Should You Stop Eating Red Meat?

New Zealand has built a mythology around meat and three veg for dinner. We have one of the highest rates of meat consumption per capita in the world, but times are changing... Particularly how much red meat we are stuffing in our faces. According to OECD Food & Agriculture statistics there has been a significant decrease in red meat consumption over the past 20 years. This fits with other research which shows a 27% rise in the number of us going vegetarian and an even larger proportion of us cutting back on the meat.  

So, what’s the deal? We regularly hear through the media that farting cows are melting the ice caps, so are climate change concerns driving us to eat less flesh? Maybe…. So, should we stop eating meat and are the alternatives any better for the environment? 

In this episode, we hear from 21 year old Sam Beerepoot about his decision to go vegan after attending the Auckland ‘School Strikes 4 Climate’ marches. Chat to some local butchers and Nikhil Sawant – Countdown’s head of meat – about changing consumption patterns. And filling in some of the science behind the environmental impacts of our diet, University of Otago Associate Professor Alexandra Macmillan.  

Alex's research paper on “Healthy and Climate-Friendly Eating Patterns in the New Zealand Context” can be read here. 

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