In Eating for the Planet (two years ago) I argued that the ideal diet is “one which minimises harm to the environment and to animals while maximising benefits to our health. There is no logically necessary connection between the three objectives but there is a ‘sweet spot’ where all three happen to coincide: a plant-based diet emphasising fresh, local, seasonal food.”

Since then, calls for all of us to adopt a plant-based diet for the sake of the environment have become ever more frequent and more urgent. Not entirely coincidentally, I have been moving towards such a diet myself, and thinking about how to do so as easily as possible. After all, if a change seems worthwhile and isn’t too hard, then more of us will try it.
Changing the lifetime habits of a household all at once may be impossible but what if we can gently move in the right direction – one dish at a time, one meal at a time, and maybe have some fun doing so? Discover new dishes, new flavours, new cuisines? Would that work?
Poor people’s food
Meat has always been expensive, if not a luxury, for the very good reason that its production costs are high – not just in the cost of the animal’s food but in opportunity costs: killing a hen, for instance, foregoes all the eggs she would have laid and all the chickens she would have produced. Of course, when the hen is no longer producing eggs, then the cost/benefit ratio changes and she’s liable to end up in the pot.
Most people, now and for most of the world’s history, have therefore eaten plant-based diets by necessity. In South-East Asia, rice and something to flavour it; in northern Africa, cous-cous and something to flavour it; in northern Europe, wheat, oats or barley and something to flavour it; and so on. Killing a chicken or goat for the pot was a big event (honouring guests perhaps) and killing a pig, sheep or cow a bigger one.
A consequence is that every cuisine is rich in dishes which “make a little go a long way,” as my parents (who grew up through the Depression and WW2 rationing in England) used to say. Consider risotto: rice, a little butter, stock, herbs and a little meat. Or pea and ham soup: dried peas (or beans) boiled with the ham bone after most of the meat has been picked from it. Or jambalaya, paella and their global equivalents.
One characteristic of all these is that they mix together all the ingredients so that any shortfall in the quantity of meat is barely apparent and every mouthful has flavour. Contrast this with what happens if there’s not much meat in a typical Anglo-Aussie meat-and-three-veg meal: everyone sees a disappointingly small amount of tasty meat and a large quantity of very boring vegetables.
Another characteristic of this kind of cooking is that no part of the animal was wasted. Protein was valued, and odd cuts like veal shin (osso bucco), liver and kidneys, fish-head soup and other nasty bits (don’t say you weren’t warned!) were made as attractive as possible. For similar reasons, techniques for cooking the oldest, toughest meat (remember the hen which stopped laying?) were developed. In terms of minimising our environmental footprint, these are virtues.
Recipes
One thing which makes the whole exercise much easier (and in turn makes us more likely to persist with it) is not to be too hard-line about it – particularly since eating habits are so deeply entangled with our whole culture.
If exceptions to the rule are seen as failures, they become very stressful for everyone concerned. I like to think of dietary guidelines as training rules rather than Divine Law, since following them most of the time is a lot better than not even trying to follow them, and we will get better at it with practice. Here I’m focusing specifically on painlessly reducing meat consumption, not on eliminating it altogether, so vegetarian options will only be mentioned in passing.
Breakfast is not usually a meat-heavy meal (if a meal at all) and lunch is endlessly variable, ranging from a sandwich to last night’s leftovers to a full meal, so let’s concentrate on dinner as the meal which is most likely to be meat-heavy.
One-pot rice meals
Risotto, Paella, Pilaf, Pilau and Jambalaya are variations (from Italy, Spain, and Louisiana) on a theme: rice is cooked with meat and vegetables.
Wikipedia’s article on Jambalaya and Pilaf leave little more to be said, as they include recipes and variations. For variety, here are a more detailed recipe for a fancier Mushroom Risotto from Maggie Beer and a whole collection of Paella recipes from BBC Good Food.
Pasta, Curries and Tagines
These are all dishes in which a smallish quantity of flavoursome stew is served over a larger quantity of separately-cooked stodge – pasta, rice or cous-cous respectively. Most recipes already call for a rather small amount of meat per person but a further reduction will not be obvious.
Tagines, for those unfamiliar with them, are the North African solution to producing a satisfying meal with limited, or no, meat; here is a collection of recipes from Taste.com.
It is worth noting that modern Western versions of all of the above tend to include more meat than the originals. Pasta, in particular, was originally a filling first course (Primi) served before a separate meat dish (Secondi), not a “first course” or “main” in the English sense (Italian menus are organised differently).
Classic (European) stews, Pies and casseroles
From Irish Stew to Beef Burgundy, our approach should be the same: reduce the amount of meat by a third and make up the volume with more of the vegetables which were already included in the recipe; increase the herbs and spices, too, if that leaves it a little too bland.
Shakshuka
Shakshuka, a classic middle-eastern dish which doesn’t have an exact European equivalent, consists of eggs poached on a bed of thick tomato-based sauce. The original is a very enjoyable light meal, but there are endless easy variations. Serve it with flat bread and dips, etc, for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Here is a good basic recipe for it, while this (much longer) article surveys the possible variations before supplying another good recipe.
The triple bottom line
Cook what you like, of course, but if you cook with love for the people who will eat your food, respect for your ingredients, and care for the environment, you can hardly go wrong. Bon appetit!
The BBC published a good article on food footprints here – https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46459714 – and it has a clearer and more nuanced chart comparing food groups than the one in my post. Here it is:
Similar stats and thoughts at “You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local” at https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
This one is almost an updated version of the above, and it has the most sophisticated chart yet. The bottom line is still the same, however: “Eating less meat, or switching to lower impact meats such as chicken, eggs or pork is the most effective way for individuals to reduce their dietary footprint.”
https://ourworldindata.org/less-meat-or-sustainable-meat
New Wildlife Safe label to identify food produced without killing Australian native wildlife
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2020-05-29/label-to-identify-goods-that-do-not-kill-australian-wildlife/12292826
The headline idea is a step in the right direction but the rest of the article may be challenging for some readers.
The Ethical Omnivore by Laura Dalrymple and Grant Hilliard is a book about eating less meat and doing it with more respect for the whole food chain. https://featherandbone.com.au/blogs/chew-the-fat/our-book
Five easy ways to lower your household carbon emissions from ABC Science says shower less, drive and fly less, waste less food, tweak your electricity use, and…
The *real* Mediterranean Diet is very close to the “plant-based diet” I have been talking up. Here’s what it looks like. https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2017-02-16/10-commandments-of-the-real-mediterranean-diet/7541786
An addition to the “poor people’s food” variations: a Lebanese recipe. Humus Msabah is softened chickpeas mixed with lemon juice, cumin, cinnamon, pepper, olive oil and garnished with herbs.
https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/it-turns-out-eating-healthier-could-save-your-family-1800-a-year-20201028-p569ei.html
You will live longer, too: https://theconversation.com/you-cant-reverse-the-ageing-process-but-these-5-things-can-help-you-live-longer-214580
Reducing the environmental cost of beef and dairy by supplementing cattle feed with seaweed – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-18/csiro-super-seaweed-cattle-supplement-wins-$1m-prize/12992888
Interesting figures here on home gardening for food – what we grow, who grows most of it, etc. A Census study of 1992 is their starting point. https://medium.com/permaculture-3-0/in-1991-australias-backyards-were-productive-places-100f491ad790
Coming at it from a different angle, When Dieting Doesn’t Work argues that any successful changes to our eating habits must be grounded in lifestyle changes. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/when-dieting-doesnt-work-2020052519889
This came to me in a newsletter so I can’t link to the whole of it but the ‘new study’ is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00431-5
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/31/the-big-idea-is-going-vegan-enough-to-make-you-and-the-planet-healthier
This asks whether veganism as such is necessarily better for the planet than vegetarianism, pescatarianism or flexitarianism, and argues that, “If people replace fish, meat, eggs and cheese with plant-based ultra-processed foods, it might actually do us – and the planet – more harm than good.”
Also:
It’s hard to argue against that.
Recent developments in meat-substitute technologies: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-17/meat-alternative-protein-substitute-industry-stock-market-fall/102597196
Replacing meat with meat-substitutes is probably going to be necessary, given how resistant we are to changing our eating habits, but the health advantages of swapping it for highly processed food are dubious.
More on that topic: How healthy are those substitutes? https://theconversation.com/we-looked-at-700-plant-based-foods-to-see-how-healthy-they-really-are-heres-what-we-found-222991
The Guardian argues here that making meat-free options available is only one part of shifting our eating habits. We also need to make them more visible and more attractive. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/04/meat-diets-climate-emissions-plant-based-vegan
More health benefits of a diet based around whole unprocessed foods – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-19/nine-signs-of-inflammation-could-diet-help/102740912
‘These Medieval Food Habits Changed the Way Food is Eaten Today’ at https://historycollection.com/these-medieval-food-habits-changed-the-way-food-is-eaten-today/ is a long read, partly because it repeats itself sometimes, but has interesting connections to my ‘poor people’s food’ theme here: the poor ate fresh and local in 1400 for the same reasons they ate fresh and local in 1900.
How to get to like salads more, so that you will eat more fresh vegies and be healthier. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-26/hate-salad-veggies-just-keep-eating-them-how-our-tastebuds-adapt/103142156
Here’s another group of simple rice-based recipes, the rice soups (congee) of eastern Asia, which I should have listed with paella and jambalaya above. This article describes enough variants to keep us fed for months. https://www.theguardian.com/food/article/2024/jun/26/best-congee-recipes-porridge-toppings-chilli-oil