UK government urges brits to cut meat consumption by 30%

The UK government has recently released their National Food Strategy Report which has made recommendations to help tackle climate change and improve health amongst British citizens.

The second part of the report has warned that current eating habits in the UK are ‘destroying the environment, which in turn threatens food security’. As a result, the UK’s food system needs to change according to the evidence backed recommendations the report has stated.

These recommendations include Brits reducing their consumption of meat by 30% within the next decade and increase consumption of fruit and vegetables also by 30% percent within the same time frame.

Animal-rights group Humane Society International (HSI) has commented on the findings of these reports and is hoping that the government is going to take the issues around meat consumption seriously.

HSI UK Executive Director Claire Bass stated: “The recommendations in the Food Strategy report are bold, visionary, and urgent, and it is imperative that the UK government listens and acts decisively to wean the nation off the vast quantities of cheap meat that are wrecking our health, the environment, and causing immense suffering to billions of animals,”

Whilst the animal agriculture industry has already met the report with hesitation, the Soil Association says the ‘evidence is clear’ that in order to protect the environment, dietary changes will be required.

The charity’s CEO, Helen Browning said: “We will need to eat much less industrially farmed meat, which can drive deforestation and land use change through its reliance on imported feed crops,”

“The debate in farming shouldn’t be about whether this is so, but about how to make this transformation quickly and fairly, for both farmers and citizens.”

The report is the first government commissioned review to look at the UK’s food system in almost 75 years and it is hoped the 288-page report can help make a real change.

Article written by Martha Moody- United Kingdom