Delia Smith denounces vegan diets as ‘wrong’: ‘Don’t say you’re helping the planet’

Veganism is wrong and does not help the planet, Delia Smith has claimed.

The celebrity chef and food writer, known for teaching basic cookery skills in a no-nonsense style, said that young people are losing their cooking skills and relying on takeaways and ready meals.

Smith, 82, also took particular issue with the current popularity of veganism.

“Everything within me tells me that [veganism is] wrong,” she told the Financial Times.

“If people just want to eat vegetables – and some people do – that’s fine. But don’t say you’re helping the planet, because you’re not. Full stop.”

This marks Smith’s first public comments criticising veganism, and there was no rationale for her argument given in the interview. Elsewhere in the piece, she criticised modern food trends and the popularity of fashionable ingredients like kimchi, siracha and chipotle.

“I see recipes in magazines and I don’t know what the ingredients are,” she said. “Food has always been faddish, and I’ve always tried to lie low and let it go.”

It’s not just veganism that Smith was worried about – the TV chef discussed her concerns about the direction of society, politics and rising poverty.

“We are backsliding as a society in every respect, and it’s very distressing,” she said.

“We’re in a very dangerous situation. There is so much horrendous stuff going on in the world. We’re heading for extinction. I just wish someone would wake up to the seriousness of the situation.”

She said that the solution was for young people to “get rid of this old rubbish and do something new, something different”.

“We’re waiting for something to come along – another leader, another prime minister, somebody to come and do something. But really each of us has a responsibility,” she said.

“What I think is sad is that we’ve had that responsibility dampened – we think we’re not important, we’re just ordinary people. I think we all can do something. It’s big, big, big stuff.”

Veganism is often recommended to people who want to reduce their carbon footprint. An Oxford University study, published in the journal Climatic Change, shows that meat eaters are responsible for almost twice as many dietary greenhouse-gas emissions per day as vegetarians and about two and a half times as many as vegans. In 2015, Chatham House, an international affairs think tank, called for a carbon tax on meat to help combat the climate crisis.

Elsewhere in the FT interview, Smith said she has no regrets about quitting television a decade ago.

“When you’ve been through 20 seasons of asparagus, there’s not an awful lot left you can do with it. Know what I mean?”

She said she disliked MasterChef and never watches The Great British Bake Off, but when seeing fellow famous chefs Prue Leith and Mary Berry still on TV, she thinks, “thank God they’re doing it”.