Meat industry’s misinformation

Many times I have warned that the global meat industry is adopting similar disingenuous tactics to the tobacco industry to divert attention from its deadly trade A report by Unearthed (Greenpeace’s investigate journalism outlet) confirms it.

Norway’s non-profit Eat and the medical journal The Lancet, with a team of world-leading scientists, issued a report saying that our food system was driving climate change and ill health and needs to be reformed to include more greens, beans, less sugar and much less meat It garnered over 6,000 articles globally and triggered anger from the meat industry, which launched the #yes2meat campaign and persuaded some governments not to cooperate with the report, ours included it would seem

The Unearthed investigation revealed that a prestigious university –California, Davis’s CLEAR Centre – was providing legitimacy to the meat and dairy industry’s immoral fight by demanding that its environmental footprint should be revised downwards Its claims to be independent were rubbished when Unearthed, through a Freedom of Information request, revealed that some of the world’s biggest livestock and feed producers had agreed CLEAR’s structure and contributed millions of dollars of its funding Selling your soul doesn’t come cheap!

‘You will eat meat’

Funded by UK farmers, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) is also averse to the truth Reporting on its latest consumer survey, it tells producers how keep shoppers buying red meat

“Affirm product quality – greenery has natural associations with sustainability and health ” Greenwashing!

“Vitamin B12 should be the hero, supported by broader health messaging, how beef, lamb and pork are a good source of vitamins” Yes, and saturated fat and cholesterol, contains no fibre and is linked to cancers (some) and heart disease

“How red meat from the UK has lower emissions than other countries and is among the most sustainable in the world” Pure bull!

“Images that were preferred included cows and sheep outdoors in the British countryside, as opposed to animals indoors and pigs, even outdoors.” Even though 80 per cent of all meat comes from factory farms.