass. Grass has to be processed, and that’s what animals do, turning it into various products. Large parts of this country would not be able to be farmed if we were only producing crops; and humans don’t eat grass."

He attributes a diet over-rich in livestock as being a more pertinent issue in relation to environmental and poverty concerns.

"If you’re feeding livestock high-grade vegetable protein, that could be a problem, but most beef in this country is mainly grass-fed. What is going to cause food scarcity in the world is that more and more countries that used to consume relatively little meat are moving to an American or European-type diet."

CVAUK advocates vegetarianism on a much broader ticket, however. The Western diet is increasingly leading to obesity and other health problems, including heart disease and cancer. "The vegetarian diet is good for you. When God created us, he gave us the best diet. Societies that are vegetarian are generally considered to be healther."

Diets rich in red or processed meat pose a particular health risk, says the World Health Organisation. Research undertaken by the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research, and the WHO concluded last year that eating red or processed meat twice a day increased the risk of bowel cancer by 35 per cent (compared with a diet of less than one portion per week). A diet rich in fish decreased the risk.

Increased consumption of meat reflects not only growing prosperity, but the impact of intensive farming, which has driven prices lower and lower. "We’re just crazy on meat these days. Before the war, I remember it was meat on a Sunday and leftovers on a Monday. The rest of the week, we hardly ate meat, except sausages, perhaps. During the war, when meat was very scarce, I’ve heard that the country was the healthiest it has ever been," says Mr Gwillim.

Intensive farming causes concern among animal-welfare organisations within and beyond the Church of England. Routes to vegetarianism and theological views vary, but there is a common dismay at what is regarded as the abuse of human dominion over animals.

Historically, food production has been an issue of conscience for many Christians. Ms Fox acknowledges that a number of the clergy were involved in the formation of the Vegetarian Society in 1847. The Soil Association’s first president, Lady Eve Balfour, was a devout Christian.

On the issue of creation, the Lambeth Conference in 1998 stated: "The divine spirit is sacramentally present in creation, which is therefore to be treated with reverence, respect and gratitude; human beings are both co-partners with the rest of creation and living bridges between heaven and earth, with responsibility to make personal and corporate sacrifices for the common good of all creation; the redemptive purpose of God in Jesus Christ extends to the whole of creation."

"That was eight years ago, but the local church still hasn’t done much about it," says Mr Gwillim, who is an Anglican.

Four years ago, the Anglican Society for Welfare to Animals launched Animal Welfare Sunday. Samantha Chandler, a spokeswoman for the society, considers this to be a giant step forward in acknowledging the treatment of animals.

But she suggests that the Church still lags behind much of society in its care for animals — a paradox, she says, given Christianity’s God-given mandate to care for the creation. She is keen to get animals recognised as "beings that are worthy of being treated properly and with compassion rather than as instruments and machines that are there solely for our purpose.

"We would like to see an acknowledgement that animal welfare is a Christian issue; that the suffering of animals is an important issue worthy of consideration."

The Revd Professor Andrew Linzey, senior research fellow in ethics, theology, and animal welfare at the University of Oxford, and honorary professor of theology at the University of Birmingham, acknowledges the ecological aspect of vegetarianism, but does not stop there.

"We grow soya beans in Third World countries to feed First World animals. If you take a notion of stewardship seriously, then animal protein is one of the least efficient; but I think the issue of animal welfare is about suffering.

"Anglicans haven’t begun to see animals as a moral issue. And the environmental agenda hasn’t mentioned animal welfare.

"People like to address the vegetarian perspective for planetary reasons or on a justice-to-human-beings angle, which is not wrong, but they’re not really the central issue. The issue is that we kill animals for food when we don’t have to, and we inflict levels of suffering that we don’t have to," he says.

"When you can live without violence, there is a prima facie basis for doing so. It may have been an issue of necessity for Jesus to eat fish in first-century Palestine, as it may be for Eskimos to eat fish today — it’s not an absolutist argument. It’s a bit like fur coats: it may have been absolutely essential for survival a couple of hundred years ago, but it’s not essential now to wear fur coats."

Christian Ecology Link members are not absolutists, either, and they stop short of advocating a vegetarian or vegan diet for everyone. Nevertheless, they urge people to respond to the environmental damage being caused by meat production. At the very least, they say, food should be "Locally produced, Organically grown, Animal-friendly, and Fairly traded" (LOAF).

Their message to Christians is straightforward: use your LOAF.

CVAUK: visit www.christianvege tarian.co.uk. For advice about undertaking a vegetarian-based diet during Lent, see the Vegetarian Society’s recipe bank at www.vegsoc.org/cordonvert/recipes/index.html.