Small meat and dairy swaps show long-term climate and health benefits

A modeling study has revealed that making modest changes to meat and dairy consumption can help Scotland meet climate, nutrition, and health goals. It shows that making small dietary changes can benefit these objectives without increasing diet costs. 

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), the University of Oxford (UK), and Food Standards Scotland examined 33 ways to meet the UK’s Climate Change Committee’s recommendations for sustainable diets, finding all of them to be successful. The national agenda aims to reduce meat and dairy consumption by 20% by 2030, increasing to a 35% reduction in meat by 2050.

The team suggests making small swaps, such as vegetables, beans, and eggs instead of processed and unprocessed meat and dairy, for health and environmental benefits.

“The transition to net zero must be affordable to avoid perpetuating or exacerbating health inequalities, and so pathways should also account for the cost of dietary transitions, particularly for low-income households,” reads the study.

Additionally, the researchers urge making healthier, more sustainable food options widely accessible and convenient for consumers to accelerate the progress toward climate and public health goals.

Small changes with big results

The Nature Food study analyzed the impacts of dietary changes on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, land and water use, nutrient intake, diet costs, and health conditions, including type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

With greater health and environmental improvements in lowering meat and dairy consumption, the team found that even small, gram-for-gram substitutes in everyday meals could produce long-term benefits.

They also found that when some meat was swapped for alternative foods, there was no adverse impact on nutrient intake.

However, lower dairy consumption could “considerably” reduce iodine intake among some people. To address this risk, researchers suggest fortifying plant-based dairy alternatives with iodine.

A previous US study showed similar findings, that eating healthy can reduce costs and GHG emissions by choosing less expensive healthy food options.

Strategic changes required

The researchers point out that their study challenges common beliefs that more sustainable diets are necessarily expensive. The study shows that making dietary changes has little impact on overall food cost.

“The findings show that modest, realistic dietary changes, when scaled across a population, can deliver substantial benefits to people and the planet. Making healthier, sustainable options more available and convenient will be key to enabling such change,” says Dr. Joe Kennedy, research fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Division of Global Agriculture and Food Systems.

Additionally, the study suggests targeting people who consume large amounts of processed and unprocessed red meat will result in the greatest benefits.

The researchers point out that instead of evenly reducing consumption across the population, it would be better to help high meat and dairy consumers move to lower intakes. This approach is expected to prevent almost 60,000 cases of type 2 diabetes over a 10-year period, alongside environmental progress.

Based on the various modeled dietary pathways analyzed by the team, all of them lowered GHG emissions with lower land and water use.

The researchers flag that emissions of adults in Scotland, associated with food consumption and including the carbon footprint of imported food, exceed emissions from agricultural production in the nation. They call for making changes to diets while also scaling efforts to reduce emissions from agriculture.

“Currently, meat and meat products in Scotland account for a small proportion of the cost of diets and nutrient intake relative to their contribution to environmental harms. Dairy, meanwhile, accounts for a smaller portion of the cost of diets and environmental harms than meat and is a substantial source of key nutrients such as calcium and iodine,” details the study.

“Thus, reducing dairy consumption would have a smaller impact on environmental harms and food expenditure than reducing red meat consumption, while carrying a greater risk of introducing or exacerbating nutrient deficiencies in certain population groups based on current Scottish dietary patterns.”

Recent headline on sustainable nutrition 

Climate change continues to signal that industries should adopt more sustainable practices and that people should adopt eco-friendly lifestyles.

At the latest Sustainable Foods Summit Europe, experts underscored that 65% of consumers want to eat healthier and more sustainably, but affordability and availability remain the biggest barriers to action. Additionally, fewer than 1% of the global population currently follows the Planetary Health Diet, despite food systems being a primary driver of biodiversity loss.

Researchers have urged for wider plant protein variety on retail shelves for sustainable and healthy diets after finding that people cut back on meat much more than they do on plant-based proteins when prices rise. 

On dietary changes, a study found that vegan diets could decrease GHG emissions by 35% since plant-based products require less energy and produce fewer GHGs compared to animal-based products. 

A separate study showed that low-fat vegan diets cut GHG emissions by 55% and energy demand by 44% in 12 weeks versus the Mediterranean diet’s 20% reduction.