What does a sustainable diet look like?

My wife Louise put the finishing touches to a radio documentary about sustainable meat eating last week, and it is now live on The Ecologists’ website. Click here to listen to it.

I’ll let Lou tell you a little more about it:

“The call to cut back on our meat and dairy consumption in the West has gathered pace recently. Last week, Sir Paul McCartney and Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri addressed the European Parliament, telling them ‘Less meat = less heat‘.  The panel was on Global Warming and Food Policy, which are increasingly being linked.

On friday, the Sustainable Development Commission published a report to the British Government on what a sustainable, healthy diet might look like. It doesn’t give specific advice about exact quantities, but is clear that one of the primary “win-wins” is to reduce how much meat and dairy we eat.

“There’s no doubt the world eats too much meat and dairy, specifically Britain eats too much meat and dairy, and Europe eats too much meat and dairy”, said one of the SDC’s Commissioners, Professor Tim Lang. “Whichever way you look at it, there’s an overconsumption – and overproduction – of meat and dairy. It’s bad news for our health, and increasingly it’s being understood to contribute deeply to our ecological footprint.”