How to transition to more eco-friendly eating without cutting meat

When it comes to global warming and our own carbon footprint, we may think - with a guilty conscience - of our most recent airplane flight, deliveries of our many online orders and all the plastic in our rubbish. But much of our environmental impact is caused by what we eat.

"Depending on how you calculate it, about a quarter of all greenhouse gases are emitted from farm to fork," says Britta Klein, an agricultural engineer with Germany's Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLfE).

Among the detrimental effects of modern agriculture, she includes the release of environmentally harmful gases by livestock farming, soil degradation and biodiversity loss, along with the impact of food processing and transport.

"It must be clear to everyone that the health of mankind depends on the health of the Earth," says Klein.

Though this sounds admonitory, she's convinced that legislative prohibitions lead nowhere and that an environmentally sustainable diet has nothing to do with self-denial. Our eating habits are deeply ingrained, she says, and we don't like to be told what to do - least of all by politicians.

"We've got to stop telling people they're doing everything wrong. They don't have to stop eating meat. Sustainably produced, organic meat from your region is fine, but on the whole, we keep too many animals," Klein says.

The problem, she explains, is that the arable land that's used to grow fodder isn't being cultivated with the crops we need to keep everyone fed long-term.

In Germany, for example, people eat about 1 kilogram of meat per week, more than double the recommended amount, according to the German Nutrition Society (DGE).

On the other hand, the 2023 nutrition report by Germany's Ministry of Food and Agriculture found that meat consumption is declining: Only 20% of the population now eat meat and/or sausage daily, compared with 34% eight years earlier.

Echoing Klein is German nutritionist Melanie Kirk-Mechtel, author of a cookbook whose title translates as "Climate Protection Tastes So Good: Cook, Enjoy and Spare the Environment."

"It's not a matter of going without meat, but about reducing its consumption and eating it mindfully," she says.

"Eating a plant-based diet doesn't mean practicing vegetarianism or veganism, but simply increasing the share of plants in your diet," Kirk-Mechtel says.

If we all cut our meat consumption in half, she says, we'd do the climate a lot of good - reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 27% with a flexitarian (semi-vegetarian) diet, and 47% with a vegetarian one.

Both experts recommend replacing the protein lost by eating less meat with legumes and nuts. Kirk-Mechtel's book has more than 70 such recipes, sorted by season so that they can be prepared using regional products available at that time of year.

Her recipe for meatballs, for example, substitutes half of the ground meat with mushrooms, which are finely diced, fried in oil until crispy, thoroughly kneaded together with the meat and other usual ingredients - like onions, breadcrumbs and mustard - formed into balls and then fried.

"To me, these meatballs taste even better," she says. "They're fluffier."

Kirk-Mechtel's recipe for Bolognese sauce also calls for less ground meat: 150 grams for two servings, and more mirepoix, namely 400 grams. "It still tastes like classic Bolognese sauce," she says.

And if you're looking for a purely plant-based alternative to cream for your cream soups, you can mix 50 grams of cashews, 50 grams of rapeseed oil, 150 millilitres of water and a pinch of salt, then puree them in a blender.

Kirk-Mechtel encourages experimentation in general: "My chocolate cake contains no eggs or other animal ingredients, and is nice and moist thanks to pureed white beans."

Blogger and cookbook author Verena Hirsch, an expert on sustainable diets, also advocates putting more plants on your plate. Her second-greatest concern is food waste - she grew up on an organic farm and knows first-hand how much work goes into producing food.

"My number-one shopping tip isn't considering whether a product is regional, seasonal or plastic-free," she says, "but whether you can eat it all."