Responding to today's government announcement that reduced livestock production and meat consumption would have positive effects on health and support countries to meet climate change targets, Alex Jackson of Sustain's Good Food for Our Money campaign said:
"The government is right that reducing global production and consumption of meat and dairy will improve health and combat climate change, but it has to lead by example. The Department of Health should start by asking its own hospitals to follow this policy.
He continued: "As well as reducing meat and dairy consumption it's important that the meat we buy is produced to high welfare and environmental standards, and that's good news for British farmers who have some of the highest production standards in the world."
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Notes to editors:
The public sector spends over £2 billion of taxpayers' money every year on public sector food, served in organisations including schools, hospitals and care homes. The Good Food for Our Money campaign calls on government to introduce mandatory health, sustainability and ethical standards for the procurement of public sector food so that it acts to help solve environmental, health and social problems rather than contribute to them.
The Government press release can be found here: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/News/Recentstories/DH_109121?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Good Food for Our Money Campaign: The Good Food for Our Money campaign ran from 2008 to 2011. After several notable successes, this campaign has now evolved to focus on winning healthy and sustainable food standards for hospital food, in parallel with Sustain's existing work on the Children's Food Campaign to secure healthy and sustainable food standards for school meals.
