Daily meat consumption falls by almost a fifth in 10 years

Daily meat consumption in the UK has fallen by almost a fifth over the last decade, a new study has found.

To understand how much meat people in the UK are currently eating, Cristina Stewart, a health behaviours researcher at the University of Oxford, and colleagues turned to dietary data recorded in the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, under which  a nationally representative sample of the population is asked to keep a food diary for four consecutive days.

The analysis, published in the journal Lancet Planetary Health, found that between 2008-9 and 2018-19 participants’ average meat consumption decreased from about 103g per person a day to 86g, a reduction of about 17g or 17 per cent. This is equivalent to eating roughly two and a half fewer pork sausages each week.

There was an absolute reduction of 13.7g of red meat and 7g processed meat, and a 3.2g increase in white meat consumption.

Despite the decrease, the authors of the study warned it was far from enough to reach the meat consumption targets outlined in Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy report.

Meat production is a major contributor to global heating and land degradation, while eating lots of red and processed meat has been linked to a greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer.

For these reasons, the government-commissioned national food strategy for England recently recommended that people try to cut their meat consumption by about 30 per cent within the next decade.

Oxford University’s Cristina Stewart, the lead researcher behind the study, told the BBC: “We now know we need a more substantial reduction.

“You don’t have to be vegetarian. Although, in general, meat-free dishes will have a lower impact.

“But if you’re someone that eats meat every day, reducing your meat consumption by 30 per cent just looks like having two meat-free days per week.”