Macca slams meat-eaters

Music

09:30 23 February 2005

A furious Sir Paul McCartney phoned into Radio 2 on Monday (21.02.05) to complain about attacks on vegetarians and vegans.

The legendary ex Beatle - who has been a vegetarian for over twenty years - was left fuming over a report being discussed on Jeremy Vine's popular afternoon show which claimed young children who were given a vegan diet didn't develop physically and mentally as well as meat-eating infants.

A fuming McCartney, whose late wife Linda was also a devout veggie' and animal rights campaigner, blasted the report, conducted by US doctor Lindsay Allen, branding it "rubbish".

He said: "Having raised my kids as vegetarian, and being a vegetarian myself for at least the last twenty years, I think it's rubbish. They've indicated you must give children meat which is then indicating that a vegetarian diet is wrong.

"I'm vegetarian rather than vegan so I don't have enough detail but I know a lot of friends who are vegan who have perfectly wonderful children."

The ageing rocker also accused the medical expert who commissioned the report of being in cahoots with the meat marketing board and insisted the claims were lies.

Instead, McCartney promoted a vegetarian lifestyle and told listeners they could get all the nutrional benefits they needed from vegetables.

He added; "I do suspect these kind of things are engineered by the meat and the live stock people who have seen their sales fall off, especially in America.

"I know from my own point of view it's been a very good thing for me and for my children. There are millions of ways to get protein especially with the great products that are on the market today like veggie sausages, veggie burgers and veggie roasts. So I think this is a rubbish statement that I don't agree with."

(c) BANG Media International