Peel was really a pescatarian who rarely ate fish not a vegetarian, he even willingly ate a meat dish once whilst "vegetarian". Don't know if he changed his diet to a fully vegan diet before his death but can't see any evidence of that.

Despite being a vegetarian, in an article in the Guardian published on 12th August 2001, Peel admitted eating occasionally fish:

"I like any sort of food because I'm a greedy bugger but I don't like the idea of eating meat. Sheila and I have been vegetarians for about 35 years (though I must admit I do occasionally eat fish) and the Brewers always have a good vegetarian option. All my four children have been militant carnivores, now two of them are vegetarian, but I think they are more spurred on by recent health scares than anything else. I can't remember my last meal at the Brewers - they do a good stuffed mushroom - there are more important things to remember, like your name and address. I'm a well-intentioned, gentle old chap but I've got a fantastically bad memory, I just forget everything."

In October 2001 Peel wrote an article called WI in the Radio Times (later re-published on Olivetti Chronicles), admitting that he and Sheila ate meat when they were in Moscow, Russia about ten years ago, after some people invited them for dinner and served what Peel described as "overcooked fists":

"God knows from which of his creatures the meat had been hacked, but we knew our hosts must have gone to a lot of trouble and no little expense, so we ate with, I hope, every appearance of gusto"