Tilting menus towards plant-based meals significantly cuts the amount of meat eaten, according to new research.
The experiments in work and university cafeterias showed making it easier to choose meat-free food can be effective and could be a more acceptable approach than other proposals, such as taxing meat or banning it on certain days.
Meat production is an important driver of the climate crisis and red meat in particular is linked to heart disease and other illnesses. Substantial falls in meat consumption are needed in rich nations to curb global heating and ill health.
The new research, published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, involved three separate experiments, including the first scientific online study of plant-based menu choices. This used a representative sample of 2,200 UK adults and found that when three of four meal options were meat-based, 12% chose the plant-based option. But when three of four meal options were vegetarian, 48% chose the vegetarian meal. The effect was the same whether the participants were female or male, rich or poor.
A similar result was found in an Oxford University cafeteria, which had chosen to switch from a mostly meat-based menu to one that was mostly plant-based. No change was seen in other university cafes during the study, although meat consumption is falling in the UK, by 17% in the last decade.
The third experiment was in workplace cafeterias, including warehouses and factories. Sales data showed a 5% swing to plant-based meals in 10 sites, although the analysis was more complicated as the menus varied between the sites.
“There is an urgent need to promote more sustainable consumption to protect planetary [and human] health,” said Rachel Pechey, at the University of Oxford, who led the study. “Changing the availability of meat-free options may be a promising intervention. People have quite a strong reaction to any policies targeting meat, and everyone always hates taxes.”
“We don’t want to be telling anyone what to do,” she said. “But we know that how our environment is shaped helps influence our decisions, so it can make more sustainable choices an easier choice for people.”
Tim Lord, at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, said changes at the level suggested by the study could – if replicated across society – deliver the 20% cut in meat-eating that the UK’s Climate Change Committee says is needed by 2035.
“By foregrounding the low-carbon choice it is possible to drive significant change while allowing those who want to select a higher carbon option the ability to do so,” he said. “It also illustrates a broader point about behaviour change and net zero, namely that making it easy for consumers is crucial. This is as true of home decarbonisation as it is of diet – at present, getting a heat pump is a lot harder than getting a gas boiler.”
In October, the government published a study on how behaviour change can reduce meat eating and flying but withdrew it within a few hours, saying “we have no plans whatsoever to dictate consumer behaviour”.
Other studies have found that simple environmental messages on menus can double plant-based choices, as can placing these options higher up menus and describing them in ways that highlight their flavour, rather than the lack of meat. Pechey and her colleagues are now examining the impact of labelling the green footprint of meals on menus.
Pechey said: “There are strong social and cultural norms around meat-eating, and people do tend to over-choose the meat options. If you’ve just got one vegetarian option on your menu, that could be perceived as the dish choice just for the vegetarians. But if you start having more options, it might start giving the idea that these options are in demand and things that other people choose.”
A government-commissioned food strategy published in 2021 called for big cuts in meat consumption, while a powerful coalition of the UK’s health professions called in 2020 for a climate tax on food with a heavy environmental impact by 2025, unless the industry had taken voluntary action on the impact of its products.