Happy Easter!

It’s Easter weekend! 4 days of no work and loads of chocolate eggs for some people, and a Christian celebration for those observing Lent and remembering the crucifixion. Either way, it’s a break from the norm.

5 years ago, I posted a fair innocuous photo of a lamb jumping in a field to my FB account (like the one above) At the time I was living with my parents and feeling rather helpless facing the inevitable Easter Sunday lunch with roast chicken to be served to my Dad and Grandfather. Having lived alone for many years at that point, being in such close proximity to meat so regularly was taking its toll on me.

I posted hoping that seeing the joy of this baby sheep would remind them where the Spring Lamb planned for their celebration meal comes from and make them question why they thought it was ok to eat a defenceless baby animal.

I never imagined that the post would mean my Dad would decide that he was never going to eat lamb again. And he hasn’t. In fact, since I moved back to the UK in 2018, his meat intake has dropped to such an extent that he is having 1 meal a week with meat, and 2-3 meals a week with any animal products at all! This is someone who throughout my vegetarian childhood described himself as a carnivore and would delight in sourcing good quality meat for BBQs for him and my brother to enjoy. It’s an enormous turnaround and he has also now gone from over 17 stone to 14 stone 11 (approx 17 kilograms!) in the last 12 months. Did I mention that he is 70 this year?!

I’m so proud of him. Even more so, when he goes down the golf club he has also started talking about sustainability and sharing the plant-based secret behind his weight loss.

And so, this year I will be posting another lamb picture in the hope I will catch someone else and enable them to reconnect to their food.

If everyone does what they can to help create a world that we all like and want to live in, it becomes infinitely more possible! With such an abundance of substitutions available these days, it is the perfect time to make the switch!

💚

If you liked this story, read about the little girl and her goat here: https://www-vox-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/future-perfect/23669586/goat-girl-4-h-shasta-county-seizure