Meet the ‘vegan bros’ here to bust the myth that real men eat meat

‘Every time a man becomes a vegan, it challenges basic assumptions about masculinity and femininity.’ Photograph: Kellie French/The Guardian

It was a Sunday afternoon in the late 1980s and the house was filled with the fatty scent of roast lamb. I absentmindedly enquired about the origins of lunch and my brother pointed at the mewing sheep in the field adjacent to our house. I was a five-year-old boy, and I decided on the spot to become the first vegetarian in my family.

My parents, while broadly supportive, were understandably bemused – and concerned. It was a less enlightened time, and my lack of dietary protein was a constant worry. They assuaged this by occasionally feeding me Chicken McNuggets under the not entirely misplaced logic that they weren’t really meat. After I’d cottoned on, I would sheepishly order a cheeseburger “without the burger” whenever we went to McDonald’s.