Colourful salad days of a lifelong vegetarian

Dubai: I have been a vegetarian ever since I was born. And I have my mother's word on that.

I tell you, I absolutely love being a 'grass eater' - that's what my steak-loving dad always used to call me.

My muscles are no different to those you meat-eaters have, they are equally healthy, but I really don't have the stomach for what you guys refer to as 'non-vegetarian'.

I love my beetroot, carrots, beans, broccoli - raw, boiled or cooked into a curry.

Give me them in any form and you won't find a speck left on my plate.

It's fun being a vegetarian - for one thing vegetarian food is a lot, lot more colourful. Look at a salad: it's the prettiest thing you could ever want to eat - and it tastes great, goes down well and never gives you an upset tummy.

But that's not the only reason why I am a vegetarian, neither is it because I want to appear fashionable (I'm told it's trendy to be a veggie, and if that was the case I've been avant garde since I was a baby).

My mother blames, or actually credits, herself for making me a vegetarian. She says I steadfastly rejected her every attempt to feed me minced meat.

Favourite vegetables:

Beetroot, carrot, cucumber, iceberg lettuce.

Favourite vegetarian restaurants:

Venus, Karama, Dubai

Food for Thought, Covent Garden, UK

Beetroot, Soho, UK (there's good food in this part of London, in case you did not know)