Eating Better

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) just published its 7th Carbon Budget (known as CB7). This set out the legal limit for UK net emissions of greenhouse gases over the years 2038 to 2042. It also contained the different options available for the UK Government to choose and the different ‘pathways’ to get to net-zero, with advice for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland to be published later in 2025. This is a vitally important milestone in fixing our food system. But what does it all mean for healthy and sustainable diets?

We are excited to release the updated Better by Half Roadmap, Eating Better’s guide for achieving nutritious, healthy and sustainable diets across the UK, with a focus on less and better meat and dairy. This revision builds on its creation in 2019. It is a reflection of our shared objectives as an alliance, formed through collaboration between our 68 member organisations.

A new UK Government was elected earlier this month, with the widely expected result of Labour replacing the Conservatives as the governing party and Keir Starmer becoming our new Prime Minister. This presents an exciting opportunity for a change in direction on UK food policy.

On April 22nd, the Scottish Government’s consultation for a Good Food Nation plan closed. This consultation followed the passing of the Good Food Nation Act in 2022, where the Scottish Government put into law their vision for Scotland to be a ‘a Good Food Nation, where people from every walk of life take pride and pleasure in, and benefit from, the food they produce, buy, cook, serve, and eat each day’. 

Georgie Branch, Healthy Zones Programme Manager at Eating Better alliance member School Food Matters, explains how schools working with the charity have embraced less and better meat, and how government school food standards need to be improved.

Our recent report ‘It’s time to act on processed meat’ highlights the need to reduce processed meat for our health and the planet. Processed meat intake in infants and children is particularly concerning due to the high level of salt. We spoke to Eating Better alliance member First Steps Nutrition Trust about processed meat and young children’s health.

Maddy Haughton- Boakes, Campaigns Advisor at the Changing Markets Foundation introduces their new report ‘Feeding us Greenwash’, which lifts the green veil and highlights the extent of greenwashing by food companies and how consumers respond to these environmental claims.

Eating Better alliance member Sustain publishes new report on how UK councils are tackling the climate and nature emergency through food.

Ensuring everyone has access to a healthy diet that doesn’t cost the earth is a critical priority. The Food Strategy falls desperately short on effective, evidence-based measures to achieve this.

As the UK’s civil society was coming to terms with the lack of ambition of its government’s National Food Strategy, which according to the Committee for Climate Change “will do precious little to tackle emissions from agriculture which is now one of the most serious contributors to climate change”, alliance member Changing Markets launched a new study looking at how much different measures can contribute to methane reductions in agriculture. The study confirms that policies promoting healthier diets could lead to the biggest methane cuts in the EU. Blog for Eating Better by Nusa Urbancic, Campaigns Director at the Changing Markets Foundation

The government has published its first food strategy in 75 years, in response to the independent review by its lead food adviser, Henry Dimbleby. Although the government has accepted some of the review’s recommendations, there is still a lot missing from the document, in particular the lack of acknowledgement on the need to reduce meat production and consumption to tackle the climate, nature and health crises.

How many people know that even if we ended fossil fuel use tomorrow, without making significant changes to our global food system, we would still be heading towards catastrophic levels of warming, far beyond 1.5 degrees?  

Eating Better went to Glasgow, primarily, to support our alliance member, Nourish Scotland’s Recipes for Resilience programme.

Eating Better is a supporter of the Glasgow Food and Climate Declaration and attended the official presentation at Glasgow City Chambers on COP26 Nature Day.

Eating Better was in Glasgow for the first week of COP26, taking part in the Recipes for Resilience series of events hosted by alliance member, Nourish Scotland.

The National Food Strategy outlines a comprehensive plan to get us all eating better over the next decade, from a salt and sugar tax on processed foods to better support for farmers to move to more sustainable models, and teaching school children about food and how to cook.

Last year Unchecked UK carried out a  series of teleforums with swing voters in five “Red Wall’ constituencies that changed hands from Labour to Conservative in the December 2019 election. They explored how the constituents felt about regulation and standards in general, and specifically in relation to both food and climate change.

The UN COP26 climate talks held in the city later this year ‘must tackle food systems’ to get the world eating better and on track for net-zero.

Agriculture is the main threat to 86% of the 28,000 species known to be at risk of extinction, according to the new report from Chatham House,  supported by UNEP and Compassion in World Farming.

Eating Better Alliance organisations welcome National Food Strategy report but caution against the potential of a dual tariff system.

The analysis suggests that national guidelines could be both healthier and more sustainable.

Latest report by the Committee on Climate Change provides in-depth advice to Government on UK agricultural and land use policies.

The roadmap sets out steps to cut meat and dairy consumption by half in the UK by 2030, with a focus on less and better animal products.

We may remember 2019 as a year in which conversations about the environment, climate change change and meat became mainstream. But Brexit dominated our political dialogue. 2020 is a time for the UK to show leadership.