Martin Freeman is going through a very significant change in his life.

After 38 years of being a vegetarian, which is more than his entire adult life, he decided to gradually go back to eating meat.

He spoke about it openly in a new episode of the Dish podcast, sharing his reasons for changing his diet so abruptly.

Not everyone in his fan base was happy with this decision, including institutions like PETA, with which Martin Freeman has collaborated in the past.

Activists have spoken up, bashing the actor for his “excuses” and making their anger very clear.

Fans Are Upset With Martin Freeman Giving Up Vegetarianism

After almost four decades of sticking to a vegetarian diet, Martin Freeman decided it was time to go back to eating meat. The 52-year-old actor explained that he wanted to stop eating so much processed food, and he found eating meat was an important part of what he considered a healthy diet.

This did not go down well with fans, especially those who are vegetarians themselves. He’s received some backlash from activists, including Richard McIlwain, Chief Executive of the Vegetarian Society in Britain. He said that Martin Freeman claiming he wanted to stop eating processed foods was an excuse to give in to his “meaty cravings.”

“Where he talks about tucking into a scotch egg and a pork pie, he should know that they’re just as ultra-processed,” Richard McIlwain said. “He bemoans about the fact that vegetarian foods are over-processed, and then talks about eating scotch eggs and pork pies. I’m not sure he’s got this health angle quite right, to be honest.”

Elisa Allen, the Vice President of UK Programmes & Operations at PETA, also spoke up, expressing her desire for Martin Freeman to change his mind and claiming he’d been influenced by propaganda.

“Martin cares about animals, and PETA is pretty certain he will change back when he realises that he’s been the target of meat and dairy industry propaganda,” she stated. She bashed his reasoning as well, saying that “There’s nothing ‘natural’ about consuming other animals,” and that “they don’t raise animals on factory farms or cook their flesh before eating it.”

Martin Freeman About Vegetarianism

It’s understandable that the way he spoke about vegetarianism would be offensive to a lot of people, but considering Martin Freeman was a vegetarian for almost forty years, the decision to change his diet was probably not made lightly.

While the Sherlock star was “never really comfortable with the idea of eating animals,” he said in a recent interview with the Dish podcast that he’s “now come off being a vegetarian.” It’s a relatively new change, considering that he’s spent most of his life not eating meat. “In the last several months, it’s really new going back to being an omnivore, just sort of eating what I like.”

He spoke with presenter Nick Grimshaw and ate food prepared by chef Angela Hartnett. Alongside author Tony Schumacher, Martin Freeman got excited to dig into his first bolognese in decades.

“This is the first proper Bolognese, I’ve maybe ever had,” he said, adding “I’ve not had that good honest f***ing staple for decades. It’s a funny one, because I like meat replacement things, but my reservation about them is they can be very, very processed and I’m trying to eat less processed food.”