Waitrose food magazine editor who joked about 'killing vegans' gets Telegraph food critic job

It’s been a roller coaster week for vegans.

After the excitement of Greggs’ vegan sausage roll announcement and the whole of "vegan Twitter" taking on Piers Morgan over it, The Telegraph had some news…

Confused?

Well if you remember back in October 2018, Sitwell was the editor of Waitrose Food magazine, until an email he sent to freelancer Selene Nelson was leaked and he resigned.

In the email, he responded to her pitch for a “plant-based meal series” with a series of jokes about attacking vegans.

He wrote:

How about a series on killing vegans, one by one? Ways to trap them? How to interrogate them properly? Expose their hypocrisy? Force-feed them meat? Make them eat steak and drink red wine?

Sitwell’s supporters saw his resignation as a great injustice.

But others saw it as a simple case of an editor being punished for behaving unprofessionally.

The email clearly didn’t hurt him very much too, because he’s already back at one of the UK’s biggest newspapers, less than three months after he resigned.

Although some social media users were glad to have him back, others were not happy with the news.

Some thought The Telegraph's readers probably weren't too bothered by Sitwell’s comments anyway.

Most importantly, people just wanted to see the most ambitious vegan crossover of the year.

And because the internet lives off controversy, it was inevitable that his first review was going to be for a vegan restaurant.

To be fair to Sitwell, he has been on a journey of self-discovery since he resigned as Waitrose Food editor and he even managed to apologise publicly to Nelson when the two finally met in person.

 

 

 

 

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#MeAndTheVegan #eatvegan #eatmeat #meattoo @selene.nelson #watchthisspace ......... This is me and the vegan. She’s called Selene Nelson and she rather changed the course of my life recently when she leaked a juvenile email I sent her. We met and chatted recently and I think she’s a really bright and charming person. I feel towards her not one smidgeon of malice. Indeed as I atone for my crassness and stupidity I hope that perhaps we can work together to educate across the food spectrum to respect people who make the food choices they do. I think we should eat less meat actually. Less meat and when we choose it, better meat. And better veg and fruit too if we can - because the plight of humans who farm and pick and pack is important also. Peace and love!!

A post shared by William Sitwell (@williamsitwell) on Nov 26, 2018 at 11:09am PST

So maybe he's turned over a new leaf and won’t be coming back to join Piers Morgan’s "vegan resistance".

More: This pub has a vegan menu called ‘stuff for vegan a***holes’