The politics of food is something that will become increasingly important over the coming years. Vegans and bonecrunchers alike should watch this, learn and act. Time really is running out.

Available to view or download on BBC iPlayer for the next 20 days.

*Many years back, some US punks put together a vegan cookbook called 'Soy Not Oi!', full of fuckin' great recipes and recommended listening to cook along to. There are also amusing anecdotes, great grapics and some slightly more serious stuff about veganism. You can get the book from Active Distro or AK Press for a few quid / greenbacks, which I suggest you do as soon as you've found enough spare change down the back of the sofa.

I'll be inviting a few friends round for some good vegan nosh, sociable amounts of alcohol and a bit of high- and low-brow debate to mark the day. I don't expect my bonecrunching friends to give up eating dead stuff, but if they eat a bit less of it it's no bad thing.

There are plenty of excellent vegan recipes online – I'd particularly recommend Post Punk Kitchen for some really top-class fancy examples of vegan cuisine. The rich chocolate cake is the best cake I've ever eaten, vegan or otherwise, a view shared by most of those who've also tried it. But to help you get started, here's one of my own creations.

Tofu & Veg Thai Curry

It's sometimes hard to find food that is both light and substantial, but Thai food is generally just that. Lots of fresh flavours, sharp spicing and a certain creamy fattiness all make for a lovely mouthful. It's also bloody quick.

This recipe uses Thai curry paste, which isn't cheating as the fresh ingredients can be a bit of a bugger to find sometimes (and even harder to prepare – lemon grass should definitely be renamed lemon wood to honestly reflect how tough it is). One thing to watch out for – many Thai pastes contain fish in one form or another, so check the label carefully – I use the 'Maesri' brand.

Serves 2-3.

• 1-2 tbs sunflower oil
• 150g of smoked or marinated tofu cut into cubes (Taifun smoked tofu with almonds and sesame seeds is very good in this recipe)
• 1 large carrot, cut into matchsticks
• 1 stick celery, sliced diagonally
• 2-3 shallots, thinly sliced into rings
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 8 medium florets broccoli, halved
• 75g sweetcorn
• 75g green beans, sliced, or fine green beans topped, tailed and cut in half
• 100g mushrooms, sliced
• Half a red pepper, halved lengthways again and sliced
• 2 tbs vegan red or green Thai curry paste (or according to your brand's instructions)
• 3/4 -1 tin (approx 3-400g) coconut milk
• Juice of half a lime
• 1 tbs shoyu, tamari or vegetarian 'fish / oyster' sauce
• Fresh basil (Thai if available), shredded

Heat the oil in a wok or big frying pan over a medium high heat for a minute, then throw in the tofu and stir fry until starting to brown. Add the carrots, celery, shallots, garlic, broccoli, sweetcorn and beans, and continue to stir fry for about 4 mins. Add the mushrooms and pepper and stir fry for 2 mins, add the curry paste and fry for a further min. Pour in the coconut milk so there's enough liquid for your own preferences, lime juice and shoyu / tamari / 'fish' sauce and heat until it starts to bubble, then remove from heat. If you like your veg a bit softer, then let it simmer for a few more mins in the coconut milk. Stir in the shredded basil to taste and dollop over rice (white works best with this recipe, both basmati and jasmine rice are excellent and will cook in the time it takes you to make the curry).

Best eaten with a spoon to get all the juices (call me simple, but I always prefer an easy shovel motion to the complex two-handed approach when eating saucy foods).

What struck me more, though, was how another report, issued by the UN back in November last year, seems to have bypassed the mainstream meeja's radar. This report looks at one of the major causes of global warming – farts. Not just farts, to be fair, but all the greenhouse gases, as well as other negative environmental effects, that are produced by farming animals for food. And it makes for sphincter-clenching reading.

Did you know, for example, that farmed animals produce more greenhouse gases than transport – around a fifth of the global total? Not only that, but the farming of animals for food has seen around a quarter of our planet given over to livestock farming, a third turned over for growing farm animal feed crops, and nearly 10% of the world's water supply being used in the whole process. Their piss becomes acid rain – two-thirds of all the anthropogenic (caused by human activity) ammonia comes from farming animals. The waste products, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and pesticides pollute the land, air and water.

In short, animal farming is an environmental catastrophe.

But it's also probably one of the easiest problems to solve. It involves nothing more than changing what we eat. Despite the failure of the UN to say as much, switching to a vegan diet is about the simplest and most direct way that we can make a real difference. It's far easier to change what you eat today, right now, than it is to change the way that industry operates or what fuel you put in your car.

To help get you started, here are the lyrics-cum-recipe for Anarcho-Pie by Jockish herberts Oi Polloi:

Pastry
Mixed veg
Red beans
Courgettes
Walnuts
Cashews
Tomatoes
Mushrooms!!

Let's make a tasty anarcho-pie – ace vegan food for you and I
Let's make a tasty anarcho-pie – ace vegan food for you and I

Take eight ounces of pastry and, leaving a little bit aside, roll out two equal portions each a quarter inch thick. Then use one of these to carefully line the bottom of your chosen pie dish.

Cook the ingredients for the pie filling separately and then place these inside the pie dish on top of the pastry base. Wetting the top of the edge of the pastry base, affix the pastry cover to the anarcho-pie.

Now comes the important bit: using the spare bits of pastry, decorate the top of the pie with a pastry anarchy sign – symbolising our never-ending resistance to the omnicidal system that perverts our lives.

After baking the pie in the oven for between thirty and thirty-five minutes at approximately four hundred degrees farenheit it should be ready fir serving and by this time should have developed a good crust!

Mmm… uurrgh, I don't like mushrooms. Howay, pass them ower – I'll have them. Aye, this pie, this pie's barry – it's almost as good as – as a singing hiney man! Mmm… mmmm… Alright John eh aye? Aye barry! That's what it is – pure canny! Uurgh, I don't like walnuts. I'll have them. Mmmmm… Aye, ye canny beat this vegan food, ken? Aye, vegan food. Oh, it's the best. Pure dead brilliant man. Anarcho-pie rules, ken? Aye. How long does this go on for? Who's doing the dishes? The wimmin! Aaaahhh!! Street cred gone! Knife him!! Knife the anarcho-pie anyway. Aye man. Aye. 'kin raj! Aye etc.