Eat Less Meat

A campaign urging people to eat less meat might seem timid to vegetarians. After all, why not encourage people to stop eating meat altogether? However, Compassion in World Farming, are to be congratulated on going beyond their immediate remit – to advance the welfare of farm animals – and tackling the root cause of factory farming, namely excessive meat consumption.

The campaign, which aims to achieve a 15 per cent reduction in meat consumption in developed countries by 2020, is based around a fully-referenced 76 page report, The Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat, written by Mark Gold and a 17 minute VHS video, Eat Less Meat – It’s Costing the Earth, narrated by Joanna Lumley. Supporting materials include a 4 page brochure summarising the report, Reducing Meat Consumption – The Case for Urgent Reform, and a campaign website www.eatlessmeat.org.

The Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat presents the case for reducing meat consumption and moving towards a plant-based diet in the developed world.  The arguments will be familiar to many readers – the inefficiency of animal farming in terms of the vast amounts of feed, land, water and other resources required to produce meat, milk and other animal products, the detrimental effects on the environment through pollution, overgrazing and desertification, the adverse consequences for human health of a diet high in saturated fats (of which meat and milk are major sources), and the cruelty and deprivation inflicted on the billions of farm animals reared for food. These are presented in detail by Mark Gold in his excellent report, which includes a challenging foreword by campaign patron and “conflicted carnivore” Jonathon Porritt, who quotes author and zoologist (and fellow campaign patron) Colin Tudge characterising the inexorable rise in meat eating in recent decades “as damaging in the long-term as, say, the arms industry”. Porritt himself writes:

The world continues to fall gradually to pieces around us as some of the gravest threats to the long term sustainability of humankind remain all but ignored.  I would put the excessive consumption of meat right up there in that category.  And though I understand only too well why it is that politicians continue to ignore this particular aspect of food and farming today, I despair at their selective blindness.

The video Eat Less Meat – It’s Costing the Earth assembles an impressive array of ‘talking heads’ to put the message across, including Porritt himself, Patrick Holden of the Soil Association, and Professor Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health.  Unfortunately, the format is uninspiring, and narrator Joanna Lumley’s cut glass accent lacks force.  Viewers are simply exhorted to “eat less meat” without guidance as to how much less, whereas the report and brochure set a definite target in calling on governments and individuals in the developed world to reduce meat consumption by 15 per cent by the year 2020. This modest target, broadly equivalent to one meatless day per week, would have the same effect as creating another 8 million vegetarians in the UK alone.  As such, the campaign deserves our wholehearted support.

Paul Appleby, June 2004

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This page created 26 June 2004 by Paul Appleby.