'Vegan or Bust' Isn't Helping: Why Simply Reducing Meat Consumption Matters Too

Adopting a lower meat diet can halve your impact 

Look at the finer details around the impact of smaller changes, the shades of grey between staunch vegan and insatiable carnivore. For example, lower meat diets (50g or less per day) carry half the carbon, water pollution and land use impact of those high in meat (100g or more per day). While vegan diets were found to have half the impact again compared to the lower meat diets, variations in impact amongst low-meat, pescetarian and vegetarian diets were relatively small. 

Think about the implications of this: if you currently eat an average of 100g or more of meat per day and you can cut this to 50g – whether that’s through implementing meat-free meals or meat-free days of the week, only eating meat when you’re out in a restaurant or on a special occasion, or simply treating meat as a side or garnish, rather than centre plate – you're slashing the climate impact of your diet IN HALF. For the environmental impacts measured other than carbon, a lower meat diet is still somewhere around 30% less impactful than one with a high amount of meat.  

Professor Peter Scarborough, who led the study at Oxford, illustrated this point by saying that if every meat eater in the UK cut their intake to less than 50g a day, the effect would be equivalent to taking eight million cars off the road. That is nothing to be sniffed at. 

Observe due measure 

The report shows that vegetarians and vegans are younger than other groups, suggesting that there is a generational shift already paving our way for a better, more climate-friendly diet. As this gradually becomes ‘the norm’, our focus in the meantime should be on encouraging the die-hard meat lovers amongst us to make smaller changes that can have a big impact. The underdog here is moderation: a flexitarian diet that includes more plants, with meat in smaller quantities but from environmentally superior sources. When it comes to our consumption of animal products, we need to adopt the notion espoused by the Greek poet Hesiod as far back as 700BCE: “observe due measure; moderation is best in all things.”

We know that consumers cannot lead the charge on this; dietary choices are heavily affected by what is available and affordable within a food environment, and how it’s marketed. As the researchers themselves said, the UK should introduce policies to help people reduce the amount of meat they eat in order to meet the nation’s climate targets.

We need government-led policies – echoed by industry initiatives – that encourage a reduction in meat-eating across our plates; across the UK; across the wealthy, Western world.

What scale of change could be effected in a world where policymakers and leaders emphasise the potential impact of eating less meat, but better? Imagine a world in which fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains are the most affordable and accessible options for everyone; where marketing efforts around meat-containing products are minimised as a matter of policy; where restaurants and other food environments dish up mouth-watering meals that are predominantly plant-based, perhaps with small amounts of sustainable meat scattered across the menu.

Those eight million cars could be just the beginning. 

Interested in learning more about building your menu for a sustainable future? Learn why “More Plants, Better Meat” is one of the 10 key focus areas in our Food Made Good Framework. If your business is ready to implement real, lasting change, sign up for the Food Made Good Standard today.