What are healthy approaches to dieting?

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Most consumer aren't vegan or meat enthusiast, but occupy the middle position.

This 'willing middle' represents different consumer segments with unique motivations and barriers.

What works to change behaviour in one consumer group may fail completely for another.

Smarter food system change starts by matching strategies to psychology.

It's 2026, and despite years of effort to encourage people to eat less meat, global consumption continues to rise. Chicken consumption is increasing in many countries, and while red meat sales have generally flatlined, total meat consumption remains stubbornly high. Forecasts suggest that this upward trend is likely to persist for years to come.

This presents a frustrating challenge for anyone interested in creating a more sustainable food system. Over the last decade, there has been no shortage of attempts to shift our diets in a more plant-based direction, from plant-based burgers designed to mimic meat, campaigns promoting pulses and legumes, novel food technologies, menu redesigns, sustainability labels, recipe innovation, and even restaurants experimenting with making plant-based meals the default option.

Researchers have also systematically studied many of these approaches to try to understand what works best, with some clear and promising patterns beginning to emerge. Increasing the availability of plant-based options tends to boost their selection, as does making these options more visible, appealing, and easier to choose. In some cases, changing defaults so that plant-based meals are the standard option can also have surprisingly large effects. As a whole, the evidence increasingly shows that the food environments that surrounds us exerts far more influence over our diets than........

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