Top Tips:
Eating meat and dairy

Whether you’re a meat-eater or a vegetarian you can make changes to your diet that will help reduce its impact on the environment. Bear in mind that a vegetarian diet that includes a lot of dairy products can have just as much impact as a moderate meat-eating diet. Here are some top tips to help you think about the meat and dairy that you eat.

• Take the Cornish pasty approach. A Cornish pasty is a fine traditional meal that contains meat but also plenty of turnips and potatoes as well. It can be very simple to adapt a heavy meat/dairy recipe by replacing some of the meat/dairy ingredients with vegetables, cereals or beans. It’s not that hard, for example, to make your chicken curry a chicken and vegetable curry.
• Take the traditional approach. Maybe granny was onto something. Make the most of the meat you buy – use your leftover roast chicken for cold-cuts and pies and then use the carcass to make stock and soup.
• Take tips from around the world. There are many cultures around the world that produce delicious meatless and dairy-free dishes. From South Indian and Thai curries to British soups and a whole cornucopia of Italian pasta dishes.
  

• Listen to the local experts. Information in supermarkets is frequently not good enough to make clear decisions. If you're lucky enough to have a local butcher then you'll often find that they are very knowledgeable about where their meat comes from.
• Try to choose the right meat. look for meat produced in our upland areas (areas unsuitable for farming other crops, which makes it an efficient use of land).
• Know you cuts. It’s a good use of food resources (and often cheaper for you) to buy less common cuts of meat and offal for your cooking 

Take Action

• Support our Food Campaign

Find out more

• Soy and the Cerrado
• Livestock impacts

Related links

• Think about what you eat
• Top ten tips for buying good seafood
• The Eatwell Plate