Sustainability and meat consumption: is reduction realistic?

By H. Dagevos, J. Voordouw. 2013

266 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Meat is critical with respect to sustainability because meat products are among the most energy-intensive and ecologically burdensome foods. Empirical studies of the meat-consumption frequency of Dutch consumers show that, apart from meat-avoiders and meat-eaters, many people are meat-reducers that eat no meat at least one day per week. Meat-consumption frequencies provide empirical evidence for different modes of “flexitarianism,” including light, medium, and heavy flexitarians. In particular, the existence of heavy flexitarians suggests that the customary position of meat and other animal-based dietary products in the food hierarchy is not inviolable. To improve our understanding of meat reduction, cluster analysis adds information about differences across flexitarians. Given the enormous environmental impact of animal-protein consumption and the apparent sympathy of consumers for meat reduction, it is surprising that politicians and policy makers demonstrate little, if any, interest in strategies to reduce meat consumption and to encourage more sustainable eating practices.

Subfields: Ecology, Plant Science, Small Animals

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/de4194af4f78cf92997e2e86f023be923c730c35

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Citations in the corpus

Consumers and their behavior: state of the art in behavioral science supporting use phase modeling in LCA and ecodesign (2016, background): “A recent survey from the Netherlands suggests that, other than commonly thought, a sizable majority of people do not have a strong preference to consume meat frequently (Dagevos and Voordouw 2013).”
Moral Disengagement in Harmful but Cherished Food Practices? An Exploration into the Case of Meat (2014, background): “…animals in the livestock industry which could instead be channelled to produce plant-based nutritionally equivalent foodstuffs directly to human consumption, therefore drastically minimizing waste and inefficiency (e.g., Dagevos and Voordouw 2013; Pimentel and Pimentel 2003; Steinfeld et al. 2008).”
Reducing meat consumption in developed and transition countries to counter climate change and biodiversity loss: a review of influence factors (2017, background): “…diets has not yet translated into policies and practices from government to support consumer behaviour change’’ (Dibb and Fitzpatrick 2014, p. 5; Dagevos and Voordouw 2013; Laestadius et al. 2014; Bailey et al. 2014; Westhoek et al. 2011), it is evident that a variety of institutions have…”
Consumer Response to Negative Information on Meat Consumption in Germany (2014, background): “Furthermore, the implementation of such policies, including e.g., awareness-raising campaigns about the diverse negative effects of meat consumption, is considered as an important precondition for building consumer acceptance of more invasive measures (Dagevos & Voordow 2013).”
Limiting livestock production to pasture and by-products in a search for sustainable diets (2016, background): “For many consumers, a diet which contains some meat is probably more acceptable than a diet without any meat (Schösler et al., 2012; Dagevos and Voordouw, 2013).”
Finding flexitarians: Current studies on meat eaters and meat reducers (2021, methodology): “Data obtained in 2011 showed that flexitarianism consists of different forms or levels, ranging from minor adjustments to regular meat consumption patterns to more structural departure from routinised meat eating practices (Dagevos & Voordouw, 2013; Verain et al., 2015).”
Should we stop meating like this? Reducing meat consumption through substitution (2016, background): “Additionally, according to Dagevos and Voordouw (2013) information campaigns aiming to create meat reduction tendencies and increase awareness on the unsustainability of meat can be an important first step of policy makers to encourage consumers to accept future (possibly more invasive)…”