Protein & politics
The heightened health concerns and increasing environmental awareness are likely to fuel demand in the next few years, but this is only half the battle and a fraction of the opportunity. “The government and food industry need to step up to the plate too, and make it easier for everyone to eat less, but better, meat,” explained Friends of the Earth food campaigner Kierra Box.
Politics and livestock protein are uneasy bedfellows, so it’s unlikely there will be a change in the regulatory landscape – a carbon tax on meat for example – anytime soon. Indeed, the vast majority of governments haven’t joined the dots between healthy eating and low impact diets in their official guidelines.
So it’s over to the food industry. More consumers – whether for reasons of health, environment, ethics, or a combination of the three – are looking to replace some of the meat in their diets, but that doesn’t make substitutes an easy sell.