Replace one meat meal per week with a vegetarian option. Land used for beans and vegetables produces 10 times as much protein as land used for raising beef.

Meat is the sleeping giant of a sustainable lifestyle. The Australian National Dietary Guidelines (published by the Federal Governments National Health and Medical Research Council) recommends one to one-and-a-half serves of meat, fish, poultry or meat alternatives each day. A serve constitutes 65 - 100 grams of cooked meat. Hence, the Australian National Dietary Guidelines are recommending that if a person adopted the highest edge of their meat consumption recommendations (i.e. 100g of meat 1.5 times a day) they would consume 54.75 kg of meat, fish, and poultry or meat alternatives per annum.

However, the average Australian consumes 123.8 kg meat, fish, poultry per annum (ABS 1997-98) despite the highest recommend amounts being less that half of this (i.e. the 54.75 kg noted above).

If we adopted the recommendations of the Australian National Dietary Guidelines and halved our meat consumption we would save both money and the environment while also improving our health.

An average Australian spends approx $23.86 per week on meat, fish, and poultry (ABS 6403, 2004) or $1240.75 per annum (prices vary by location and time).  So by halving our meat consumption we should save approximately $620 per annum.

The environmental impact of halving you meat consumption is harder to calculate; however in 2005 the University of NSW and CSIRO conducted "A triple bottom line analysis of 135 sectors of the Australian Economy" called "Balancing Act" from which it is possible to calculate the environmental impact derived from a dollar spent in any of the industry sectors analysed… Using the Meat Products sector the environmental benefits of reducing your meat consumption by half  (to the recommended levels) are as follows

• Reduction in Greenhouse gas emissions    - 7,092.8 KG CO2
• Reduction in water use                                   - 206,627 litres
• Reduction in land disturbance                       - 51,150 m2 or 5.115 hectares

These figures suggest that current meat consumption results in over a third of our ecological foot print. So eat well and help us move to a more sustainable and healthy diet…

Do it now!

Learn how to replace meat in your cooking

The easiest way to replace a couple of meat meals with veggie alternatives is to simply replace meat with a vegetable protein in the same meal. See the "Vegetarian recipe sites" section (right) for links to great Vegetarian recipes. Alternatively, simply try and replace the the meat in your common meals (for example  spagetti Bolognaise, sausages & Mash) with meat free alternatives (mince and sausages). They are available at most supermarkets.

Why this action is important

Vegetable proteins, an alternative to meat, can be produced for a tenth of the land and water cost of meat. Cows belch and fart methane, a major greenhouse gas, and in Australia their hard hooves contribute to the loss or degradation of our soil, water and native habitats.