Eat, drink and be merry? It's time to tackle meat

Clare Oxborrow

19 March 2013

Recently we were hit with a double whammy on the living longer (or not) front. First a new study revealed that in the UK we don't live as long as most of our European friends. If you're thinking about consoling yourself with a typically British bacon butty, DON'T DO IT. Because then came the news that if you eat processed meat like bacon or hot dogs you are more likely to die sooner too.

Before you start thinking about emigrating to Andalucia to eat nothing but olives for the rest of your days, let's look at what's behind all this doom and gloom. Here at Friends of the Earth we've known for a long time of the strong link between eating red and processed meat and health impacts. The World Cancer Research Fund recommends cutting processed meat out of your diet and limiting the amount of red meat you eat to 500g a week (= around a couple of small steaks and a couple of medium portions of roast beef) .

And it looks like it's diet and other lifestyle factors that are the main culprits behind the findings of the first study too. Prof John Newton highlighted the importance of how we live and eat in tackling UK's big killers: heart disease, cancer, stroke, respiratory and liver disease:

"I'd be very surprised if it was the healthcare factors that are making the difference," he said. "It is more to do with a culture of supportive communities, people's lifestyles and their diets."

In the Guardian, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt branded the findings as "shocking" and demanded action from the new local health commissioners.  But there's little evidence to show he's taken on board the need to tackle the nation's diet.

In a nutshell, a sustainable diet would mean eating less and better meat than we currently do, more veg and fruit, and much less processed food (which contains high levels of sugar, salt and fat). It would also favour seasonal and local produce, and aim to slash food waste. WWF's Livewell plate has calculated that a healthy and sustainable diet can go hand in hand, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and boosting health.

The concept of a healthy, sustainable diet isn't new, but the Government has yet to see the huge opportunity to join up health and environment policy and save the NHS large amounts of cash. A groundbreaking report for Friends of the Earth found that just by switching to a lower meat diet in the UK, we would save 45,000 early deaths (through reduced cancers, heart disease and stroke) and save the NHS 1.2 billion a year. And not only would we help tackle these killer diseases, but we'd also drastically reduce the environmental impacts of the food system because the same foods linked to health problems tend to be the environmental baddies too.

But Ministers don't seem keen to grasp this particular nettle despite the multiple wins.  The new Department of Health strategy on cardiovascular disease highlights prevention as a priority, but specifies little concrete action.  Defra's Green Food Project is now starting to look at sustainable diets and we hope to see some ambitious outcomes.

We urgently need Health and Environment Ministers to join forces and bring forward a radical healthy and sustainable diets strategy in the UK, and it should be firmly near the top of their to-do lists. Otherwise we'll all pack our bags and go and live in Spain.