Exploring What We’ve Been Missing
I never truly understood this question. Not really. The answer seems so obvious: everything else. Asking “Then what?” only reveals an incredible lack of imagination from the person asking it. Or, at least, that’s what I thought.
After two decades in the restaurant industry as a chef in London, I made the professional transition from cooking a lot of meat, fish, and everything in between to focusing solely on vegetarian and plant-based food. Having worked in mostly French and Italian restaurants—facing some of the toughest kitchens and pickiest customers in the world—my understanding matured significantly. In fact, I can say I’ve evolved, and hopefully, I’m still evolving.
Where Your Imagination Comes In
To answer the question, “If not meat, then what?” you’ll need a fair amount of imagination. There’s simply so much you can have instead of meat. If you think you possess a full measure of imagination, feel free to stop reading now. Save yourself some time and go cook something interesting.
However, if you need help in the imagination department, stick around. I must warn you, though: I might upset you, just a little. Let’s have some fun.
Math Doesn’t Care About Your Opinion
Before we begin to address the what (what to eat), we must first address the why (why change). Whatever place you come from in this life, whatever political ideology you’ve been abused by, one thing we must agree: math doesn’t lie. And here’s the math: we have a limited amount of space and an ever-increasing number of people to feed from a dwindling quantity of resources.
To understand that you don’t need a political, religious, or philosophical understanding of anything. This is just simple, basic math. Once you run out of space, there’s nowhere to go. That simple.
If you approach life through a faith lens, you believe God created this planet and yourself—so respecting creation should be your best way to honour your Creator. The way I see it, environmental stewardship should be a form of worship. If you’re philosophically committed to veganism for animal welfare reasons, I find that moral stance the most noble. Or perhaps you came to this for health concerns—equally valid.
Five Compelling Reasons
Here are the five main reasons to avoid meat or drastically reduce meat consumption. Take your pick:
Environmental Impact: Animal agriculture accounts for roughly 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, uses about 70% of agricultural land globally, and is a major driver of deforestation. Livestock production requires significantly more water per calorie than plant-based foods—it takes roughly 1,800 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef versus 39 gallons for a pound of vegetables.
Resource Efficiency: It takes about 16 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of beef. In a world where nearly a billion people are undernourished, this conversion ratio raises serious questions about food system efficiency and global food security.
Health Considerations: High consumption of processed meats is linked to increased risk of colorectal cancer, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes according to multiple large-scale studies. However, this applies more to processed meats than all meat consumption.
Antibiotic Resistance: About 70% of antibiotics globally are used in livestock, contributing to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that pose public health risks.
Animal Welfare: Industrial farming practices often involve confinement systems and practices that many consider ethically problematic.
The reasons to eat less meat for more vegetables and/or completely change our farming practices are strikingly abundant. One has to make a concerted effort to twist logic and ignore math to argue otherwise. Consequently, I believe we have good grounds to proceed.
You’re Not the Carnivore You May Think You Are (And Here’s Proof)
Let’s get one thing straight: we’re apes. Monkeys, to be more demeaning about it, because we’re apes who think far too much of ourselves. What do apes eat? Mainly fruits, leaves, and the odd insect. Once in a blue moon, a chimpanzee might eat another monkey. We’re no different.
So it’s laughable when someone declares “I am a carnivore.” I actually have guests coming in to my vegetarian restaurant and saying that to my face before ordering. Sorry to say this, but it’s almost always a bloke. Here’s a simple test: Go to your local shop, buy a pound of fresh chicken breast, cut it into cubes, and give a piece to your cat or dog. They’ll eat it gladly, voraciously.
Now it’s your turn. Take a cube of that fresh chicken breast and eat it. Raw, fresh, uncooked, just like your dog did. Could you? That “yucky” feeling you’re having right now? That almost repulsive reaction to the thought of eating raw chicken? That’s your evidence. You’re not a carnivore.
Our Scavenger Past
Here’s where it gets even better for deflating that macho “carnivore” identity: For 2.6 million years, humans have been eating meat. But we only developed proper hunting technology some 500,000 years ago. We were scavengers. Not the romanticised version either—we were the cleanup crew, picking through leftovers that real carnivores left behind, cracking open bones for scraps of marrow, nibbling on whatever remained after lions and hyenas had their fill.
According to research published by the Smithsonian Institution, the earliest archaeological evidence of human meat consumption comes from 2.6 million years ago at Gona, Ethiopia—and it’s all cut marks on bones from scavenged carcasses. By 1.8 million years ago at Olduvai Gorge, humans were scavenging everything from hedgehogs to elephants. Our ancestors even took to the water, scavenging turtles, crocodiles, and fish by 1.95 million years ago.
The Truth About Our “Hunting” Heritage
That means for over 2 million years—the vast majority of our meat-eating history—we weren’t mighty hunters stalking prey across the savanna.
Our commitment to scavenging even led us to evolve digestive adaptations allowing us to handle carrion—something our closest relatives, chimpanzees, cannot do efficiently. Sometimes humans got bold and practiced “confrontational scavenging”—chasing other predators away from their kills to steal their leftovers.
Picture your ancestors: not noble hunters, but opportunistic bullies stealing lunch money from actual predators. In the early days of our experimentation with meat, humans ate very little of it because they couldn’t really hunt. Significant meat consumption only started around 300,000 years ago when our species got very good at it, but still, meat was only part of a human diet.
The caveman you think you are ate much less meat than a modern human. They also lived much shorter lives. It was only with the invention of cooking techniques that we truly began to eat more meat.
Our digestive tract, like that of our ape cousins, is ill-equipped to efficiently process the complex structures in raw meat. Humans only managed to incorporate significant amounts of meat into our diet with the invention of cooking, which predigests those structures for us. This happened only recently in the grand scheme of our Homo sapiens lineage, alongside the start of farming.
So next time someone beats their chest about being a “carnivore,” remind them: You’re descended from opportunistic scavengers who spent millions of years eating table scraps from actual carnivores. How’s that for your primal identity?
Why Vegetables Are So Boring
Here’s the big one, and I’ll give you the rude answer because there’s no polite one: vegetables are boring because you don’t know what to do with them. And your taste buds are compromised by the excess of salt, sugar and other substances found in all ultra-processed foods. Taste buds are like your fingers. Depending on what you do with them, they lose their sensitivity and ability to feel.
Compare the hands of a coal miner to someone who’s never done manual labor. The miner’s hands are damaged, callused, so rough they can barely feel anything. The other person’s hands remain soft, sensitive to the slightest touch.
Similarly, the taste buds of someone who generally eats ultra processed food are like the miner’s hands. By consuming junk they lose the ability to feel any delicate flavours and nuances in taste. And they’ve done this to themselves willingly, which makes it even more tragic.
Unfortunately, most vegan foods available today are ultra-processed junk. A lot of my vegan friends have lost their ability to feel any flavours at all, except for sugar and salt. Here’s the problem: if your taste buds are shot, how are you supposed to appreciate delicate vegetable flavours? You’re stuck in a vicious cycle. The very system that’s supposed to help you enjoy food has been hijacked by the processed food industry.
The Escape Plan
But here’s the thing—if your palate is damaged, you can’t start with subtle flavours. You need to begin with vegetables that can punch through your dulled senses. Roasted root vegetables with their caramelised edges. Charred peppers. Garlic that’s been roasted until it’s sweet and nutty. These aren’t delicate—they’re bold enough to register on your compromised taste buds.
The escape plan is simple but requires patience. First, stop eating processed food. Period. No exceptions, no “just this once.” Then start cooking vegetables with strong, simple preparations—roasting, grilling, sautéing with good olive oil and salt. After about three weeks of this, you’ll notice something remarkable: flavours you couldn’t detect before start emerging.
Addressing the Counter-Arguments
The Nutritional Completeness Argument
Critics often claim that a fully plant-based diet can’t provide complete nutrition, particularly B12, certain omega-3s, and bioavailable iron and zinc. This argument looks strong on the surface but falls apart under scrutiny.
First, technology solves most of this. B12 supplementation is trivial and cheap. Many plant milks, cereals, and nutritional yeast are already fortified. Algae-based omega-3 supplements exist. This isn’t some futuristic fantasy—these are readily available now.
Second, vegetarianism (including eggs and dairy) addresses most concerns without needing to go fully vegan. The environmental and ethical benefits of vegetarianism versus omnivorism are still massive. Eggs provide B12, choline, and highly bioavailable protein. Dairy provides B12, calcium, and complete protein. You get 90% of the benefits without the nutritional complexity of strict veganism.
Third, the framing here is key: the goal is to “curb, control or descale” production, not necessarily achieve 100% elimination for everyone. Even if some populations need to maintain some animal product consumption for nutritional reasons, a massive reduction in meat consumption would still achieve the environmental and resource goals. Perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of good.
So the nutritional completeness critique is overstated on multiple fronts. The technology exists, vegetarianism solves most of it anyway, and the goal is reduction, not absolute elimination, as that would be a pipe dream.
The Affordability Argument
The next argument often used for the defence of the status quo is probably the silliest one thus far: affordability. When I say farmers market, the critics picture some idyllic countryside farmers market. But most supermarkets now have local produce sections. Even regular grocery stores stock plenty of vegetables. It’s not some exotic quest.
Vegetables – especially seasonal, local ones – are often cheaper than meat, not more expensive. A bag of carrots, potatoes, or seasonal greens costs far less than equivalent calories from meat. The “can’t afford vegetables” complaint often comes from people comparing premium organic produce to factory-farmed chicken, which isn’t a fair comparison.
Here’s the strongest point: Market dynamics. Waiting for perfect infrastructure before changing behavior is backwards. Markets respond to demand. If people start buying more local produce, stores stock more of it, farmers grow more of it, prices come down further, distribution improves. You can’t expect the supply chain to transform before demand shifts – that’s not how markets work.
However, one could push back slightly: there are genuine food deserts and people with severe time poverty (multiple jobs, no kitchen access) for whom this advice isn’t practical. But – and this is my real point – these edge cases shouldn’t be used by comfortable middle-class people as an excuse not to change.
Me saying “stop being lazy” is harsh but probably accurate for the majority of people who’ll read this text. If you can afford to eat at restaurants and have internet access to read blog posts, you can probably access and afford vegetables.
The market dynamics argument especially should be enough to convince anyone rational. Your behaviour change enables someone else’s accessibility.
The Geographic Variation Argument
The last counter-argument I’ll tackle—I could go on, but then this article would grow too long. I’ll call this the Geographic Variation Argument: It’s claimed that climate and soil conditions mean some regions are better suited to animal agriculture than crop production. Some places are naturally better for animals, so we should keep raising animals there.
I’ll show 4 bullet points to demonstrate how this argument is backwards:
Animals need to eat too: If a region can’t grow crops efficiently, where does the animal feed come from? You’re just outsourcing the problem. Iceland imports animal feed – so the geographic unsuitability argument defeats itself. You’ll end up importing soy to feed your livestock. Which is in fact even more idiotic.
Technology already exists: We can solve most geographic variation issues. Take Iceland – they’re growing tomatoes using geothermal energy in a country literally named “land of ice.” Israel is growing strawberries in the desert using desalination and advanced irrigation. Spain is now producing avocados. We’re not waiting for future breakthroughs. These solutions are operational now.
It’s a cost/will problem, not a capability problem: Just like I said – it gets cheaper at scale. Solar panels were expensive; now they’re the cheapest energy source in many regions.
It’s defending the status quo: They are essentially arguing “keep doing what we’re doing because change is hard” – exactly the kind of lack of imagination I am criticising.
In short, the geographic variation argument is just defeatism dressed up as pragmatism.
The Real Solution
The solution is simple: we must stop being lazy. Go to the local farmers market, buy some locally produced vegetables, go home, and cook. If you want to treat yourself, go to a restaurant that does this for you.
Eliminate junk food—it’s called junk for a reason. Eliminate ultra-processed food from your diet. Do it today. There’s absolutely no reason to continue doing something that’s evidently harmful to you.
That’s not to say you can’t eat food from overseas. You can eat some nice exotic foods once in a while. You just have to be aware of what can be done properly.
For instance: there are initiatives working with indigenous peoples in the Amazon forest to help them to develop an economic activity that doesn’t require deforestation. One solution: cultivate native fruit trees instead. These native trees depend on the forest to exist, so you get jobs and keep the forest alive.
When you source well—locally grown, minimally processed ingredients—you’re not just eating better, you’re supporting a food system that makes sense.
The Secret Ingredients
People ask me all the time what my secret ingredients are. The answer is just two: time and patience.
I don’t mean to be rude (I just can’t help it), but if you can’t give cooking time and exercise patience, get the ‘frack’ out of the kitchen. (Forgive me, I was a huge Battlestar Galactica fan.)
The lazy ones will stop reading right now. If you’re still here, that’s promising.
Everything Else Awaits
So when someone asks ‘If not meat, then what?’ I say: Look around you. The entire plant kingdom is waiting to be explored—not to mention fungi, the planet’s greatest culinary secret. We’re the species that turned simple grasses like rice and wheat into the foundation of civilisations. We’ve learned to find nourishment everywhere, from tropical canopies to arctic tundra.
The question isn’t really about food—it’s about imagination and technique. Can you create umami without meat? Absolutely. Can you build satisfying protein? Of course. Can you create exciting textures? The plant world has you covered.
The real question isn’t ‘What do we eat instead?’ It’s ‘What amazing things have we been missing because of our lack of imagination?’
Through this blog, I’ll show you that avoiding meat isn’t just beneficial for your health and the environment—it opens up a world of flavours, aromas, and experiences you never knew existed. The only limit is your willingness to experiment.
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By the way, after much gentle bullying, our chef finally caved and made his own Instagram account. He’s absolutely terrible at it (imagine a capuchin monkey from Brazil trying to text back), but if you’d like to join in the chaos, go ahead and follow him. Once he figures out what all the buttons do, he promises to post more. Here’s his page:
