"As a kid growing up in isolated East Anglia, animals were my friends and – as George Bernard Shaw once remarked – I don’t eat my friends! It was far from easy. I didn’t know there were other people like me - in fact, I didn’t hear the word “vegetarian” until I was well into my teens. My parents thought I was going to die through lack of flesh consumption, and other schoolkids simply thought I was a total weirdo (maybe not so wrong there…?) Over time, I began to learn that far from being an extreme diet, it’s the best you can eat: obviously from the animals’ point of view, but also for your own health and that of the planet. People slowly began to ask me for tips, advice and accurate information… which is how the idea for this book first arose!"

Hard to believe, but it was really difficult to find a publisher for this initially. Several folk told us, “this is OK, but without at least some chicken recipes, it’s not going to sell”. We politely walked away. Eventually, an upstart new publisher called Bloomsbury decided to take a risk on it – and the rest is history! Interestingly, Bloomsbury were also the folk who took a risk on a certain H. Potter when no-one else would… says something about them, don’t you think? – Peter Cox