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Aussie farmers have lashed out out as the Albanese government’s official advice on diets will now incorporate the impact of certain foods on climate change.

The changes to Australian Dietary Guidelines follow a review by the National Health and Medical Research Council.

The official guidelines define a sustainable diet as being ‘accessible, affordable, and equitable diets with low environmental impacts’. 

In a statement, the NHMRC said they decided to include sustainability because a survey showed that one out of every three people surveyed considered it important

‘The dietary guidelines expert committee advised that recommendations for dietary patterns and food groups should firstly consider health impacts in the Australian context, followed by consideration of sustainability and other contextual factors,’ the spokesman said. 

‘This is consistent with how sustainability has been incorporated into dietary guidelines in other countries.’ 

Red meat producers hit back  

Furious red meat producers have accused the Dietary Guidelines Expert Committee of using the advice to ‘drive ideological agendas’ and spread ‘misinformation’.

They are concerned the new advice will deter Aussies from buying steak and lamb chops in favour of chicken or plant-based alternatives.

Red meat producers have accused the Dietary Guidelines Expert Committee of using the advice to 'drive ideological agendas' and spread misinformation (stock image)

Red meat producers have accused the Dietary Guidelines Expert Committee of using the advice to ‘drive ideological agendas’ and spread misinformation (stock image)

Red meat Advisory Council chair John McKillop said incorporating environmental sustainability into official guidelines was an ‘overreach’. 

‘These developments are an overreach by the dietary guidelines expert committee that go well beyond the policy intent of the Australian Dietary Guidelines to provide recommendations on healthy foods and dietary patterns,’ he said.

‘The red meat industry has a strong story about sustainability, so our concerns are not because we believe it’s a weakness but ­because it’s not the role of the dietary guidelines nor is it the expertise of the dietary guidelines expert committee. 

‘The nation’s dietary guidelines should be focused on promoting public health, preventing chronic diseases and ensuring that all Australian have access to accurate and reliable information about their basic nutritional requirements.’

Mr McKillop said by expanding the official dietary guidelines into non-nutritional areas the public would lose faith in the NHMRC. 

‘We completely agree that sustainability considerations are important for government policy making and consumer purchasing decisions, but they should not underpin our nation’s dietary recommendations,’ he said. 

‘People should have the right to feed their families nutritious food, without mixed messaging about the environment or other sustainability considerations.’

The RMAC will ask the statuary body to reconsider the official advice, threatening to involve the federal government if the request falls on deaf ears. 

Mr McKillop said some Australians didn’t have access to basic nutritional requirements afforded by red meat protein. 

He said one in five Australian woman are iron deficient. 

Last December, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FOA) released a sustainable food roadmap that called on wealthy countries to cut back on meat and dairy. 

It was part of a roadmap that explored how the world could be fed in the next 25 years without increasing carbon emissions or requiring land-clearing. 

The FOA said if countries started producing less red meat and switched to chicken, global environment goals could be achieved a lot faster. 

2GB radio host Ben Fordham has unloaded  at the rules, claiming they’re ‘screwing over farmers.

‘(The) kind of rhetoric we’ve seen from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation could be coming to Australia where they want things like reduced livestock numbers,’ Fordham said.

‘We’re told the new ‘Climate Change Diet Guidelines’ could lead to a campaign for consumers to ditch steak and lamb. The climate boffins say beef and lamb emits too much carbon dioxide.’

Slapping cigarette-style warnings on MEAT would help people eat less and save the planet, researchers say 

Slapping cigarette-style warning labels on food would drive down how much meat people eat, experts say.

Durham University academics tested similar alerts on 1,000 people and found they persuaded up to a tenth of participants to choose a fish or veggie option instead.

Warnings that eating meat ‘contributes to climate change’ or ‘poor health’ were the most effective messages, results showed.

Telling consumers that meat-eating can potentially trigger pandemics was judged to be the least credible of three options tried, despite having a similar effect.

The researchers said eating lots of meat is ‘bad’ for health, with studies showing too much can raise the risk of cancer and heart disease. 

Scientists have also claimed meat production and consumption is fuelling climate change due to the industry emitting a large amount of greenhouse gas.

Warning labels could ‘reduce these risks’ and help the UK ‘reach net zero’ if introduced nationally, they claimed.

The researchers recruited a representative sample of 1,001 people, who were asked to imagine being in a cafeteria.

They were shown pictures 20 different hot meals, such as burgers, pasta bakes or pizzas, each of which was available in meat, fish, vegetarian and vegan form.

Volunteers were split into four groups, with the meat option either carrying no label or one stating that eating meat contributes to ‘poor health’, ‘climate change’ or ‘pandemics’.

Volunteers were asked to pick which meal they would opt for.

They also reported how anxiety-provoking and believable they found the labels, whether they would buy the meals in the future and how appealing the foods were.

A mock-up of what the warnings could look like if they were ever stuck on meat sold in shops

A mock-up of what the warnings could look like if they were ever stuck on meat sold in shops

Participants also indicated how supportive they would be of the different labels if they were implemented as policy.

Results, published in the journal Appetite, show that all labels were effective at discouraging people from choosing meals with meat.

Health-related labels reduced meat meal choices by 8.8 per cent, climate labels by 7.4 per cent and pandemic labels by 10 per cent. 

However, the researchers said there was no statistically significant difference between the groups, meaning all would have a similar affect.

Responses also revealed that participants found that the climate warning labels were ‘most credible’. 

While the pandemic labels triggered the most negative emotions, they were also perceived to be ‘less credible’.

Participants were indifferent about introducing climate warning labels on food but opposed the introduction of health and pandemic warning signs, results show. 

They were asked to vote using a seven-point scale on whether they strongly opposed the policy (one point) or whether they strongly agreed (seven points).

Overall, health and pandemic warnings ranked 3.5 and 3.4 points, respectively, while climate warnings scored 3.88, on average. 

Jack Hughes, study author and PhD student in behavioural science at the university, said: ‘Reaching net zero is a priority for the nation and the planet. 

‘As warning labels have already been shown to reduce smoking as well as drinking of sugary drinks and alcohol, using a warning label on meat-containing products could help us achieve this if introduced as national policy.’

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This post first appeared on Daily mail