An 11-year-old boy managed to turn his school mates vegetarian after introducing a meat free day in the canteen. Shaan Dulay is on a mission to turn the world green after being inspired by David Attenborough's 'A Life on Our Planet' documentary.
After taking part in numerous environmental projects, the Walsall lad felt the key to truly living green was ditching meat. Born into a vegetarian family, Shaan introduced Meat Free Tuesday at his school in a bid to help cut carbon emissions.
After a meeting with his headmaster at Hydesville Tower school and devising a menu with the chef the school agreed to push veggie pies, pizzas, pasta and soya meals to the hungry kids. Far from moaning about the lack of pepperoni on their pizzas, the idea was so popular some children were inspired to go full vegetarian.
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Shaan and his mother joke they don't know how that went down with their parents. This is the first of the mini eco warrior's missions to save the world. He is Birmingham & Black Country Wildlife Trust's first ever youth ambassador and runs his own blog, Shaan's Eco World.
He will also be studying at the same boarding school as Winston Churchill, Harrow School, in 2025 and has ambitions to become an MP or actor.
His mother Baljinder Dulay 45, a civil servant, said: "My grandparents raised me to be vegetarian. It was a spiritual reason that you should not kill an animal, when I met my partner I said if I have children I will raise them same way.
"We love Linda McCartney, when she first came out I thought 'oh my god', there are sausages and things like that I can have. Linda was pioneering because there was nothing like that.
"I told my son about her and how they introduced meat free lifestyles, he said 'we could do this at school' and I said go for it."
Shaan suggested the idea to his headmaster who then put it to the chef, they then devised a menu which included vegetable lasagne, tomato and basil pasta, jacket potatoes and veggie mince pasta bakes. Students were able to vote on what they wanted and a year later, Meat Free Tuesday was an ongoing success.
Baljinder also claims the school were able to calculate how much carbon they had cut since the meat free day was announced. Speaking on his love for vegetarianism, Shaan said: "The UK contributes a lot to releasing carbon into the atmosphere so everyone should be vegetarian or vegan, because why wouldn't you?
"It's cheaper, helps the environment and reduces deforestation. I don't understand why people wouldn't be vegetarian. Deforestation to create more farmland is what prompts more people to become vegetarian, some people are also so used to having their roast dinner and chicken sandwiches, that they'd rather stick to that.
"But some people have dialled down a bit which is good." His little brother Roshan, seven, is also a passionate veggie foodie and has ambitions to open his own restaurant some day. He said: "I have cooked veggie pasta and veggie pizza. My favourite thing is pizza and I like putting mushrooms and sweetcorn.
"I want a restaurant when I am older that sells pizza and pasta, no meat. It will be called veggie world."
The boys are currently taking part in Cut Your Carbon Month, organised by environmental charity Eco Schools, which challenges families to complete nine carbon cutting actions in November. Shaan and Roshan appeared in the promotional video.
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Check out Shaan's eco blog here
