Vegetarians are bullied and hated in Australia as its culture is caught in a cycle of overreliance on meat, an award-winning food writer said on Tuesday.

Richard Cornish, a self-confessed meat lover, made this discovery after conducting a year-long experiment in vegetarianism.

"There's a lot of disrespect for people who choose not to eat meat. We're not equipped to be vegetarians," Cornish told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.