The food industry vs. the nation’s health: interview with anti-obesity campaigner Tam Fry

The food industry vs. the nation’s health: interview with anti-obesity campaigner Tam Fry
by Ian Sinclair
Morning Star
11 October 2022

The UK has one of the highest rates of obesity in Europe, according to a May report from the World Health Organisation. As the research noted, obesity is associated with many diseases, including musculoskeletal complications, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and at least 13 types of cancer.

In 2017 Public Health England estimate the overall cost of obesity to wider society at £27 billion per year.

Tam Fry, the Chairman of the National Obesity Forum and an Expert Advisory Team Member at Action On Sugar, tells Ian Sinclair what he thinks about the Truss government’s plans on obesity, and what policies might actually work to address the deep-rooted problem.

Ian Sinclair: According to the UK Health Security Agency, in 1980 6 per cent of men in England were obese (those with a Body Mass Index over 30). By 1993 it had more than doubled to 13 per cent, and by 2019 it had doubled again to 27 per cent. Why have obesity rates increased so quickly in England and the rest of the UK?

Tam Fry: Obesity rates in the UK have risen so quickly because no government in the last thirty years has succeeded in formulating a strategy that has any chance of stemming the epidemic. A review paper from Cambridge University published in January last year (‘Is Obesity Policy in England fit for Purpose?’, The Millbank Quarterly) concluded that every attempt to come up with a workable set of measures was doomed to fail. And there is nothing coming out of new Health Secretary Thérèse Coffey that gives any hope for success in the future. Ironically her mantra “ABCD” is the US obesity specialists’ description of the condition – Adipose-Based Chronic Disease! No government, of whatever hue, has addressed the principal cause for the nation’s overweight: without serious curbs being slapped on a food industry that persists in lacing its products with excessive levels of fat, salt and sugar – three of the principal drivers of obesity – and continues to market the worst products at attractively low prices, levels will not fall significantly.

IS: How do you respond to the common argument obesity is a failure of individual willpower?

TF: The common argument that obesity is a failure of individual willpower was all the rage in the early years of this century and it was a very easy way for government to escape taking any blame. But all that went out of the window in 2007 when the Foresight Report was published. The report was the result of two years intensive work into obesity commissioned by the Labour government and it clearly established that the obesogenic environment in which we all live was the main cause of the problem. It recognised that few individuals would be able to withstand the incessant advertising and marketing of food and, the lower down the social scale they were, the more difficult it would be to resist the onslaught.

The incoming 2010 Conservative government then turned to a new strategy: promoting behaviour change. This was the great white hope for a few years. That ran out of steam quite quickly, however, when it became obvious that waiting for the population to change ingrained habits was akin to watching paint dry. A special office was even set up in Downing Street to oversee the process but it had little effect. The office will probably be best remembered as the ‘Nudge Unit’ but nudging was never likely to be the answer.

Running parallel with nudging, the Conservatives also mistakenly decided that it would appeal to the better nature of the food barons and came up with a “responsibility deal”. The premise was that with their promise not to legislate food production, the barons would pledge voluntarily to reformulate their products into being “healthy” items. In the expectation that industry would keep to its pledges, the government even invited senior industrialists to co-chair the committees which would implement the ‘deal’. It would be a vain hope. Pledges fell by the wayside and the deal was dead.

IS: Last month the Guardian reported the new Truss government is considering scrapping a range of anti-obesity policies, including bans on “buy one get one free” offers, displays of sweet treats at supermarket checkouts, TV adverts for junk food before the 9pm watershed, and possibly the sugar tax. You commented “Once again the interests of big business have dangerously overridden the interests of the man in the street.” How does big business influence government policy?

TF: Essentially business influences government policy by pleading dire consequences for the country if Downing Street takes any measures that might affect its profits. In a 2010  Guardian article entitled ‘Andrew Lansley’s Department of Big Macs’, Philip James, one of the UK’s top nutritionists involved in setting up the Foods Standards Agency at the turn of the century, gave two examples of the food industry at work. In the first he described how it became clear to him that ministers were under intense pressure from industry to see that the agency excluded nutrition from its portfolio and should focus solely on food safety. His second example illustrated how a report authored by him, outlining a strategy that had the potential of nipping childhood obesity in the bud, was never published at the express request of industry leaders because it suggested that advertising and marketing might influence children’s behaviour. They seemed to have ‘persuaded’ the then Minister for Public Health, Tessa Jowell, that the report was “extraordinarily radical” and that they would like to speak to James. Within days he was invited to a private chat over dinner with the industry chiefs “who considered it entirely reasonable to market products directly to children”. The report was quickly buried in some Whitehall graveyard – and there has never been anything similarly ‘radical’ since.

IS: Depressingly, many experts describe the current UK anti-obesity strategy – which the Tory government is looking at ditching – as inadequate. What policies would work?

TF: The greatest hope that something radical might be done to stem obesity came when Prime Minister Boris Johnson exited St Thomas’ Hospital having been treated for COVID-19. Realising that his own weight was identified as a contributing factor to catching the virus, he declared that he would launch a war on obesity. In July 2020 he published the measures that he was sure would start to see it off. Public health specialists were jubilant that finally some of the draconian proposals that they had been advocating for years might be about to be implemented.

It was a false dawn. The majority of the proposals that Johnson hoped would empower adults and children to live healthier lives have now been kicked into touch by Liz Truss and Coffey, and the single proposal that remains, and which has just come into force, has served only to confuse – the idea that supermarket layouts be reconfigured so that sugary items in particular be furthest from the check-out/entrance has essentially infuriated customers who are baffled as to the aisles in which they will find their desired purchases!

The only initiative to combat obesity that might, over time, have some effect in significantly reducing it is the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL). It came into effect in 2018, after Chancellor George Osborne fought lengthy battles for it within Downing Street. The SDIL knocked everyone out with its success and its continuing benefit has sparked clamours that it be extended to food items. Its success lies in the fact that it is not a tax on the drinks’ purchaser but a levy on the company bottling it. Indeed, it allowed companies to escape the levy altogether if they radically reduced the sugar content in their sodas and they embraced the idea. There are now many zero sugar or low sugar versions of drinks on sale and, would you believe, companies are profiting from it. Indeed, so immediate was the levy’s success that in 2019 Dame Sally Davies, who was England’s Chief Medical Officer at the time, made an extension of the levy her first proposal to tackle child obesity. She singled out milk based drinks (presumably milkshakes and high street coffee shop drinks etc.) as prime targets but, inevitably, any food product unreasonably high in sugar content could follow. Stripping sugar out of breakfast cereals, cakes and biscuits is also on the cards but more time is needed for reformulation to be achieved.

Meat industry propaganda and the climate crisis

Meat industry propaganda and the climate crisis
by Ian Sinclair
Morning Star
25 July 2022

In recent years United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has made increasingly strong statements about the climate crisis. His latest warning came at last month’s Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in the US, organised by the White House. “We seem trapped in a world where fossil fuel producers and financiers have humanity by the throat,” he said.

“For decades, many in the fossil fuel industry has invested heavily in pseudo-science and public relations – with a false narrative to minimize their responsibility for climate change and undermine ambitious climate policies.”

“They exploited precisely the same scandalous tactics as big tobacco decades before. Like tobacco interests, fossil fuel interests and their financial accomplices must not escape responsibility.”

New research suggests the UK meat industry should be added to the list of powerful forces working in opposition to the public interest and addressing climate change.

Published in Food Policy journal, the article is the first peer-reviewed systematic analysis of how meat industry documents publicly frame the health and sustainability aspects of their business.

Explaining the wider context, the authors – academics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Boston University School of Health – note “current consumption trends of red and processed meat are being increasingly understood as a threat to both human health and the health of the planet.”

Red and processed meat have been linked with cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, while the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies processed meat as “carcinogenic to humans” and red meat as “probably carcinogenic” to humans.

The authors also highlight livestock farming accounts for 14.5 per cent of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, with beef the biggest climate offender.

The study looked at the websites of six organisations representing the UK meat industry: the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board, the British Meat Processors Association, the Country Land & Business Association, Craft Butchers, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) and Pasture For Life.

Their conclusion? The meat industry frames the debate about the environmental and health aspects of meat consumption “in line with the ‘playbook’ used by producers of other harmful commodities [e.g. the fossil fuel and tobacco industries] to portray their products in a more favourable light and to avoid regulation.”

The authors note four ‘classic’ framing devices deployed by the meat industry, which will be very familiar to observers of the tobacco and fossil fuel industries. First, it “fosters uncertainty about scientific consensus and casts doubt over the reliability of both researchers and the evidence”. Second, the industry was found to have shifted the focus to deflect attention away from the central issues – for example risk factors for cancer other than meat were highlighted. Third, the industry portrays itself as a well-intentioned actor, emphasising its own environmental credentials. And finally, there is an emphasis on personal choice. These devices lead to four broad messages: the evidence is “still open for debate”, “most people have no need to worry”, “keep eating meat to be healthy” and “no need to cut down to be green”.

While noting it is unclear whether the industry’s framing has impacted consumer or policy-making behaviour, the study does conclude that “in comparison to other producers of harmful products, the meat industry has thus far avoided significant inspection of its wider corporate tactics.”

Which brings us to the UK government’s (non)reaction to the National Food Strategy it commissioned in 2019 from Henry Dimbleby, co-founder of the Leon restaurant chain. Published last year, the report’s executive summary noted “our current appetite for meat is unsustainable: 85% of total land that produces UK food is used to graze livestock or produce crops to feed to animals… we have set a goal of a 30% reduction over ten years.”

This echoes the positon of conservation charity WWF, who argued in February that to meet the nation’s climate commitments British farmers needed to reduce the production of meat and dairy, ideally by at least 30% by 2030. And in 2019 a commission convened by the Lancet medical journal and the Eat Forum NGO highlighted how Europeans needed to eat 77 per cent less meat to avert planetary climate disaster. There are indications these kinds of measures have public support, with a WWF-Demos survey of 22,000 Britons finding 93 per cent of respondents supporting “a strong campaign run by supermarkets, food companies and government reduces red meat and dairy consumption per person by 10%”.

Despite all of this, the government’s response to the National Food Strategy, a White Paper published by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in June, did not include anything about reducing meat and dairy production.

No doubt the meat industry was very happy with the government’s continued inaction.

Lord Deben, the Chair of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), certainly wasn’t. “This is an opportunity wasted,” he said. “The government’s Food Strategy will do precious little to tackle emissions from agriculture which is now one of the most serious contributors to climate change.” The CCC recommended a 20 per cent reduction in meat and dairy by 2030 and 35 per cent reduction for meat by 2050.

The government’s refusal to engage with reality follows on from its 2021 Net Zero Strategy, a 368-page document that set out the policies for decarbonising all sectors of the UK economy to meet the 2050 net zero target. According to Michael Thorogood, a political intelligence consultant at Dods, the strategy did not mention “meat” once.

Indeed the CCC’s recently published Progress Report found “major failures in delivery programmes towards the achievement of the UK’s climate goals” and that “the current strategy will not deliver Net Zero.” Chris Stark, the CCC Chief Executive, noted an absence of clear policies to deal with the 12 per cent of UK emissions the CCC estimates come from farming and land use. “DEFRA is really failing to deliver,” he noted.

Researching this article, I’ve found there is a paucity of information about the size and lobbying power of the UK meat industry. However, journalist George Monbiot gave an insight into its close relationship with the government in the Guardian last month. Describing the White Paper as “disastrous”, he noted “these failures reflect a general reversal of Johnson’s environmental commitments, feeble as they were, in response to one of the most pernicious lobby groups in the UK, the National Farmers’ Union… the environment department, DEFRA, occupies 17 Smith Square, London SW1; the NFU, 18 Smith Square, London SW1. It scarcely matters which door you enter: you’ll hear the same story.”

It is important to realise this story is bigger than the UK meat industry, and bigger than UK politics.

Echoing the results of the EAT-Lancet commission, an article published in the peer-reviewed Science journal in 2020 noted the centrality of the food system, and therefore of reducing meat and dairy production, to averting global climate catastrophe.

“We show that even if fossil fuel emissions were immediately halted, current trends in global food systems would prevent the achievement of the 1.5°C target and, by the end of the century, threaten the achievement of the 2°C target,” the study abstract noted. “Meeting the 1.5°C target requires rapid and ambitious changes to food systems as well as to all nonfood sectors. The 2°C target could be achieved with less-ambitious changes to food systems, but only if fossil fuel and other nonfood emissions are eliminated soon.”

In a sane world, the record breaking temperatures experienced earlier this week would sharpen minds and lead to a radical shift in policymaking. Sadly history tells us not to underestimate the governing elite’s ability to ignore the rapidly worsening climate emergency. As always it’s up to us, as concerned citizens, to get active and start challenging the meat industry and the government on this crucial issue.

Follow Ian on Twitter @IanJSinclair.   

Sustainable diets: Interview with Dr Pamela Mason and Professor Tim Lang

Sustainable diets: Interview with Dr Pamela Mason and Professor Tim Lang
by Ian Sinclair
Peace News blog
30 April 2018

Last year public health nutritionist Dr Pamela Mason and Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at the Centre for Food Policy, City University of London, published their book Sustainable Diets: How Ecological Nutrition Can Transform Consumption and the Food System with Routledge.

After reviewing the book for Peace News, Ian Sinclair asked the two researchers what they mean by sustainable diets, what role veganism can play, and what concerned people can do to quicken the transformation to a sustainable food system.

Ian Sinclair: What is your definition of a sustainable diet?

Pamela Mason and Tim Lang: A sustainable diet has often focused on a diet that is protective for the planet, particularly for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs). Given that food systems account for 25-30% of GHGEs, this is an essential consideration for sustainable diets, but we believe that a sustainable diet should be defined more broadly to include public health, cultural acceptability, accessibility, safe and affordable food, and the health and welfare of all who work in the food system. We are in agreement with the definition of the FAO and Bioversity (2010) which defined sustainable diets more broadly than nutrition + environment (or calories + carbon), as “Sustainable Diets are those diets with low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations. Sustainable diets are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable; nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy; while optimizing natural and human resources”.

IS: You note that standard Western diets are far from sustainable – causing obesity and non-communicable diseases, with the rich world “eating as though there are multiple planets”. How do our diets in the West need to change for them to become sustainable?

PM and TL: The main change required to make Western diets sustainable (and increasingly the diets of well-off people across the world) is to reduce meat intake. Livestock production is responsible for a third of all agriculture’s GHGEs and 70% of agricultural land use globally. Nearly half of global agricultural land is used for livestock feed production. Some 36% of the calories produced by the world’s crops are used for animal feed. Only 12% of those feed calories ultimately contribute to the human diet as meat and other animal products so animals are relatively inefficient in terms of feeding people. In practical terms, a sustainable diet is therefore one based on plant foods (i.e., vegetables, fruits, wholegrains, beans and pulses and nuts) with animal foods (meat and dairy), if liked, consumed in small to moderate amounts. Although meat is a source of nutrients (e.g. iron, zinc, vitamin B12 and protein) in the human diet, these nutrients, with the possible exception of vitamin B12, can be obtained from plant foods. Meat is therefore not an essential component of the human diet. Fish is more difficult. Several authorities around the world, including the UK, specifically recommend the consumption of oily fish for reduction of cardiovascular risk due to its omega-3 fatty acid content, which is problematic when 80-85% of global fish stocks are fragile. Moreover, fish is an important source of income and indeed of protein in some small communities throughout the world. Of note is that some specific communities such as Seventh Day Adventists and also people who choose to follow a vegan diet and consume no fish enjoy good cardiovascular health.

IS: Many people see a vegan diet as the best diet in terms of climate change, the environment, human health and animal welfare/rights. However, in the book you note a vegan diet may not be sustainable. Why?

PM and TL: Compared with a traditional Western meat containing diet, a vegan diet containing no animal food is associated with reduced GHGEs, reduced land use and reduced water use. However, a vegan diet that simply contains no animal food is not necessarily healthy in that a vegan diet could focus on foods such as white bread, jam and chips.  It is important to distinguish between a healthy vegan diet or a healthy plant-based diet as being one which focuses on whole unprocessed foods, including vegetables, fruit, grains and pulses.

In terms of environmental and socio-economic impact, vegan diets are not necessarily 100% good news. This is a highly complex picture. Processed vegan foods may, for example, contain palm oil, which is associated with deforestation. It is not clear the extent to which ‘certified’ palm oil reduces deforestation. However, use of olive oil and sunflower oil require much more land to produce than palm oil. Workers producing coconut oil are often paid abysmally. Replacing meat with processed soya foods such as tofu and also Quorn would, with current practices, require large amounts of land to be used overseas. Some plant-based milks like almond milk require large amounts of water in their production and are to some extent nutritionally inferior to dairy milk. A vegan diet could potentially be all fruit, likely containing lots of tropical fruit, some of which again requires a lot of water in its production. People growing avocados in Mexico cannot afford to eat them any more as they are grown on a mass scale for Western consumers, with a similar situation existing for growers of quinoa in Bolivia and Peru.

A healthy sustainable vegan diet will likely depend on increasing the use of British grown field crops, such as root vegetables and brassicas as well as orchard fruits. Some pulses, beans and seeds (quinoa, lentils, peas, fava beans, haricot beans, flax) are increasingly grown in the UK and their use would reduce the use of water in water thirsty regions of the world. Soya beans can be grown in the UK too.

IS: A shift to sustainable diets seems to be a win-win – better for people’s health and for the environment. However, we are still very far from achieving this. Who or what is impeding the move to a sustainable food system?

PM and TL: Policy makers are not significantly engaging with the need for diets to become more sustainable. Partly this is due to a fear of consumers and the mantra of consumer choice. To recommend dietary change is not something that policy makers (with some exceptions) want to do. Consumers are increasingly interested in their diets, often from a health perspective, but also in terms of animal welfare, sustainable fish and to some extent from an environmental perspective. However, dietary advice is often confusing and consumers may not be clear on how they could best be eating for their own health and that of the planet. Marketing of less healthy foods high in fat and sugar and salt at the expense of healthier foods adds to consumer confusion. The food industry may resist change as it may compromise their bottom line, although some companies acknowledge the need for change because of growing consumer interest and concern that unless they make production changes ingredient availability may become fragile due to climate change, lack of water and so on.

What is needed to contribute to dietary change is for every country to develop Sustainable Dietary Guidelines with leadership and commitment from government, usually the Ministry (or Department) of Health. Such guidelines would provide a steer to both consumers and food producers. If consumers began to choose more sustainable diets, this would send a signal to food producers leading to a more sustainable food production. In short, we need sustainable diets from sustainable food systems. It is not an either/or but a both/and.

Some countries, notably Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Qatar and Brazil have produced Sustainable Dietary Guidelines, whilst others such as Australia and the United States have been thwarted in their attempts largely by private sector interests. The UK’s dietary guidance is in the form of the Eatwell Guide, which was revised in 2016 with some mention of sustainability issues such as reducing red meat consumption, but it does not go far enough.

IS: What do you think are the most important actions concerned citizens can take to help quicken the transition to sustainable diets?

PM and TL: Actions that concerned citizens can take include making a dietary shift to a more plant based diet. This can be done gradually by, for example, reducing the amount of meat and increasing vegetables in composite recipes and aiming for one or more meat-free days or meals in the week. The advantages lie in terms of health and the environment and if the food is cooked from scratch in the home meals containing less meat can be cheaper. People need to gain confidence in changing methods of food preparation and food shopping. Our ‘meat and two veg’ meal culture needs to change to a ‘vegetable and grain with meat as a condiment’ approach and this can take time. Most dietitians, for example, acknowledge that dietary change is difficult, but if the whole household can get involved this helps enormously. It is also important to learn more about food, how it can be cooked and combined. Shop in places where there is a high proportion of fresh unprocessed foods and ask food retailers and producers how they produce their food (e.g. animal welfare, use of pesticides and so on). Eating together with family, friends, neighbours and community is also important as this usually contributes to enjoyment of food, learning more about it and sharing of ideas for action. Of note here are the Brazilian Sustainable Dietary Guidelines, which focus on food culture, highlighting where and how to shop for food and so on.

Concerned citizens can also form groups or join groups that are interested in issues related to food and consider lobbying town, city and county councils about issues such as land use, spaces for community vegetable growing projects and so on. Such food activist groups can also draw up strategies to help towns and cities move towards more sustainable diets and help everyone whatever their income to have access to a healthy sustainable diet. Organising food events can also highlight sustainability issues in an area, highlight local supply chains and availability of vegetables and fruits (or lack of them) and can help to develop skills in food knowledge and food preparation.

Book review: Sustainable Diets by Pamela Mason and Tim Lang

Book review: Sustainable Diets. How Ecological Nutrition Can Transform Consumption and the Food System by Pamela Mason and Tim Lang
by Ian Sinclair
Peace News
April-May 2018

Far from being simply a personal choice, our diet is deeply political.

As Dr Pamela Mason and Professor Tim Lang explain, the spread of the standard Western diet has had devastating consequences for people and the planet. Worldwide, obesity has nearly doubled since 1980, with poor dietary patterns the greatest contribution to non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, in rich nations. “North America and Europe consume biological resources as though they inhabit multiple planets”, the authors note. The US consumes as though it inhabits five planets, Europe three.

In response, they propose the widespread adoption of sustainable diets which are able “to feed huge populations equitably, healthily and in ways that maintains the ecosystems on which humanity depends.”

In pursuit of this goal Mason and Lang have written an academic book chockful with summaries of the latest research, complete with a massive number of references. Their citing of journal articles, reports and policy documents is often relentless but there is lots of eye-opening facts to discover for readers who persevere. For example, they note the carbon footprint of the huge amount of global food waste means it ranks as the third top greenhouse gas emitter after the US and China. Elsewhere, citing a Defra-commissioned study, they explain that tomatoes grown in Spain and transported to the UK have a smaller environmental footprint than those grown in heated houses in the UK.

If sustainability is to be achieved, the evidence overwhelmingly shows rich populations need to significantly reduce the amount of meat and dairy in their diet, and increase the level of plant foods. This is a “win-win”, as a food researcher Laura Wellesley from Chatham House has explained, because plant-based diets tend to both healthier and associated with lower environmental impacts.

However, Mason and Lang do not automatically endorse a vegan diet as the solution, citing nutritional issues and its lack of social acceptance. Arguably this position inadvertently highlights a limitation of their thesis – while ‘animal welfare’ is included in their definition of sustainability, the right of animals not to be eaten by humans is not.

With a transition to sustainable diets indispensable to keeping global temperatures below 2OC, “the challenge remains awesome”, they note. And though they support long-term, interdisciplinary systems thinking, they do not seriously consider the role grassroots activists might play.

Surely set to become a core text, Sustainable Diets is a brilliant resource for those who want to be fully informed on this hugely important topic

Sustainable Diets is published by Routledge, priced £32. 

Meat and climate change: an interview with Chatham House’s Laura Wellesley

Meat and climate change: an interview with Chatham House’s Laura Wellesley
by Ian Sinclair
Open Democracy
18 February 2016

In an interesting and important detour from its usual focus on international conflict and diplomacy, in 2014 Chatham House – the Royal Institute of International Affairs – established a research project on Diet and Climate Change. Working with the Glasgow University Media Group, the project aims to “review public understanding and behaviour in relation to meat and dairy consumption and its impact on greenhouse gas emissions.”

With the research finding “public awareness of the link between diet and climate change is very low”, I interviewed Laura Wellesley, a Research Associate in the Energy, Environment and Resources department at Chatham House and project leader, in an attempt to get the research results out to a wider audience.

Ian Sinclair: What is the relationship between meat and dairy consumption and climate change?

Laura Wellesley: Our appetite for meat and dairy products is a key driver of climate change. Globally, the livestock sector contributes 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions – that’s the same as exhaust fumes from every car, truck, plane, train and boat on the planet.

IS: How, exactly, does meat and dairy consumption contribute to climate change?

LW: Greenhouse gases are emitted from every point along the meat and dairy supply chains. Methane and nitrous oxide, two of the most potent greenhouse gases, are released by the animals themselves, from their manure and from the fertilizers used to grow their feed, combining with CO2 emissions emitted when land is cleared for crop production and grazing, and from machinery used to house, feed, slaughter, process and transport animals and animal products.

IS: You argue that a significant reduction in meat consumption would be a “win-win”. What do you mean by this?

LW: Global meat consumption has already reached unsustainable levels and is expected to increase by 76% by 2050. That means that, even with ambitious mitigation to lower the emissions intensity of livestock production the world over, emissions from the sector will continue to rise, eating up a huge slice of the remaining carbon budget. The upshot is that, without a significant reduction in global meat-eating, keeping global warming below two degrees will be nearly impossible.

But a global shift to healthy, sustainable levels of meat consumption would also be a ‘win’ for global public health. Meat consumption in most industrialised countries has reached excessive levels: across the EU, the average person currently eats around twice as much as is deemed healthy; in the US, it’s three times this amount. And the emerging economies are fast catching up.

Overconsumption of meat products – particularly red and processed meat – is contributing to a rise in obesity numbers and in the incidence of non-communicable diseases like type-2 diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers. Encouraging a reduction in meat consumption amongst those populations who are currently over-consuming meat would help to tackle the growing social and economic costs of diet-related diseases.

IS: You argue that one reason meat remains off the policy agenda is because the government fears a backlash from the voting public. What has your research discovered about public opinion and possibilities for reducing our meat consumption?

LW: Our research showed a considerable awareness gap around the links between diet and climate change. While familiar with the notion of GHG [Greenhouse Gas] emissions from transport and heavy industry, focus group participants in Brazil, China, the UK and the US were largely unaware of the way in which our consumption patterns contribute to climate change. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, findings from our multinational opinion survey and focus groups showed that concerns over environmental sustainability are far less important in influencing people’s food choices than more immediate factors like health concerns, taste and price.

But what our research also suggests is that the public’s disengagement with the diet-climate relationship is not the result of active resistance. Instead, it’s the product of a lack of awareness that has been sustained through government inaction. And findings from the focus group discussions point to a public that expects governments to intervene on their behalf, that is unlikely to stage sustained resistance to policy interventions, and that looks to governments to spearhead change where it is needed.

Encouraging a reduction in meat-eating will not be easy. But these findings indicate that, were governments to signal the urgent need for change and to initiate a public debate around the need for dietary change, the public’s disengagement would likely dissipate.

IS: What practical steps do you think governments should be taking to produce a reduction in our meat and dairy consumption?

LW: There’s no one silver bullet: a comprehensive package of policies and strategies will be needed if diets are to change at the scale needed.

Awareness-raising will be an important first step, but it won’t be enough. Governments will need to work with industry, civil society and the media to implement ‘nudge’ tactics in retail environments, and to make it cheaper, easier and more appealing to eat more plant-based foods. Including sustainability standards in public procurement guidelines and changing the default option in school and hospital canteens will be important pieces of the puzzle, but governments will also need to consider more interventionist measures like a carbon tax on animal products if we are to realize change at the scale required.

These strategies will work best when implemented by a range of actors – governments, industry, civil society groups, public figures – working together to promote a common message. But the bottom line is that governments need to initiate a conversation around unsustainable meat consumption – at the national level, but also through international platforms – and overcome the taboo associated with policy interventions on diets. If we are to avoid dangerous climate change, we cannot afford to continue on the current path of inaction.

Breaking the silence: Meat and climate change

Breaking the silence: Meat and climate change
by Ian Sinclair
Morning Star
18 December 2014

It’s an unusual departure for a think-tank used to discussing regional conflict and international diplomacy but Chatham House’s new report on livestock farming and climate change is hugely important.

The research paper notes that the consumption of meat and dairy produce is a major driver of climate change. With the global livestock industry producing more carbon emissions than all planes, trains, automobiles and ships combined “curbing the world’s appetite for meat is essential to avoid devastating climate change”, The Guardian summarised.

The study comes on the back of a plethora of recent research and expert testimony linking meat-eating, especially beef, with the on-going climate crisis, including the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Nature science journal and the Sustainable Consumption Institute at Manchester University. “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases”, explained Lord Stern, the author of the seminal Stern Report on climate change, in 2009. “It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

Taking Stern’s advice and moving towards a vegetarian or, better still, a vegan diet, is what might be called a win-win-win situation – as well as helping the climate it would improve human health and mean less animals are slaughtered with all the horror this brings. “Diets high in animal products are associated with an increased risk of non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and several forms of cancer”, notes Chatham House. Since 2007 the World Cancer Research Fund has recommended that people do not eat any processed meat because of the link with a number of cancers.

Quoting a recent review of the academic literature, Chatham House goes on to explain that mostly plant-based diets with little processed foods are “decisively associated with health promotion and disease prevention”. For example, research from Loma Linda University in California tracking 73,000 thousand people for almost six years found vegetarians tended to live longer than meat-eaters and were less likely to get heart disease. Compiling data from 18 academic papers, the Nature journal article also notes that relative to conventional omnivorous diets, a vegetarian diet was linked to a 20 percent reduction in heart disease, as well as a 41 percent reduction in Type 2 diabetes.

Considering all this evidence, governments have had very little to say about the issue. Chatham House argues they may be concerned about the public backlash that might come from attempts to interfere in people’s diets and home lives. Frustratingly, the green movement has also been relatively quiet about linking diet and climate change, with little attempt to promote vegetarianism or veganism as viable responses. “I think they focussed grouped it and it’s a political loser”, the US food journalist Michael Pollan, speaking in the new documentary Cowspiracy, says about environmental NGOs. “They’re membership organisations… they are looking to maximise the number of people making contributions and if they get identified as being anti-meat or challenging people on their everyday habits, something that is so dear to people, it will hurt with their fundraising.” Corporate power is also a powerful block on radical change. In a 2010 lecture Samuel Jutzi, Director of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), warned: “I have now been 20 years in a multilateral organisation which tries to develop guidance and codes for good agricultural practice, but the real, true issues are not being addressed by the political process because of the influence of lobbyists, of the true powerful entities”. Speaking about the publication of the major 2006 FAO report on livestock’s responsibility for nearly one-third of global emissions, he told the audience “You wouldn’t believe how much we were attacked”.

While governments and the green movement have been acquiescing there has been a large increase in global meat consumption – especially in countries such as China and Brazil. But we shouldn’t be downhearted. Change is possible, with studies showing many people in the West have been reducing their consumption of meat, and red meat specifically, for both health and environmental reasons. Indeed, food is the one issue that we get to vote on every day. Three times a day, in fact.

With the IPCC recently warning climate change is set to inflict “severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts” unless emissions are cut rapidly and sharply, it is imperative that we start talking about food right now. Because if you care about the wellbeing of the planet and everyone and everything on it then you need to ask whether your diet is part of the solution, or part of the problem.

Can in-vitro meat save the world?

Can in-vitro meat save the world?
by Ian Sinclair
Morning Star
3 September 2013

“£200,000 test-tube burger marks milestone in future meat-eating”, proclaimed The Guardian. “Could in-vitro meat save the world?”, asked Bioedge, a website dedicated to bioethical issues. The answer could well be yes, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals who said “It will reduce carbon emissions, conserve water and make the food supply safer.”

The August launch of lab-bred ‘meat’ in London was, according to Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University in London, “a masterly act of timing, theatre, and media management.”

“Considerable scepticism is required”, Lang warned.

Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and author of 1975’s seminal Animal Liberation, clearly didn’t get the memo. Writing in the Guardian, Singer lauded the first public tasting of Dr Mark Post’s in-vitro beefburger as an “historic event” which, although he hadn’t eaten meat for 40 years, had convinced him to try in-vitro meat should it become commercially available. Singer’s decision was based on two reasons: To reduce animal suffering and to help the environment. “Using meat from animals, especially ruminants, is heating the planet and contributing to a future in which hundreds of millions of people become climate refugees”, Singer said. In contrast “In vitro meat won’t belch or fart methane. Nor will it defecate, and as a result, the vast cesspools that intensive farms require to handle manure will become unnecessary.”

Two inconvenient facts suggest Singer’s enthusiasm is pie-in-the-sky thinking. Firstly, production costs for the test tube beefburger are currently running at over £200,000 – funded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, as it happens. This astronomical cost means it will likely take years to produce it on a commercially viable level – up to 20 years according to Post, a timeline the Associate Editor for environment and energy at Scientific American magazine calls “optimistic”.

The problem is we simply haven’t got 20 years to save the planet from climate catastrophe. Rather the New Economics Foundation stated in 2008 we had just 100 months to stop “runaway climate change.” Organisations as diverse as the World Bank, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the International Energy Agency have all confirmed the prognosis is dire and requires immediate, radical action. So, to be clear, in terms of helping to combat climate change in-vitro meat will likely be of no help during the period when action is needed most – within the next five years.

Even worse than Singer’s support of a technological fix to what is an acute political problem for which solutions already exist, his salivating over beefburgers arguably perpetuates, rather than questions, our cultural obsession with meat. As one of my university lecturers, Professor Sarah Churchwell, once noted in a seminar “representation without criticism equals endorsement”. Apologies, Sarah, if I’ve misquoted you. By so publicly championing in-vitro meat Singer’s article reinforces the popular idea that meat, especially beef, is intrinsically desirable – a high-value luxury food that represents wealth and social advancement.

By buying into the dominant cultural-historic ideology that makes meat eating so attractive to so many, Singer’s PR-like article is arguably damaging in two ways: in terms of individual health and the relationship between meat and climate change – the very reason he says he supports in-vitro meat.

On the first point, Singer, and all of the coverage of in-vitro meat that I have seen, ignores the negative health impacts of eating red and processed meat. As Denis Campbell, the Guardian’s Health Correspondent, noted in March 2013 “The evidence implicating processed and/or red meat… in illness has been building up in recent years” with the World Cancer Research Fund recommending “shunning processed meat completely” since 2007. Campbell concluded his article making the startling claim that “Privately, some experts and health campaigners admit that only the fear of being seen as completely out of touch prevents them from agreeing publicly with the WCRF… they preach moderation, not abstinence, for pragmatic reasons.” As I argue above, even if in-vitro meat is able to be produced without the cancer-causing properties of red meat – and that’s an important if – its championing and production still reinforces the idea that meat is a desirable, high-value food – and thus does nothing to challenge the high-level of consumption of red and processed meat and its attendant negative health effects.

Secondly, as Singer mentioned in his article, meat-eating is a significant contributor to climate change. In 2006 the UN Food and Agricultural Organization named livestock as a “major player” in affecting climate change, estimating it generated 18 percent of total human-caused greenhouse gas emissions globally. To reduce this impact experts such as Lord Nicholas Stern and the Chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Rajendra Pachauri recommend a reduction in meat consumption and dairy products – a vegan or nearly vegetarian diet, basically.

This reduction would also give us a good chance of meeting the nutrition requirements of the earth’s increasing population and be effective in addressing the looming water crisis. On the former, it is important to remember the well-known truism that there is already enough food to feed the world’s population. One in eight people around the globe does not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life because of many factors including war, natural disasters, poverty, agricultural infrastructure, environmental degradation and economics factors such as supply, access and affordability, not because they can’t buy a test-tube beefburger.

The Guardian’s coverage of the launch agreed “The best way to prevent this environmental damage… would be if everyone could be persuaded to eat less meat”. However, it went on to assert that “no one thinks that will happen – the desire to eat meat is ingrained deep in our evolution, according to Harvard University primatologist Prof Richard Wrangham.”

The Guardian’s conservative framing is both unrealistic and unhelpful. Because while it is unlikely that everyone will be persuaded to eat less meat anytime soon, studies show many people in the West have been reducing their consumption of meat and red meat specifically – for both health and environmental reasons. So it can be done. And again the question must be asked: Does the focus on in-vitro meat help or hinder the move to significantly reduce meat consumption and move to the vegetarian or vegan diet the world so desperately needs?

The media circus that surrounded the first public tasting of in-vitro meat clouds the fact it is, at best, irrelevant to combating the interconnected problems of climate change and the global food and water crises. At worst it is a red herring that makes it more difficult for us to see our problems clearly and act in an appropriate and timely manner. Like with GM foods, fracking and nuclear power we are being encouraged to look to and support a technological fix to a problem that we already have the technology to overcome. I’m not, I should note, against continuing research and development of in-vitro meat. One day it may well play a positive dietary role. What I am is sceptical of is a corporate-funded technology which makes big claims about saving the world when possible solutions already exist.

What is missing from the media hoopla, of course, is the kind of political analysis that understands fixing problems of this scale requires political will, otherwise known as popular pressure, and political solutions – a process that in-vitro meat will be largely irrelevant to.

Ricky Gervais and our confused and hypocritical relationship with animals

Ricky Gervais and our confused and hypocritical relationship with animals
by Ian Sinclair
Morning Star
12 May 2014

As a man who seems to take immense pride in his own rational and scientific view of the world, the comedian Ricky Gervais will no doubt be surprised to learn that he encapsulates our confused and hypocritical relationship with animals.

Let me explain. Speaking to the Guardian recently, Gervais said his cat was his most treasured possession and that “that one thing that really depresses me is animal cruelty.” This concurs with his many tweets on the subject and also an interview he did with GQ magazine: “I love animals. Growing up, the two things that made my blood boil were religious intolerance and animal cruelty. I’ve never understood it. I can’t stand to have an animal in pain. I’ve got to get it out of my head. It makes me angry, I want to cry, I want to stab someone.”

Like Gervais, we are, as the oft-repeated saying goes, a nation of animal lovers. And like Gervais, most of us eat meat. Now, call me old fashioned, but elementary logic suggests you can’t love animals and be a meat-eater at the same time. What with killing and eating them and everything. For example, if I was writing a list of things I wouldn’t do to someone or something I love I’m pretty sure the first thing on the list would be “not eating it or them.” I love my partner, for example. This means, among many other things, that I wouldn’t eat my partner. At best a meat-eater is someone who loves animals that are fortunate to be loved by a human being. Cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, turkeys, pheasants, rabbits, goats, deer, horses – far from loving these animals, meat-eaters are one of their main enemies.

Claiming to be an animal lover while eating animals is especially bizarre considering one doesn’t need to eat animals to live a healthy life. In fact the weight of scientific evidence suggests a vegan or vegetarian diet is healthier than a meat-rich diet. And it’s better for the planet too. Gervais and many other people claim to love animals. But what could be crueler than killing an animal and eating it when one doesn’t need to do so to live a healthy life?

This next bit will be even less popular, but I want to go one step further and ask whether keeping animals as pets, as Gervais does, is compataible with being an animal lover.

I’ll put aside the fact Gervais recently starred in an advert (he needed the money, you see) in which he encouraged people to buy Audi cars, even though the leading cause of early death for domesticated cats is road accidents. What I’m interested in is whether Gervais and the millions of other people who keep cats and dogs as pets really keep them with the animal’s best interests at heart.

Take the neutering of cats and dogs. This is an invasive and brutal operation which helps human society but seems to take away a fairly fundamental part of being an animal – procreation. How many dogs and cats try to neuter themselves before they are sent for the snip to the vet? Have you ever come home to find your puppy fumbling with one of your kitchen knives trying to sever its own bollocks? Or caught your kitten trying to dial the number of the local veterinary office on the cordless? People often put bells on their cats to stop them being successful hunters. Dogs are made to obey humans and are fed and exercised according to our timetable. Dogs and cats are often left in the house, sometimes in one room, often alone, while we go about our human business. As I mention above the RSPCA (aswell as anecdotal evidence) shows that the motor vehicle is a great danger to cats. Yet millions of people continue to keep cats in urban areas.

Clearly, then, pets are looked after and loved to the extent they fit in with our often busy human lives and all too human peccadillos. In short, human interest overrides animal wellbeing if the two clash. This is because we keep pets primarily for our own wellbeing, not for animals benefit. This is implicit in the first statement on the BBC Ethics webpages looking at keeping pets: “Keeping pets gives many people companionship and great happiness.”

To be clear, I’m not claiming the moral high ground. I’m not a vegan and have been known to get emotionally attached to domesticated animals. And I’m not making light of Gervais’s important work on animal welfare – I support all progressive activism, reformist or radical. However, I do think it’s important to think critically about a subject that is pretty much taboo today. With the environmental impact of keeping pets and eating meat so high perhaps the existential threat of runaway climate change means it is a good time to start a conversation about our mixed-up relationship with animals?

Blaming the victim: Obesity and individualism

Blaming the victim: Obesity and individualism
by Ian Sinclair
Morning Star
November 2013

The UK has a growing obesity problem. According to the annual Health Survey for England in 1980 6 per cent of men were obese – that is they had a Body Mass Index of over 30. By 1993 this had more than doubled to 13.2 per cent and by 2011 23.6 per cent of men were obese. The medical problems associated with obesity are well known – Type 2 Diabetes, Coronary Heart Disease, hypertension, respiratory problems, stroke and certain cancers. The Government’s 2007 landmark Foresight report estimates that by 2050 obesity and being overweight could cost the NHS £9.7 billion, with the wider cost to society estimated at £49.9 billion.

So who or what is to blame for the rise in obesity? “Ultimately it comes down to will”, argued Eastern Daily Press columnist Steve Downes recently. “What can society do to change people’s habits? Nothing, really.” You might expect the author of the best-selling memoir My Mad Fat Teenage Diary to have a wider lens of analysis. If so you’d be wrong. Writing in The Guardian last month Rae Earl noted people are often obese because of “deep-rooted psychological factors.” As adults, Earl concluded, “our weight is our personal responsibility.”

We shouldn’t be too hard on Downes and Earl – they are simply repeating popular arguments that blame obesity on the individual. As a 2010 article in the peer-reviewed journal Health Affairs explains “studies demonstrate repeatedly that judgments about obesity are linked to values of individualism, self-determination, political conservativism, and secular morality.”

There are many problems with focussing on individual behaviour when discussing obesity. First, a culture that points the finger at individuals can stigmatise, leading to bullying, discrimination and mental health problems such as depression. Research shows overweight patients sometimes delay visiting the doctor because of fear of embarrassment or judgment. Second, blaming personal choices does not help to explain obesity levels when one considers obesity has substantially increased since the 1970s and its prevalence differs considerably across national borders and social classes.

As the Foresight report notes “People in the UK today don’t have less willpower and are not more glutoness than previous generations.” And, I would add, British people are not lazier than many of their less obese European neighbours, and middle-class people do not take more personal responsibility than generally heavier working-class people. Discussing the Foresight report, the former Chief Scientific Advisor to the Government Sir David King notes “individuals have much less choice in the matter of their weight than they would assume”. This is especially true for the poorest members of society, who tend to have much less control and choice over how they live their lives. So rather than obesity being down to personal willpower the Foresight report explains society “has radically altered over the past five decades with major changes in work patterns, transport, food production and food sales.” These changes have resulted in what experts call an “obesogenic environment”, where the political and economic structures of society end up actually encouraging obesity among the population

Some of these societal shifts include: a huge increase in the availability and affordability of calorie-dense but nutrient-poor processed foods; an increase in private car use and a corresponding decrease in the level of cycling and walking; the selling off of school playing fields; a lax planning system that has led to out-of-town supermarkets and fast food outlets being placed close to schools; healthy food ‘deserts’ in poor areas. In addition there has been a massive increase in the level of food advertising. With the UK having the dubious distinction of being the advertising capital of Europe, Food Analyst Cindy van Rijswick notes “the impact of promotions, advertising and marketing from the processed food industry is higher than in other countries.”

Arguably, many of these causes can be traced back to the neoliberal turn the country took with the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and the pro-business and individualistic rhetoric and policies that followed. In a letter to The Guardian earlier this year, the Secretary of The Equality Trust explained that research “shows more people are obese in more unequal countries”. And sure enough the US, UK and Australia – arguably the three Western nations where the grip of neoliberal thinking is strongest – have some of the highest levels of obesity in the Western world.

If an individualistic analysis can’t explain the rise in obesity, it’s unlikely to be useful in solving the problem either. In fact personalising the problem makes solving the crisis harder, according to Dr Rebecca Puhl of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University: “As long as we have this belief that obese people are lazy and lacking in discipline, it will be hard to get support for policies that change the environment, which are likely to have a much larger impact than trying to change individuals”.

So if the rise in obesity is due to a wholesale transformation of society, then the solutions will also have to be on the same scale – led by strong government action. Radically changing the transport system so it discourages private car use and builds infrastructure to encourage cycling and walking would be a first step. The planning system needs to be altered so it encourages health living, rather than working to maximise profits for the food industry. Advertising of unhealthy foods, especially to children, needs to be highly regulated as it is in Sweden where TV advertising aimed at children under 12 has been banned since 1991. And taxes could be levelled on unhealthy foods, as Mexico is about to do.

All this, of course, would require the Government to take on corporate power. However, Professor Tim Lang and Dr Geof Rayner from the Centre for Food Policy at City University point out “there is a powerful temptation in Government to limit actions to a choice-based, personalization approach, in part because this style of intervention is aligned to the commercial sector’s own customer management and marketing methods.”

Indeed corporate influence on Government policy is so great that in 2010 The Guardian made the eye-popping revelation that “The Department of Health is putting the fast food companies McDonald’s and KFC and processed food and drink manufacturers such as PepsiCo, Kellogg’s, Unilever, Mars and Diageo at the heart of writing government policy on obesity.”

“Either you have democracy or you have private power – you can’t have both”, wrote Robert Newman in his 2003 novel The Fountain At The Centre Of The World. I’d like to amend Newman’s wise words in terms of obesity: Either you have a healthy population or you have private power – you can’t have both.