WHILE on a country walk last week, a herd of cows sauntered over to the gate where we were standing.

They let us scratch their heads and one licked my eldest daughter’s hand.

She was very taken by them and declared quite vehemently that she was going to be vegetarian.

She made a case for the whole family giving up meat, so much so that her younger sister burst into tears, saying she loved meat and didn’t want to spend her life eating Quorn.

For teenagers, turning vegetarian is a rite of passage. I remember various friends who, after watching a TV documentary or reading an animal rights leaflet, became vegetarian overnight.

Few, however, had the courage of their convictions and were lured back among the carnivores after catching the scent of a bacon sandwich while passing the local greasy spoon café.

I remember my own pathetic attempt, while a student, to abandon meat in protest at the treatment of livestock.

It lasted a month or so, until the next big night out ended up, as it usually did, at the kebab shop.

My love of animals leads me on regular guilt trips, as I see cattle, pigs and sheep being transported in trucks, their noses sticking out of the sides.

They are clearly destined for the abattoir, and I hate myself for being part of the reason they are heading there.

I try my best to buy free-range, but don’t always. I buy only British ham and bacon, never from Holland or Denmark, where production methods are cruel.

But I don’t stand up for the rights of chickens – I buy cheap portions, which I know are battery farmed.

We eat such a lot, I can’t afford free-range.

I remember my first visit to a vegetarian restaurant in London. The food looked as appetising as a pile of old socks. It has come a long way since then.

Now veggie products are often indiscernible – and regularly preferable – to the real thing.

And it’s no longer, as it was in those days, almost solely the domain of dreadlocked tree-hugging types.

Half my friends are vegetarian, and there are always at least a couple of children at birthday parties who don’t eat meat.

I like meat – especially hugely overcooked, crispy joints – far too much to give it up.

My daughter’s foray into vegetarianism didn’t last long. On the way down to relatives in Suffolk we needed to stop for lunch.

A McDonald’s appeared on the horizon and both girls became very excited at the prospect of a Big Mac.

“I thought you were vegetarian,” I said to my eldest.

“Well I am, but not all the time,” she replied sheepishly.