While the world celebrates World Vegan Month, our expert resident nutritionist Ian Marber turns vegan for the weekend

Perhaps I was swayed by the words of film director James Cameron (of Titantic, Aliens and Avatar fame) who says that one can't be an environmentalist if you aren't a vegan. Or perhaps it was simply that I have become lazy about what I eat, favouring the same lean meat and poultry with vegetables most of the time, but in recognition of World Vegan Month I tried my hand at a vegan diet for the weekend. Now I realise that one weekend isn't going to save the planet or do a lot for my health but I wanted to see what it was like, and what I could eat.

Aside from enjoying the food, following a vegan diet if only for 48 house forced me to eat mindfully. As a beginner I think I would have found it hard to know what to eat without eating the same few foods again and again and so I sought the advice of author Tony Bishop-Weston, former Vegan Society chief turned author and vegan chef. His most recent work, The Vegan Cookbook can be found in bookshops and online.

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Five reasons to become a vegan

1) Health - because veganism leads naturally to eating more fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds. By cutting out things with animal fat in, it makes it more difficult to eat badly. 2) The EPIC study was a vast piece of work that can't easily be summed up. However, it confirmed that vegans were at least as healthy as the healthiest omnivores. 3) Veganism celebrates its 70th birthday this year and its founder, Donald Watson pointed out the irony of feeding our crops to animals for us to eat rather than eating the crops themselves. 4) The cost in terms of energy to maintain livestock - from electricity to water - isn't sustainable for the planet in addition to the additional methane gas that livestock produce adding to potential global warming. 5) Traditionally vegans feel that it is morally wrong to exploit and kill animals for food when eating meat isn't necessary.

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Bishop-Weston suggests that an easy way to transition to a vegan diet is to take a practical approach, replacing meals here and there with increasing frequency. Here is the menu that we put together for my weekend:

Breakfast

Porridge or museli with non-dairy milk such as soy, rice, hemp, almond, oat, flax, hazelnut and coconut milk

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What To Eat Now: a vegan diet