My Year Without Meat

When food writer Richard Cornish was so overcome by the aroma of the roast leg of lamb he had buckled into the passenger seat next to him that he pulled over to the side of the road and tore it apart with his bare hands, he knew he had a problem. He began to examine what it means to eat meat by becoming vegetarian for a year.

My Year Without Meat is a surprising and bittersweet journey that changed Richard's body, his values and how he cooks. It's a meditation on ethical meat, an ode to vegetables and a cautionary tale about our relationship to food—as told by a self-confessed meat lover.

Peppered with funny anecdotes, eye-opening facts and conversations with some of Australia's best local producers, farmers and top chefs, My Year Without Meat thoughtfully explores how and why Australians consume food the way we do.

It will make you rethink the contents of your supermarket trolley, how you prepare your evening meal and where your food comes from.


Richard Cornish is an award-winning food writer who pens the much-loved and irreverent Fairfax column Brain Food. He has co-authored the bestselling MoVida cookbooks with Frank Camorra and Phillippa's Home Baking with Phillippa Grogan. His journalism explores where food comes from, how it gets to us and why some foods taste better than others.