Eating Better

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.

Eating Better regularly conducts public attitude surveys to take the temperature of where people are on the journey to shifting to sustainable diets with less meat and dairy and more plant-based foods. We examine what the trends are and what the barriers are to change. This year’s analysis also took a deep dive into food-to-go to find out what’s happening in that sector and if sandwiches, a British staple, are still popular.

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.

The Nature Friendly Farming Network’s (NFFN) first annual Nature Friendly Farming Week (16-20 May) celebrated nature-friendly farming for five full days, where nature-friendly farmers took part in daily themes to share their experiences online using the daily hashtags.

At the start of the panel discussion on plant-based catering in the public sector, a poll of the 150+ attendees found that 69% think there is still a need to broaden the understanding amongst caterers as to the health and wider benefits of plant-based eating

Eating Better’s newest member is Kids Kitchen, a social enterprise building health and community from running scratch cooking sessions, to help families with under 5s explore and enjoy sustainable eating.

Momentum is building behind meat reduction across the public sector and support for the PSC100 initiative, launched two years ago, to reduce meat and dairy consumption by 20%. More and more chefs are being trained to develop exciting plant-based dishes for the public sector and to adapt dishes with “less and better” meat. 

A new campaign from the Soil Association exposes the use of highly hazardous pesticides in supermarket soy supply chains for chicken feed.

To tackle climate change we urgently need to transition away from industrial livestock production  

The youth-led food campaigning charity, Bite Back has joined Eating Better. Founded by Jamie Oliver, the charity puts young people at the heart of changing our food systems.

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?  

A new report, released today on World Health Day, by World Animal Protection and Tasting the Future, has laid bare the most damaging human health impacts linked to factory farming, and how these will only get worse as the demand for cheap meat continues to grow ...

Plant-based cookery school, Made in Hackney has joined Eating Better, bringing a wealth of experience and expertise of community-led, scratch cooking, using local, seasonal and sustainable fruit and veg.

Tesco, Sainsbury's, Co-op, Aldi, M&S, Youngs and Greggs are among food businesses supporting the call for new, primary legislation to tackle the impact of our food system on climate, nature and health.

Defra has published its priorities for the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway, aimed at managing disease, improving the lives of all farmed animals and supporting farmers, financially, to make the transition to higher welfare.

The Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) has launched the ‘One Planet Plate’ campaign with backing from a host of famous chefs including Raymond Blanc, Asma Khan and Thomasina Miers. 

Jenny Chandler, self professed pulse addict, author of Pulse and Super Pulses, European Special Ambassador for the International Year of Pulses 2016 and chef for the HSI Forward Food Programme looks at the potential of putting more pulses on catering menus.

Eating Better’s new year began with a panel and screening event at The Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC) 2022, which was moved online due to Omicron cases rising steeply.

M&S and Hubbub have launched Sparking Change: The Challenge to support M&S customers to live healthier, more sustainable lives. This builds on the impact and learning from a pilot of the campaign we ran last year.

Healthy soils are the life force of a thriving farm business. Yet despite its ubiquitous presence on every farm across the UK, our soil is being destroyed 10 times faster than it’s being created...

As Campaign Manager at the Alliance to Save our Antibiotics, I’ve been assessing UK supermarket’s antibiotics policies since 2017. Over this time I have seen a shift toward more robust antibiotic policies.

Eating Better took part in an event during Nourish Scotland’s “Recipes for Resilience” at COP26 called “Living with Cows in a Net Zero Future”.

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