Damn Your Low-Fat Diets, Says a Reformed Vegan

John Nicholson, a reformed vegan, reveals how he now gorges on all the foods his grandmother enjoyed... and has never felt better.

As the kitchen filled with the smell of caramelised meat, my mouth watered in anticipation of the coming feast: a thick cut of tender steak, fried in butter and olive oil.

This was not a regular treat. In fact, for the previous 26 years I’d been a vegan, eschewing not just meat but all animal products.

My diet was an extreme version of the NHS Eat Well regime, which recommends lots of starchy foods and smaller quantities of saturated fats, cholesterol, sugar and red meat.

According to government advice, I was doing everything right — and yet my health had never been worse. My weight had crept up over the years, until in 2008 I was 14½ stone — which is a lot of blubber for someone who is 5ft 10in — and was classified as clinically obese. Read more