Unusual diets

There are a lot of vegetarians in Britain. About

8% of teenagers don’t eat any meat or fish
and you can always choose a vegetarian meal
at school. But there are a lot of other special
diets, too. Here are three of them.

Lucy Friend: a fruitarian

Fruitarians don’t want to kill living things – plants or
animals – for food. We never eat meat or dairy products
and we don’t eat many vegetables. When you eat a carrot,
the carrot plant dies. But tomatoes and cucumbers are OK
because the plant doesn’t die. We eat a lot of fruit and nuts.
Unfortunately, the human body can’t get much calcium, iron
or vitamin B from a fruitarian diet, so I need a lot of vitamin
pills, too. There aren’t many fruitarians in Europe, but there
are millions in India.

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 Tim Jenson: a locavore
The transport of food around the world uses a lot of petrol
and that causes global warming. I am a locavore and I only
eat food from the area near my home in Glasgow because
local food doesn’t use much petrol. I only eat food produced
within fifty kilometres of my home. I can buy fantastic
local beef, salmon, bread, apples and yoghurt. But I can’t
have chocolate cake, coffee or orange juice because the
ingredients come from abroad. That’s sometimes difficult
for me. I love chocolate cake! But it’s the right choice for the
environment.

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 Simon Pilcher: a freegan
Freegans never buy food. We only eat free food. I’m a
freegan because I don’t like the food industry and its
treatment of animals and the environment. Also, when you
buy food in a supermarket, only about 10% of your money
goes to farmers. This isn’t fair. I grow a lot of vegetables
in my garden, and I find mushrooms, fruit and salad
ingredients in the countryside. I also find food in bins outside
big shops. Shops throw away six million tonnes of food every
year in Britain and a lot of it is good to eat. A freegan diet
helps stop the terrible waste of food in our modern world.

A001998

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