Glasgow was once at the forefront of the vegan movement, but all is not well in Scotland's vegan city, says Mark Smith

It is five years ago now that I was writing constantly about face masks, and two-metres-apart, and Zoom quizzes (oh, the endless Zoom quizzes) and how well Nicola Sturgeon was doing and really I can’t see her putting a foot wrong ever, can you? But I was also writing about the concerns that the coronavirus originated in animals and that the way we do farming was increasing the risk of it happening again. Sometimes it’s hard to remember how we felt, sometimes too easy.

Five years on, the concerns about the way we do farming are still relevant. Many countries, including Scotland, have turned the production of meat into an industrialised, mechanised process. The animals are packed in close together, they’re unlikely to be genetically diverse, and the stress harms their immune systems, all of which means that if something nasty breaks out, it spreads fast. It’s asking for trouble really, and it’s cruel of course.

The reality of it, what we’ve been doing to animals in modern farming, is one of the reasons I don’t eat meat and haven’t done so for 30 years and for a while it seemed like I was part of a trend (for once) that really could go mainstream. When I first went veggie in the early 90s, eating in restaurants usually meant one option only and usually penne arrabiata (oh, the endless penne arrabiata). But more people went veggie and vegan and the food manufacturers, supermarkets and restaurants responded to the demand and it all got a lot better.

One city seemed to be at the forefront of it all as well: my city, the vegan city, Glasgow. From about 2007 or........

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