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Climate Impact Labels Influence Fast Food Ordering Decisions

In the United Kingdom, Henry Dimbleby, the government’s food Tsar, recently stated that telling people to eat less meat is politically untenable. Approximately 85% of agricultural land in England is used as grazing pasture for animals such as cows or to grow food for livestock.

Effect of Having Climate Impact Condition Menu

The low-climate impact condition menu stated, “This item is environmentally sustainable. It has low greenhouse gas emissions and a low contribution to climate change.” The high-climate impact condition menu said, “This item is not environmentally sustainable. It has high greenhouse gas emissions and a high contribution to climate change.”

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When menus exhibited high-climate effect labels, 23.5% more participants chose a sustainable meal item, while 9.9% more participants chose a sustainable menu item when menus displayed low-climate impact labels. According to a mean perceived healthfulness score, participants who chose a sustainable item assessed their order as healthier than those who chose an unsustainable item across all experimental conditions.

The study authors, from Johns Hopkins and Harvard universities, said, “Animal-based food production, primarily driven by beef production, is responsible for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions and is an important modifiable contributor to climate change.

Meat Consumption in United States

“In the United States, meat consumption and, red meat consumption, consistently exceeds recommended levels based on national dietary guidelines. Shifting current dietary patterns toward more sustainable diets with lower amounts of red meat consumed could reduce diet-related greenhouse gas emissions by up to 55%.”

Reducing Diet-Related Greenhouse gas Emissions

They discovered that alerting individuals about a food’s negative environmental implications were more successful than informing them about a food’s more sustainable choice.

The authors said, “We found that labelling red meat items with negatively framed, red high-climate impact labels was more effective at increasing sustainable selections than labelling non-red meat items with positively framed, green low-climate impact labels.”

Source: Medindia

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