If there is to be enough food for everyone to eat in the future, we should start looking at our own eating habits. Our enormous consumption of meat – particularly beef – is a strain on the environment and is putting pressure on the world’s food resources. However, it is not easy to get people to stop buying so many hamburgers and so much red meat. Different initiatives are required, according to a professor of economic psychology.

2013.12.19 | Ida Hammerich

If consumers are to reduce the impact of food consumption on the environment, the most important thing is to eat less meat – especially beef. Photo Jesper Rais

When you bite into a steak, you are putting more strain on the environment than you would if you had a pork meatball instead. Beef is three to four times as hard on the environment as pork and chicken, so if you could eat less beef, it would make a serious difference in terms of the environment and thereby ensure sustainable food production in the future.

However, it is impossible to change consumer eating habits just like that, according to Professor of Economic Psychology John Thøgersen, whose research includes consumer behaviour.

“When we talk about something as complex as changing diet, it’s important to realise that there’s no single solution. However, we can influence people to make more environmentally responsible choices, partly by providing information and teaching, and by taxing food,” he says.

Teaching rather than campaigns

Research shows that the more well-educated a population is, the more sensible choices the people make, including decisions regarding their diet. It is also important to inform the population about the environmental impact of the different types of meat and, according to Professor Thøgersen, it can be an advantage to provide this information as early as in the classroom.

“It’s all about making young people aware of how their everyday choice affects the global environment – without feeling guilt or shame. You just have to understand the context. Most children today also know that they shouldn’t let the tap run while they’re cleaning their teeth,” he says.

He does not believe that nationwide campaigns to get people to eat less beef – and less meat altogether – have very much effect.

“Experience with this type of campaign to change people’s habits is not particularly good. The ‘six a day’ campaign to get people in Denmark to eat more fruit and vegetables appears to have had some effect, but it’s also a campaign that argues the health issue in a positive way that nobody could object to. Campaigns to eat less meat, on the other hand, would be much debated and run into opposition from many sides, especially the food industry and agriculture,” he says.

Professor Thøgersen feels we should continue with campaigns that promote fruit and vegetables – when we eat more fruit and vegetables, there is less room for meat.

Taxes help

Part of the problem associated with so much meat consumption will possibly solve itself along the way. Food prices will increase in the future, and people will therefore be inclined to refrain from buying the most expensive food items – including meat. This development could be helped along by adding fees and taxes.

“A differentiated value-added tax could be introduced, where the tax is lower on healthy foods than on less healthy items. And there could be no tax at all on fruit and vegetables. This would be one way of helping the market mechanism on its way, and it would be much more effective,” says Professor Thøgersen.

The dietary habits of the population are slow to develop, but it is possible to change them.

“The Danes’ eating habits have changed during the last fifty years because we’ve become much more internationalised. And the new Nordic kitchen is now gradually making inroads. It’s possible to change people’s dietary habits, but such change is not a rapid process,” concludes Professor Thøgersen.