There are many reasons why you should consider being meatless, or at least limiting the amount of meat you eat. If you are not motivated by the health benefits or that meatless diets are more sustainable for the planet, you may be motivated by the fact that a meatless diet will save you money.
This may be good news in a time of soaring food inflation. Let’s look at all of the factors that make a meatless diet a viable way to fight inflation.
Pressures in the supply chain
Just going to the supermarket to buy the same items you’ve always been buying has resulted in a noticeable drain on many people’s budgets lately. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index, meat prices have risen faster than all other groceries over the past year, driven by inflation and other problems with the food chain.
This may be largely due to the loss of labor in the meat industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Mississippi State University. Workforce shortages concerned every stage of supply, from the very handling of animals to shortages in transport and warehouses. The industry has not recovered fast enough for prices to stabilize.
More meat, less money
While there are many staples that you probably can’t do without, from bread and eggs to milk to rice, most people could replace meat with a vegetarian form of protein and still achieve the same, if not better, nutrition.
According to a study by the University of Oxford, meatless diets also reduce food costs by up to 34%. They calculated the cost of diets in 150 countries “by comparing food demand estimates for different consumption patterns with commodity price estimates for different years and taking into account changes in the food and socioeconomic system.”
They found that the most affordable diets put an emphasis on legumes and whole grains rather than animal products as the main part of their meals. The authors of the study write that the cost of meat diets can be even higher when you take into account other elements such as air and water pollution and other effects of climate change.
