Reducing Red Meat Consumption

Recently, a new study has shown that making simple dietary changes such as substituting chicken for beef could “reduce the average American’s carbon footprint from food by 35%, while also boosting diet quality between 4-10%.” Changing dietary habits could result in a significant decrease in overall carbon emissions, since food production contributes 25-33% of American greenhouse gas emissions.

A large emitter of greenhouse gasses is beef production, since cows produce so much methane. Substituting chicken for beef and almond milk for cow’s milk can help reduce the impact of agriculture on the environment.

Similarly, I conducted a study on reducing red meat consumption because while most research proves the benefits of less red meat consumption like the study above, there is a smaller body of knowledge on ways to actually reduce consumption. In my soon-to-be-published paper, I examined whether encouraging a greener diet or discouraging red meat was more effective in promoting less red meat consumption. This will be useful in the future to guide policy-writing and encourage more sustainable measures through legislation.