There is a very interesting article in The New York Times today pointing out that "the most inconvenient truth of all is that raising animals for meat contributes more to global warming than all the sport utility vehicles combined" and "In late November, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization issued a report stating that the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined."

I have to put my hand up here. Guilty. Very guilty of double standards. I make compost (well we have three big piles of something that we never use), I'm a religious zealot when it comes to turning lights off and unplugging anything that even hums - fridge and freezer aside, and I complain endlessly about other people wasting water. I don't buy clothes. I re-wash and re-use those spontex dish scrubbers. And frequently whinge about "waste" (always someone else's, of course).

And this made me pause for thought. I used to be a vegetarian. For about ten long years I didn't eat a bite of meat. And now? Since moving to France I am eating herds and flocks of one kind or another almost to the point of extinction. In fact, I have probably eaten more meat in the last two years than I have in my entire life. Wassup?

I can only say that here meat seems to be what a meal is constructed around. You go to any little restaurant and a huge wodge of meat is thrust in your face with some over cooked vegetables on the side. Like Britain in the seventies. Cities are obviously better served in that regard.

And I have made myself feel better about my flesh consumption because "the animals here have a nice life". I never did have a problem with eating animals – it is part of a human diet and I became a vegetarian because of the process of harvesting the meat and the horrific treatment of the poor beasts prior to ending up on my plate. And I stopped being a vegetarian in Africa where there was little choice and where the animals had as free-range a life as you could imagine. And I didn't stop stopping.

It might be time to re-look at my diet, methinks. I like lentils. A lot.