Australia’s passive-aggressive relationship with red meat consumption oscillates between disdain and almost evangelical defence. Our carnivorous dietary culture reads more like a red meat cult that we can’t escape, even though we might want to. We’ve known that minimising one’s red meat consumption is beneficial in so many ways – for our health, the environment, the humane treatment of animals – so why do we have such a hard time actually doing it?
The very clever Australia Day lamb media campaign - eating as our ‘patriotic obligation’ on Australia Day became a media event and convinced us all that it was positively un Australian not to eat lamb - building a cult following over 10 years of Aussies bonding over lamb while pouring manure on non lambers. The 2016 lamb ad with dog petting Majesty Lee Lin Chin in a global sting to bring expat Australians home for Australia Day lamb & a game of backyard cricket, while torching the odd vegan's apartment was one of the last to centre around Australia Day.
The lamb campaigns now focus on Aussies settling differences while bonding over a lamb bbq in summer. Presumably none of them are vegans.
The lamb ads work because the ad industry knows that red meat production holds a place in the nation’s psyche because of our ties to our huge agricultural sector. Now, when we see images of drought-ridden properties with farmers on the brink of tears next to their starving animals, or more recently drowned cattle, we don’t think “yay, less beef!” We have deep sympathy for those farmers because they have a bloody hard job, and they are the ones feeding the nation.
In spite of commercial entities and industry groups pulling every lever possible to increase our red meat desires, beef, lamb and mutton consumption has steadily fallen over the years from 45kg to 26kg per capita since 1962. Ignore that spike in the 1970s – Australians did not all go Paelo overnight. A global economic downturn dried up our export markets, so we ended up having a huge glut of meat that stayed onshore and ended up (mostly) in pet food.
Beef was the meat of the working class, and chicken was a luxury. In 50 years that trend completely flipped as the rising costs of beef and lamb have made them luxury items. Lamb is around $45 kilo (and that isn't even organic). Mutton, chicken and pork have become our go-to everyday necessities.
If you combine all the animal proteins, Australians are currently the biggest consumers of meat in the world, eating an average of 250 grams per person per day. The beef part of that is about 71g a day, yet the beef Industry takes a lot of heat for global warming and remains pubic enemy number one in consumers’ minds. And there’s a good reason for that.
This is a global chart showing averaged emissions by food source. Beef and lamb are the clear leaders in green house gas emissions for food. Which wouldn’t be so bad if our beef and lamb industries were small. But they are not. In Australia, our national herds total 26 million for beef cattle and 72 million for meat sheep. Agriculture accounts for 13% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, of which grazing cattle and grazing sheep make up two-thirds, or around 10% of our country’s entire GHG emissions. It is any wonder that when we talk about reducing carbon emissions and food, red meat production always enters the conversation.
Amid the ongoing public discussion around reducing red meat consumption, an emerging sideline debate claims beef production, under very controlled conditions, can reverse desertification and restore carbon to the soil to reverse climate change.
In November 2018, Meat and Livestock Australia announced their intention to make the industry carbon neutral by 2030, through farm management options including the expanded use of legumes and dung beetles in pastures, savannah fire management in northern Australia, feed supplements, feedlotting and vegetation management. Interesting, they mentioned a potential vaccine to reduce methane production as one strategy. These seem like positive ways forward for beef and lamb growers to keep their industry sustainable. Yet changing farming practices is not a swift process and out of the hands of eco-consumers.
Reducing your red meat intake however, is immediate, and dictates consumer demand. Avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce one’s environmental impact on the planet. An interesting Chatham House study claims that simply limiting your intake of red meat would have a considerable impact on the health of the planet – even if no other steps were taken to address climate change.
Eating for the planet does not mean an overnight, all out declaration of love for plant-based foods. No one is asking anyone to worship at the temple of devout Veganism. But gees, a slight change in eating behaviour, just to cut out red meat for perhaps three or even two days a week instead of just Meat Free Mondays would make an enormous contribution to cutting green house gases.
Ultimately the reason we should cut our red meat consumption right now is because, quite frankly, we can. Australians are part of the privileged 1% of the world’s population that has options when it comes to our protein sources. Globally the production of red meat is a major driver of climate change, accounting for 15% of global carbon emissions. This figure is equivalent to the exhaust emissions from all the vehicles in the world. This is one war eco-consumers can fight right now – we don’t need cumbersome government policy to effect change. We can wield tremendous power by simply considering what we put on our forks. (And that might not always be pork.)