Durham University research found warnings of environmental or health impacts reduced choice of meals containing meat by 7-10%
People are used to seeing stark warnings on tobacco products alerting them about the potentially deadly risks to health. Now a study suggests similar labelling on food could help them make wiser choices about not just their health, but the health of the planet.
The research, by academics at Durham University, found that warning labels including a graphic image – similar to those warning of impotence, heart disease or lung cancer on cigarette packets – could reduce selections of meals containing meat by 7-10%.
It is a change that could have a material impact on the future of the planet. According to a recent YouGov poll, 72% of the UK population classify themselves as meat-eaters. But the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which advises the government on its net zero goals, has said the UK needs to slash its meat consumption by 20% by 2030, and 50% by 2050, in order to meet them.
This seems like rather an optimistic headline, seeing as the article also says that the results from the study were "not statistically signifiant".
Considering how meat is in most things, you'd think that it would just oversaturate people with warnings, and they would just end up ignoring it. Similar to how people more or less ignore California's Proposition 65 in the USA, because it's so broad, and the thresholds are so low that basically everything has a label saying "This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer". Anything significant gets lost in the noise.
From a climate perspective? Just tax carbon and give the proceeds back as UBI.
To the extent that health warnings work, it’s because it affects the consumer directly. A climate warning is saying “this burger is going to make life slightly worse for someone halfway around the world.”
It may change consumption slightly but also risks a blowback of denial. People don’t like feeling guilty and are perfectly capable of sticking their head in the sand so they can enjoy a steak.
Yeah it's going to stop people from eating what ever shit that's available for the cheapest price to continue living. I'm pretty sure this is just another bullshit study to talk about how people should eat healthy while they don't have budget or means to...
Edit: It seems many of you missed the meaning of what I'm talking about! Poor people who eat fast food, chicken or whatever processed meat products available for cheap not going to give a fuck about what their meat is labeled.
Meat just doesn't mean the steak people buy from the market! If this is so hard for you imbeciles to understand without getting triggered because someone said something you don't understand than there is no need for further discussion.
Processed meat consumption (including all kinds of meat beef, lamb, pork, chicken even fish) is the cheapest protein source for poor people.
This study is disregarding how poor people do their food shopping.
Until so called I can't believe it's meat type of vegetarian alternatives come to the point of real meat poor people going to continue to eat meat.
And all you butt hurt so called activist can't even see the difference because you have your head up so high up your high horses to realize what the fuck is normal people going through.
Now kindly please go fuck yourselves and don't comment any more unless you have an actual and feasible solution.
Won't ever happen in the US tho. The meat industry is so protective that a lot of states have food libel laws, as well as gag laws that's limit filming of slaughter houses. If something is so obviously safe, weird how you can't talk about it's risks or show its production.
We can't forget how wasteful meat is as a food supply. Which is sorta obvious when you think about it for 5 seconds. Feeding cows edible food, drinkable water, on farmable land for several years to only get a handful of meals out of them is just silly inefficient.
And that's just the data, not even going in to ethics. Which, come on. Cut a cow, they bleed, yell and flee. If you cut their young, they attack. Just like we do. Does it matter if they can't talk? The question is, can they suffer?(yes)
The cigarette warnings don't do anything though. The shock images were scary to me as a child but by the time I was 18 I was so used to it that it was like I couldn't see them anymore.
Thankfully due to the stagflation I'm doing some austerity efforts regarding my grocery procurement. This has resulted in my diet having consisted of the majority of vegetables with some eggs here and there.
I remember when these were introduced on cigarette packs. For a while there was a trend of "collecting all the pics", while other found a nice business in selling "cigarette pack holder" that would just mask the pictures. I'm not sure any of that was the initial goal.
I wonder how applying this to food would turn out, seeing that a fair share of people are well informed of the effect we have on the climate already but simply don't care.
I watched this video about how reducing meat consumption isn't the silver bullet it's made out to be. I'd really like to hear what other people think about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGG-A80Tl5g
LOL. Big oil is hard at work. They want to get out of this one scot-free with their "mah quarterly profits". Now they're running after people's food. Get the fuck outta here with this shit. I don't care what they put on the package, I'm still eating my food. You go enjoy your private jets, yachts and billions of dollars and let me at least enjoy a fucking steak/burger. I hate this shit so much.
People are used to seeing stark warnings on tobacco products alerting them about the potentially deadly risks to health.
The research, by academics at Durham University, found that warning labels including a graphic image – similar to those warning of impotence, heart disease or lung cancer on cigarette packets – could reduce selections of meals containing meat by 7-10%.
According to a recent YouGov poll, 72% of the UK population classify themselves as meat-eaters.
But the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which advises the government on its net zero goals, has said the UK needs to slash its meat consumption by 20% by 2030, and 50% by 2050, in order to meet them.
Researchers believe their findings could help encourage changes in gastronomic choices that could ultimately benefit the environment.
“As warning labels have already been shown to reduce smoking as well as drinking of sugary drinks and alcohol, using a warning label on meat-containing products could help us achieve this if introduced as national policy.”
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