Less Meat

One out of five Dutch people have changed their way of eating meat after the recent cases around meat in the Netherlands. 11.6 percent of the people have started to eat biological meat, 7.1 percent eats less meat of certain animals and 5.3 percent less meat in general. This is the outcome of an investigation on behalf of Natuur & Milieu. Half of the interviewed people say that they were shocked about the recent meat scandals. Most well known scandal is ‘horse-gate’, where horse meat was sneakily sold as beef. The majority of the Dutch, about 75 percent, continues to eat meat as usual regardless of the scandals. Women Women seem to respond much more on these types of news than men. Of the questioned women about 8 percent says that they now eat less meat, against 3 percent of the questioned men. 16 Percent of the women chooses biological meat and only 8 percent of the men makes that choice. Strange is that the men who started eating less meat, see more positive effects then women. 13.5 Percent of the men say that they have a better stamina because of eating less meat. 18.9 Percent even say that they are more happy. For women these numbers are 6.2 percent and 7.4 percent. The investigation confirms the trend that consumption of meat is decreasing in the last years. In 2012 the average Dutch ate 84.2 kilogram of meat. That is almost one kilogram less than in 2011. In 2000 the Dutch ate on average 87 kilograms of meat. Barbecue The questioned people were also asked how they see barbecuing. Almost 25 percent of the people who say that they voluntarily eat less meat, dislike barbecue and that is twice as many as the people who like to eat meat. This week will be the last week that Natuur & Milieu offers customers of Dutch Jumbo supermarkets, free meat replacing products. On Saturday the total number of free products given away will have reached 2 million. Previous action weeks were in April and May.