Difficulty Level Easy

When I first met TreeHugger founder Graham Hill, it was at my house, and my husband and I were having a big dinner party in his honour. Not only was he the guest of honour, he was my husband's boss. I faced planning the menu with a bit of trepidation, surely he was a vegetarian and everything I made should be something he could eat? It turns out that he wasn't at all, and I could make my usual mixture of meat and vegetarian meals for my buffet.

In the intervening years, Graham has been giving a lot of thought to what he eats and why. At the 2010 TED conference, Graham gave a talk on what some of his conclusions are about how he wants to eat and the experiment he's begun. Here's what he had to say:

"About a year ago, I asked myself "Knowing what I know, why am I not a vegetarian?" After all...I'm one of the green guys, I grew up in a log cabin with hippy parents. I started a site called TreeHugger! I care about this stuff, you would think that I'd steer clear of meat.

I knew that, on the health front, just eating a hamburger a day could increase my risk of dying by a third from cancer, heart disease and other illnesses. I knew, as you probably do, that the 10 billion animals we raise for meat each year live in factory farm conditions we wouldn't even contemplate for our dogs, cats, or other pets. I knew, amazingly, that eating meat spews more emissions than all our cars, planes and trains combined. That beef production requires about 100 times the water of most vegetables.

And I knew that, unfortunately, I wasn't alone. The negative effects of meat are compounded by the fact that, per capita, we eat almost twice as much meat as we did in the 50's - then it was a special, treat, now it's large and expected.

So any of these angles should have been enough. Tthe logic was clear. The average way that we produce meat is harmful to our health, our environment and cruel to animals.Yet still, there I was, tucking into a juicy steak. Why was I stalling?

I realized I was being a pitched a binary solution. Either you're a meat-eater or you're a vegetarian and I guess I just wasn't ready. Imagine: Your last burger. So, my common sense and my good intentions clashed with my taste buds and lead me to commit to doing it "later". And later never came. Sound familiar?

I wondered "Could there be a 3rd option?" And I found one, and I 've been doing it for the last year and it works. It's called Weekday Vegetarian. And the name says it all. Nothing with a face during the week and on the weekends, your call.

Simple.

Want to take it to the next level? Remember that the major culprits in terms of environmental damage and health are red and processed meats. So, swap those out for some sustainably harvested fish and get yourself some omega 3s. It's structured and easy to remember.

The Weekday veg program has been great! I feel better about the animals, that my footprint is smaller, that I'm lessening pollution. I'm also saving money and best of all, I'm healthier, know that I'm going to live longer and I've even lost some weight.

So, please, for your health, the environment and the animals, ask yourself "What's stopping me from becoming a weekday veg?" After all, if all of us ate half as much meat, it'd be the same as if half of us were pure vegetarians."

This makes a lot of sense to me, and my husband and I have been eating that way more or less for the past year without actually realizing it. So with this in mind, we are starting a new series here at Planet Green to encourage Graham's initiative. I'll be giving you a recipe or two a week that contains meat, but shows you how you can do so more effectively, by buying better meat, and using less of it. I'll also be looking at consuming less red meat and adding more fish in your diet.

This first recipe is for a pork ragu, that uses sausage meat, but also lots of fennel for a very distinctive taste. The recipe calls for 6 sausages, but you could easily cut it back to 4 or even 3 and still enjoy the flavour of the meat. The long cooking also infuses the entire pasta sauce with the flavour of the sausage.

INGREDIENTS