THE ETHICAL CARNIVORE by Louise Gray

(Bloomsbury £9.99) LOUISE Gray is a farmer’s daughter and environment journalist who began to question the morality of killing animals for food.

She conducts a year-long experiment, eating only the flesh of animals she had killed herself.

From a troubled start, where she wounded a rabbit rather than killing it cleanly, things became steadily more complicated. Visits to abattoirs left her feeling nauseous, while a Danish pig- processing plant, where the animals were slaughtered by gassing, was disturbing.

Deer-stalking, road-kill, fishing, pheasant shooting and vegetarianism all presented different challenges. But by the end of the experiment, her eating habits had fundamentally changed.

She had learned to cook vegan, reducing the use of animal products in her diet, and resolved to continue eating ‘food from a source I am comfortable with’, whether humanely produced or shot for the pot.