Making a meal of it? Red meat, the planet and your health

Nicky Stocks

01 March 2011

As a press officer, I'm fascinated by how certain stories play out in the media. Having spent 3 years promoting Friends of the Earth's Fix the Food Chain Campaign I've learnt that, if there's one thing our press loves to sniff out, chew up and spit out, it's a story about meat.

Last week the Department of Health advised people to cut down on red meat to cut the risk of bowel cancer. The new recommendations were slammed by sections of the media with some newspapers keen to show us how dangerous they are.

Nutritionists joined the debate, telling us what a good source of iron red meat is and advising a moderate intake. Moderation is a relative concept, but, to me, the new recommendation of no more than 500g per week is exactly that. Three rashers of bacon every day or two large steaks each week seems pretty moderate. In fact, for someone who eats meat only every now and again, it seems like quite a lot.

There's an established link between cancer and diets that are high in red and processed meat. But any talk of cutting down always attracts controversy. It also attracts talk of the nanny state. And often people find it hard to tell the difference between cutting down and giving up entirely.

Last year we released a report called Healthy Planet Eating. We already knew how a lower-meat diet could benefit the environment and help improve animal welfare standards, so we commissioned the new research to see how this might affect our health. The results were quite astonishing - we could prevent 45,000 early deaths each year and save the NHS £1.2 billion. 

Our win-win-win-win story proved controversial. TV and radio stations frantically set up studio debates between us and furious meat enthusiasts. Only we didn't end up battling. No one can argue that current levels of meat consumption are good for the planet or good for us. And we certainly didn't want them to stop enjoying meat and commit to an all lentil diet. We all agreed that, when it comes to meat, we'd all be a lot better off if we ate less and better quality, wasted a lot less and savoured it a whole lot more.

I'm going to stick with meat for my next blog and talk about my experience of switching to a low-meat diet. Please get in touch if you'd like to share your thoughts or experiences.

Nicky Stocks, Communications & Media team