Does eating less meat really help the environment?

Yes! Even eating a little less meat each week can make a big difference.

We often hear that the way to reduce our impact is to eat locally-sourced food. For example, buy British beef rather than anything shipped from abroad. It is, of course, good to reduce the transportation of food - especially when you can get the same thing locally. Yet, transportation only contributes to a small proportion of food’s carbon footprint. The more important consideration when it comes to the carbon footprint of our food is what we’re eating. This study shows that producing a kilogram of beef emits 60kg of greenhouse gases (CO2-equivalents) while peas emit just 1 kilogram per kg.

Greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food product. Source: Our World In Data

In fact, the livestock sector creates around 14.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions. That’s more than the transport sector globally. Yes, that’s right, more than all air travel, cars, heavy goods vehicles and cruises etc. Surprising, isn’t it?

Scientists have warned that reducing our meat consumption by 90% is going to be essential if we want to avoid a dangerous "climate breakdown”. Scary stuff.

But to me, this seems like a relatively easy switch, and the Potter household has been trying this experiment out for the past few months. Our experiment has taken two lines of enquiry:

Can I trick myself into thinking I’m eating meat?

Do any products successfully pretend to be meat? For me, personally, the answer was no. I can’t get along with pseudo-minced beef, or sausages. They make me wish that I was eating the real thing. I know lots of people will disagree with me on this one, and that’s OK. In fact, if you have any product recommendations on this one, I’d love to hear from you.

Can we expand our repertoire to create tasty meals that aren’t pretending to be meat?

Here is where we have found traction. My eyes have been widened to new dishes and I’ve been surprised at how tasty vegetarian meals can be. And I don’t feel like something’s missing from my plate.

Recipes we’ve tried and love

We’ve become pals with the lentil gang. Red lentils in soups and in dahl are De-LISH. This is THE recipe to try for a yummy lentil dahl and it’s pretty easy too. You’ll have to scroll down through a lot of preamble dahl-chat, but it’s worth it. I’ve made it time and time again and my two smalls gobble it down too (even with half a chilli).

For all-in-one style veg meals, we love Rukmini Iyer’s The Green Roasting Tin . My current favourite is her leek and puy lentil gratin.

We’ve also enjoyed some of Jamie Oliver’s Save With Jamie. We tried his squash and spinach pasta rotolo this week. I think you’ll agree my version looks nearly as good as the real thing. OK, so I forgot to take a photo of the finished product fresh out of the oven, but here’s a photo of the leftovers from last night and it’s still pretty enticing... Most importantly, of course, it was pretty yummy!

Give it a go

There’s a new buzz word around town. Flexitarian. Someone who eats less meat, but doesn’t give it up completely.

I like this word. It acknowledges that there’s space for people making a small step in the right direction. It's an option if “going vegetarian” seems too much of a jump.

So if you're wondering how to respond to the climate emergency, can I encourage you to give eating less meat a go. Try swapping out one meat dish for a vegetarian one and see how you like it. I have found that my cooking repertoire has expanded and I’ve not felt like I’m missing out. I’m enjoying it so much that I could almost see myself going vegetarian. Almost. (I do love my sausages…)

One step at a time. Together we can do this!

If You Care for the Planet, Eat Less Meat

Does eating less meat really help the environment?