Photographer Mary McCartney has long been a passionate advocate of vegetarianism—now she’s joined forces with Green Monday to spread the message in Asia
As a child, Mary knew her family was different—and not just because her father, Paul, was a Beatle and her mother, Linda, was a famous photographer. No, little Mary McCartney’s family was different because they were... vegetarians.
“When I was very young, my mum and dad sat us down and said to us, ‘We’ve made a decision that we’re going to become vegetarian. It’s your decision if you want to eat meat when you’re out, but we won’t be cooking meat in the house,’” she tells Tatler. And while that might not seem like a controversial decision now, this was the 1970s, when fewer than 0.5 per cent of people in the UK abstained from meat. Today that figure has risen to about 14 per cent—thanks in no small part to the activism and work of the McCartneys.
“My mum and dad would challenge each other and say, ‘What are we going to cook to fill that gap in the centre of the plate where the meat was?’” Mary recalls. In 1991 Linda solved that puzzle by establishing Linda McCartney Foods, which produces prepared meals, including vegetarian sausages, burgers, meatballs and pies. The brand was an immediate success and by 1995 Linda and Paul were so closely associated with the vegetarian movement that they had guest roles on season seven of The Simpsons (ep. 5: Lisa the Vegetarian).
A plant-based plan
The same year as that Simpsons episode, Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer. Three years later, in 1998, she died at the age of 56, leaving behind four children and her flourishing food company. Mary, her siblings and her father knew there was only one thing they could do.
“We made the decision to carry the company on,” says Mary. “The main aim was always to provide affordable meat-free meal solutions to people, and the need for that hadn’t gone away.”
Mary played a key role in the company from the beginning. “I’d worked with mum on her cookbooks and the food range from very early on,” she says. “When she was writing her cookbooks I’d help edit them; I’d help test the recipes; we’d brainstorm ideas together. And with the company, I was at the launch event and, day-to-day, I had contact with the people working on it. I’d go to the factory and help with product development.”
