Chewing the Fat

For Maddie Jackson, it started with cheese on toast. The 25-year-old product analyst had been vegan for five years – a dietary pivot she’d made in pursuit of optimising her health – when she began to feel like this way of eating was no longer working for her.

“I loved cooking, and everything I ate was made using fresh whole foods – but it didn’t seem to satisfy me anymore, ” she says. “I started to feel way more lethargic, my exercise routine became pretty much non-existent and I was always hungry, no matter how much I ate.”

She started sneaking cheese and butter into her diet, but small amounts of dairy didn’t seem to make a difference. When blood tests revealed that some of her vitamin levels were dangerously low, she decided to take action. “I called my boyfriend and told him to buy two steaks and some St Agur cheese for dinner – and it was