Evening Standard comment: Is the future of our food going vegan as sales soar? | Moped gangs get caught | Goodbye, Borderline

WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

There are three good reasons why people decide to give up eating meat. They hope it is healthier. They want to do more for the environment. And they’d like to be kinder to animals.

Do they also think food will taste better? Maybe not. That might explain why there’s a big market in meat-free dishes which still sound as if they are made of meat, not flavoured mycoprotein fermented in factories from a fungus found in soil.

One of them is the food icon of the year, the Greggs vegan sausage roll.

Launched in January, it has proved to be an unexpected hit for the high street bakery. Today the company has raised its profit forecast for a third time this year — and its shares have gone up by 40 per cent. Whoever came up with the idea deserves a bonus.

But who’s buying them?

The sales suggest veganism is sweeping Britain but the numbers of people suggest otherwise. The last reliable survey in 2016 indicated around 500,000 people in this country are vegan. The total has surely gone up a fair bit since then — and up to two million more people are vegetarian.

But the real growth is in people who have changed their diet to eat less meat. They are, even if they don’t know it, following the famous advice of the American writer Michael Pollan: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

In a society where food waste is a big issue — “70,000 children go to school without breakfast and yet shops, restaurants, hotels and retailers just throw stuff away,” the food waste czar Ben Elliot pointed out in his interview with the Evening Standard yesterday — that has got to be wise advice.

And anything which cuts the rapid impact of obesity has got to be sensible too.

But simply switching from meat to a different form of processed food isn’t necessarily better for the environment or our health.

Vegetables grown under plastic shelters in the south of Spain, irrigated with scarce water, sprayed with chemicals by low-paid migrant workers living in basic conditions and then trucked a thousand miles north to England to sit in supermarket chiller cabinets aren’t particularly green. A leg of Herdwick lamb from a small upland farm in the Lake District could be.

What matters is getting a balance. That might mean going vegan or vegetarian. Or it might just mean thinking more about what you buy and how you consume.

A life spent eating only Greggs’ vegan sausage rolls would be very dull. But it is fair that we are offered a choice.

Moped gangs get caught

London’s police deserve credit for a success: they have cut the number of crimes being caused by moped gangs and secured convictions as well.

Today comes news that two teenagers — described in court as “a menace to the London public” — have been jailed for attacks near Elephant and Castle.

Yesterday a separate gang was sentenced to a combined total of 67 years — with police saying the level of moped crime had halved since the 12 men involved were caught.

It’s a reminder that targeted tactics, such as chasing gangs rather than holding back in case they get injured, can work. It’s also an encouraging sign that crimewaves don’t always go one way.

Now knife crime is, properly, a focus of public fear and policing efforts. It is harder to deal with, of course — but the figures on moped crime show what can be done.

Goodbye, Borderline

What do the Borderline club and the Royal Opera House have in common? Both are top music venues, both are in central London and both aim to bring in young people.

But there, unfortunately, the parallel ends. The Royal Opera has just launched a programme of family-friendly operas to broaden its appeal.

Sadly, news from the Borderline is less cheerful: the venue which has shaped musical careers from Oasis to Amy Winehouse is shutting in the summer, blaming high rent.

It will be missed.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in