Eating better meat, and less of it

Clare Oxborrow

02 July 2013

Eating better meat, and less of it. 

Yesterday, a major new alliance, Eating Better: for a fair, green, healthy future, was launched focusing on eating less and better meat, with Friends of the Earth as one of the founding members. The 'and better' is important. It shows that what we're doing is about more than eating less of the red and white stuff, the campaigns around which tend to provoke the screaming Daily Mail-style headlines about a nanny state trying to rob people of their daily steak.

So I got a bit miffed when the meat industry press said we were about "less is better" and then went on to winge about our simplistic message around eating less meat.

Yes, less is absolutely part of the message, it has to be. There is growing consensus that from whatever perspective you look at it - health, climate change, land and water use, animal welfare, social justice - that the trend for increased global meat consumption is bad news.

Last month news headlines homed in on the findings of the International Development Committee's report that Britons should eat meat less often to help global food security. But MPs also said there should be a bigger focus on 'better' meat: sustainable and extensive systems, like pasture-fed cattle, over intensive grain-fed units.  

This is exactly the vision for less and better meat that Eating Better is calling for. The message clearly resonates - so far 25 organisations have joined the alliance, including the British Diatetic Association, the RSPB, Compassion in World Farming, the UK Health Forum, WWF, and Sustain. And we've got some great support, including from celebrity chef and campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, food policy guru at City University Tim Lang, and world renowned author Michael Pollan.

Friends of the Earth is convinced that the time is right to tackle consumption patterns head on and campaign for sustainable diets.

So how will we do it? First we need to make less and better meat consumption an accepted central solution to the health, food and environmental crises. This is already starting to happen. Secondly, the public need to buy in to a compelling vision for a future that is fairer, greener and healthier. Finally we must secure concrete action from government and the food industry to help lock in long term behaviour change. With this bunch of organisations joining up the messages around health and sustainability, and the alliance set to grow in numbers and ambition, we might just do it.

See www.eating-better.org
Follow @eating_better and @clareyox on twitter