I was amazed that a suggestion to eliminate or reduce meat and dairy consumption for a mere six weeks would cause such a furore!

Anthony Herbert ("A world with no farm livestock is neither realistic nor logical", Mailbox, March 1) said that I "blame just about all the world's problems (climate change, water shortages, world hunger) on using meat, fish and dairy products in our diet".

I actually said that these problems are affected to a greater or lesser extent by our diet.

Mr Herbert didn't mention the suffering and slaughter of billions of sentient animals or the human health issues. His response was an attack of questions, all with answers too long to address in a letter. Mr Johnson's criticism ("Lent and the veggie debate", Mailbox, March 1) was based on one piece of research which suggests that tofu and quorn "would increase the land cultivated, raising the risks of forests being destroyed". What about the 78 million acres of rainforest stripped bare each year to make way for cattle grazing and soya production, most of which is fed to farmed animals?

Mr Johnson didn't mention all the other foods eaten by vegetarians which are not processed and healthier than meat and dairy products.

It is widely accepted that diets dependent on animal products contribute to global warming, environmental destruction and pollution, world hunger and ill health; not to mention the treatment of the animals involved.

Neither correspondent challenged the validity of these problems. In fact, Anthony Herbert admitted that "in future we Europeans will probably have to reduce our meat consumption" and "some livestock systems will have to be improved".

Both correspondents were only able to criticise ideas which would help to solve these problems and ask obscure questions. Neither correspondent offered any long-term, permanent solutions.

By the way, meat consumption is falling. Nine million fewer animals were killed in the UK in 2007 than in 2006. The veggie message doesn't always fall on deaf ears!

Elizabeth Allison, Aylestone.