There’s no getting away from it: we should cut back on the amount of meat we eat. Chris Packham explains why it’s time to rethink our diets.
‘You’re never going to change the world unless you change your mind, so we’ve got to take that inner strength and say do you know what? I am going to change my mind about this. Then it’s a win for the environment, a win for animal welfare, and a win for our health.’
Chris Packham – broadcaster, naturalist and man of fiercely strong opinions – is musing over the fact that we should all be eating less meat. Because the message from scientists is stark.
Last month’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stressed that we must change our diets to combat global warming. Beef and dairy farming in particular cause potent greenhouse gas emissions and, if global temperatures rise too high, extreme weather patterns, flooding and drought will threaten all living things. Earlier this year, David Attenborough admitted that he has lost his appetite for meat ‘because of the state of the planet.’
Research from Oxford University shows that meat and dairy farming takes up 83% of the world’s farmland, and is responsible for 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions, but provides just 18% of all calories consumed. ‘The amount of land used to entertain the meat or dairy industry is disproportionately large and, ecologically, way too expensive,’ says Chris.
‘In this country we can cut down on our meat, or even cut it out, and remain healthy, but in sub-Saharan Africa, where kids are eating a little bit of millet, it would be dangerous to take what little meat and dairy they have out of their diet. So I would argue the onus is upon us to eat less.’
The problem in the UK, he says, is that we’ve become used to cheap food. And while for us the price is low, the cost to the animals, who are farmed intensively to achieve those low prices, and to the environment, which is being damaged through overuse of fertilizers and pesticides, is devastatingly high.
‘It’s also got to be one of the reasons why we waste a third of our food,’ he adds. ‘People leave it on the side of their plate, or they leave it in their fridge and forget about it and throw it away, because they can afford to – and the cost is huge.’ According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, wasted food accounts for 8% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
The solution? To reduce the amount of meat we eat, ‘and buy good-quality, organic, grass fed meat, locally if we can. It’s more expensive, but then if we’re cutting down that should balance out, and it should perhaps be a treat,’ says Chris.
‘I’d also like people to tell the farmer directly how much they enjoy it, and how much they enjoy the fact that the environment producing it is healthier than the one on some industrial factory farm somewhere, which is quite hideous.
‘We need to put our pounds in their pockets, and people might argue “Oh, their produce is more expensive”, well think about the environmental cost! 80% of your landscape is farmed, and if you want butterflies and birds, then we should help subsidise that by buying locally. Build better relationships with our farmers. Make sure they’ve got a sustainable economic future. Invest in them, basically. Waitrose has led the way on this: they go out, find farms and take food at smaller levels.’
Another good reason to eat less meat is that a more plant-based diet is better for us. The Department of Health says that eating too much red meat increases your risk of bowel cancer, processed meats such as bacon, ham and salami are classed by the World Health Organisation as a group one carcinogen (known to cause cancer), and meat and dairy products that are high in saturated fat can also raise cholesterol levels and increase the risk of heart disease and strokes.
Chris himself has gone one step further. A vegetarian for more than 30 years, he became interested in veganism after visiting to an all-indoor dairy unit, where the cows spent their entire lives in a stainless steel shed.
‘It was some sort of dystopian view of the future,’ he recalls. ‘It was meticulously clean, there were no direct husbandry problems, but these cows were machines. They even didn’t look like cows, they were these rectangular animals with these dustbin-like udders, all with a collar. I thought if that’s the future of domestic livestock, I don’t want to be a part of it.’
After doing Veganuary this year, he didn’t look back – and it’s been a piece of (dairy-free) cake. His partner Charlotte has been creating ‘fantastic’ plant-based recipes, ‘and it’s easy to find vegan food. There’s this lingering idea that it’s just a load of old lentils, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. We’ve got to get rid of that misconception.’
Yet Chris isn’t trying to persuade everyone to become vegan, ‘and that’s going to make me really unpopular, but it’s the truth. If we were to take all of that meat out of production, and it were to go under cereals, it would be ecologically disastrous.
‘My message, and it’s a gentle one, is think about how much meat you eat, think about the environmental impact, the animal welfare side, and your own health, and think about cutting down. It’s about moving in the right direction.’
An edited version of this feature appeared in Waitrose Weekend on September 12 2019. (c) Waitrose