The kids are all right: going green with the family

Kate Hughes hasn’t eaten a sausage since 1988 but when three turn up in conversation it’s time for some parental hand-wringing – and lessons from the next generation

Bangers: a guilty pleasure? (Getty/iStock)

When our seven-year-old bounced into the kitchen last night with her eyes sparkling and a massive grin on her face, it was clear she’d had sausages for tea. Not a meat substitute or some cylindrical leek and potato effort. Actual meat sausages. Three of them, she gleefully informed me. That very slightly clandestine meal at her friend’s house will have made her month. And it made me wonder what the hell we were doing yet again.

When we ditched the plastic in a bid to reduce our environmental impact, and took away the bins, and stopped flying, and changed our energy suppliers and bank accounts to providers that didn’t hand it straight to fossil fuels giants, we shifted to a plant-based diet at home too. It was an obvious decision.

I haven’t eaten meat since I was about her age so it wasn’t a big deal for me to cut out the dairy as well. The so-laidback-he’s-horizontal four-year-old doesn’t seem to care either way, and despite the generations of farmers leaning heavily on his psyche, my husband has happily clocked the drop in his waist measurement alongside the dip in our carbon footprint.