“I particularly enjoy this green smoothie after a vigorous workout.” These are words to make my heart sink when I read them in a recipie book. Even for an indifferent bacon eater like me the tone is distinctly Spartan. To face a refrigerator full of kale, quinoa and smug cucumbers takes a certain fortitude and resolve. In the butter drawer sits a package of chia seeds. As I smell the coffee, for some habits simply do not die, I am stopped dead in my tracks by a puzzling question. Can one add soy milk to coffee? I decide to take the first cup au naturel and leave the experiments for later when I have resumed human form.

Mild cows, clever pigs, homey hens and innocent lambs, take heart! You are all safe from me for at least forty days. Forty is a magic number, a number of completeness, wholeness, round perfection. May my body ( dare I say my spirit too) mirror this round perfection after forty days of a ” plant based” diet.

Yes, I have seen the light. I have read ” Forks over Knives” and seen the rather ominous video. Let the siren call of bar-b-que waft over from my neighbour’s yard as it will. A firm gaze fixed on my cholesterol levels and triglycerides will keep me like Odyssey’s sailors, bound to he mast of health food geekdom.

Sitting in my beautiful garden this morning, I felt a kinship with the luxuriant plants, blooming merrily away. A sparrow enjoyed his morning splash in the bird bath. A large and striking black and white butterfly made me open my eyes in wonder and bless the innocence of the ” plant based” life. But the natural world can be cruel. The sparrow had spotted the butterfly too and set off in hot pursuit. Fortunately, they flew off behind the grape vine and I was spared the kill( or escape, fingers crossed) . For heaven’s sake! If even sparrows can’t stick to seeds, is there hope for me?