What’s in your kitchen?

Everything in our kitchen is vegetarian. I always like to have some tofu there, particularly in summer. We just marinade it and serve cold with some pickled ginger and spicy Korean kim chi. We like to have a lot of fresh vegetables and we do grow a little bit ourselves – fresh herbs and tomatoes - although it’s not always easy with travel and so on. We try to buy organic and local as much as we can.

What’s your food philosophy?

If you want to put it in a sentence, it’s to try and eat in a way that causes the least harm to animals, other human beings and the long-term future of planet

How have our attitudes to food changed?

They’ve changed immensely. If you walk into a British supermarket these days you can’t actually get a battery egg. It was completely the other way round when we were living in Oxford in the 1970s. When my wife and I became vegetarians in 1971 we were seen as cranks. The idea of believing in vegetarianism for animal-related or environmental reasons was pretty much unknown.

What annoys you about food in Britain?

A lot of people talk about the importance of issues concerning animals and the environment but don’t relate it to their food choices. So often you hear people talking about driving SUVs and how bad that is for the environment, and yet they’re eating factory-farmed food. The studies show livestock production causes about 20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a larger proportion than comes from private transport. People have these concerns but they never stop and think about whether the food they’re eating is consistent with the principles they uphold.

What’s Britain’s best kept food secret?

One secret that I’m quite glad a lot of people don’t know about is how many varieties of edible mushrooms you can find in autumn. A lot of people walk past really delicious food they might buy if it was in the supermarket. But because it’s growing in the fields and they don’t know what’s edible and what isn’t, they just walk past it.

Do you prefer eating in or eating out?

I find it more relaxing to eat at home. My wife and I both enjoy doing a bit cooking. You don’t want to have to cook something significant every night – that can become a chore but occasionally we cook something up.

What is the next big food trend?

I don’t have a crystal ball that’s better than anyone else’s unfortunately. I hope people will continue to think ethically about their food and we will eventually get rid of what’s worst both for animals and the environment. Top of the list would be factory farming. I hope we get people eating fewer animal products and when they do eat them, they eat free-range, pasture-raised, organic products.

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