Universal Truths about Reducing Meat Consumption?

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Current high levels of meat production and consumption are linked to severe health and environmental issues around the world. One remedy to this situation is a shift towards more plant-based diets. Several factors influence consumers’ meat intake including personal, socio-cultural, and economic factors as well as characteristics of the food environment. An increasing number of intervention studies are addressing these factors to support the necessary diet shift. However, the relative impact of factors on diets as well as the effectiveness of interventions might differ across geographic settings. This literature review describes (i) how far extant intervention studies on meat consumption reduction take the regional context into account, and (ii) whether current findings allow to distill universal factors that effectively reduce meat consumption across regions and countries.

RECENT FINDINGS: This review identifies three key findings: First, existing evidence is largely limited to Europe and North America, while rapidly developing regions such as Africa and Asia are neglected despite rising meat consumption. Second, knowledge-related interventions appear to be more effective when framed around health rather than environmental issues of meat consumption. However, cross-country evidence on which specific issues matter most (e.g. cancer, cardiovascular disease etc.) is lacking. Moreover, social norm interventions seem to be effective in reducing meat consumption across countries, but research comparing effective designs and reference groups across countries is missing. Third, most interventions adopt standardized approaches with limited regional adaptation, except social norm interventions, which often tailor messages to the regional context.

SUMMARY: Due to a lack of cross-national studies, empirical evidence for universal factors spanning different regions or countries is scant. Also, whether the relevance of personal, socio-cultural or external factors varies in different regional contexts remains largely unclear. Thus, future research should emphasize the regional context and test adapted interventions in cross-country studies.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40572-025-00498-3.