What was it about the 1960s and 1970s that made vegetarianism so hip?

It may be a sweeping generalisation to say it was a development of the Vietnam war protests, coupled with growing disillusionment with middle-class materialism, but that is when Americans first embraced the hippy culture and its parallel desire for healthier, more organic food.

Rather than conform to postwar processed foods purchased in new-fangled supermarkets, it became much cooler to drop out, grow your own veggies and, basically, embrace the good life.

The movement quickly took root in Scotland. In 1963 Glasgow-born Janet Henderson founded Henderson's vegetarian restaurant in Edinburgh at the age of 50. She did so because as a teenager she'd been told she would be unable to have children, and following a trip to Austria in 1933 to visit an aunt she'd ditched her Scottish diet and embraced a healthier, vegetable-based approach. She went on to have seven children and started what is thought to be Scotland's first organic farm, in East Lothian. Today, the emphasis is on healthy food with good provenance rather than always being organically grown. Small wonder there's a food festival planned to mark the fact that Henderson's is going strong 50 years on.

It seems to me that the modern vogue for vegetarianism remains close to its origins, but with a twist. In the age of austerity and global economic unease, demand for allotments has soared and anyone with even the most basic grasp of food economics hankers after having their own garden to grow veg. Following horsegate, there's a renewed grassroots wish to take control over how our food is produced. Witness the number of community-run organic kitchen gardens and cafes (Whitmuir Organics in West Linton, now the only organic restaurant in Scotland, plans to be the first community owned farm in Scotland if it can raise enough money). Suppliers to Henderson's of fresh veg are a mix of start-up and established: WholeCity Greenfoods of Glasgow, established in 1978, is one of its most loyal.

According to Louise Duncan of Glasgow's Grassroots organic store the customer base is growing not only for ethically sourced fruit and veg but also for cereals, grains, seeds, nuts, dairy, fish and meat. So why then has Duncan, who has been running Grassroots for 25 years, decided to close her shop at Charing Cross today?

She thinks she's been a victim of her own success and that the demand for ethically-sourced food she was, for many years, unique in satisfying has now become mainstream and readily available in high-street retail outlets such as WholeFoods Market, Waitrose, Sainsbury's, Tesco and her local rival Roots Fruits & Flowers as well as other small shops and delis.

"When we started out, nobody else was doing Fairtrade or organic, and now it's become the norm," she says.

The modern twist in the tale is that vegetarianism isn't the sole preserve of vegetarians. It also includes modern carnivores who enjoy meat but want, a la Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, to increase the volume of vegetables in their diet on the grounds that, in the chef's words, "they are the foods that do us the most good and the planet the least harm". It's true to say that many a vegetarian menu is a fine-dining replica of a mainstream one, but without the meat or fish, being much more sophisticated than the basic cauliflower cheese, moussaka and pizza of old.

Duncan says her mission is to keep on pushing the envelope. She is developing a mostly-veggie cafe in the north of the city. She has a surprisingly receptive customer base at her Clean Plates Cafe in Maryhill Burgh Halls, and does its in-house event catering. She serves 70% vegetarian food (a smaller percentage than at Grassroots to take account of the more mixed clientele; besides, she says, vegetarianism doesn't suit everybody).

There will be a vegetable garden and she will also produce a line of raw candies for the Miss Wallflower range of superfood-based snacks such as Nourish with dates, hemp and spirulina; and Inspire with almonds and mangos, which are on sale at organic shops.

Duncan says some people need meat to stay healthy, but that many people are accepting that reducing their meat intake to once or twice a week rather than three times a day, and consuming only well-sourced meat, is better for them. However, she insists her emphasis is on vegetarian food and "expanding people's horizons".

I'm told that 80% of Henderson's customers aren't vegetarian either, but just want to eat healthy food that's as locally sourced as possible. That said, vegetarian and vegan weddings are a growing market.

Researching this column was a bit of a revelation, as it made me realise how vibrant the vegetarian/alternative food culture remains.

Could it possibly be that all the scaremongering about the notorious Scottish/Glasgow diet is only half of the story?

cate.devine@theherald.co.uk

Twitter: @catedvinewriter