Unusual diets There are a lot of vegetarians in Britain. About 8% of teenagers don’t eat any meat or fish and you can always choose a vegetarian meal at school. But there are a lot of other special diets, too. Here are three of them. Lucy Friend: a fruitarian Fruitarians don’t want to kill living things – plants or animals – for food. We never eat meat or dairy products and we don’t eat many vegetables. When you eat a carrot, the carrot plant dies. But tomatoes and cucumbers are OK because the plant doesn’t die. We eat a lot of fruit and nuts. Unfortunately, the human body can’t get much calcium, iron or vitamin B from a fruitarian diet, so I need a lot of vitamin pills, too. There aren’t many fruitarians in Europe, but there are millions in India. insight Elementary Student’s Book Unit 5 pp.58–59 © Oxford University Press 2014 1 Tim Jenson: a locavore The transport of food around the world uses a lot of petrol and that causes global warming. I am a locavore and I only eat food from the area near my home in Glasgow because local food doesn’t use much petrol. I only eat food produced within fifty kilometres of my home. I can buy fantastic local beef, salmon, bread, apples and yoghurt. But I can’t have chocolate cake, coffee or orange juice because the ingredients come from abroad. That’s sometimes difficult for me. I love chocolate cake! But it’s the right choice for the environment. insight Elementary Student’s Book Unit 5 pp.58–59 © Oxford University Press 2014 2 Simon Pilcher: a freegan Freegans never buy food. We only eat free food. I’m a freegan because I don’t like the food industry and its treatment of animals and the environment. Also, when you buy food in a supermarket, only about 10% of your money goes to farmers. This isn’t fair. I grow a lot of vegetables in my garden, and I find mushrooms, fruit and salad ingredients in the countryside. I also find food in bins outside big shops. Shops throw away six million tonnes of food every year in Britain and a lot of it is good to eat. A freegan diet helps stop the terrible waste of food in our modern world. A001998 insight Elementary Student’s Book Unit 5 pp.58–59 © Oxford University Press 2014 3 .