Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Brief Communication
  • Published:

Poultry and fish and aquatic invertebrates have not displaced other meat sources

Abstract

Meat consumption of all types is a major contributor to climate change and other environmental problems, but poultry and fish and aquatic invertebrates have lower environmental impacts than most other meats. To evaluate whether the growth in consumption of lower-impact meats has suppressed other meat sources, I analysed cross-national panel data for 1961–2013. I found that the increased consumption of poultry and fish and aquatic invertebrates has not suppressed the consumption of other meat sources.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Global annual meat consumption over the period 1961–2013.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

As noted in the Methods section, the source data can be downloaded from the following links: https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production, https://ourworldindata.org/seafood-production and https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators. The dataset constructed from these sources is available from the author upon request. Figure 1 is based on data downloaded from Our World in Data6,7.

Code availability

No special code is needed for the analyses. The STATA commands used for the analyses are presented in the Methods section. The STATA do-file is available from the author upon request.

References

  1. Meat Eater’s Guide to Climate Change and Health: Lifecycle Assessments: Methodology and Results (Environmental Working Group, 2011).

  2. Ritchie, H. & Roser, M. Environmental Impacts of Food Production (Our World in Data, 2020); https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food

  3. York, R. Do alternative energy sources displace fossil fuels? Nat. Clim. Change 2, 441–443 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Longo, S. B., Clark, B., York, R. & Jorgenson, A. K. Aquaculture and the displacement of fisheries captures. Conserv. Biol. 33, 832–841 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. York, R. Why petroleum did not save the whales. Socius https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023117739217 (2017).

  6. Ritchie, H. & Roser, M. Meat and Dairy Production (Our World in Data, accessed 14 December 2019); https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production

  7. Ritchie, H. & Roser, M. Seafood Production (Our World in Data, accessed 14 December 2019); https://ourworldindata.org/seafood-production

  8. Food Balances (UN FAO); http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/?#data/FBSH

  9. World Development Indicators (World Bank, accessed 16 December 2019); https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators

  10. Pauley, D. & Zeller, D. Catch reconstructions reveal that global marine fisheries catches are higher than reported and declining. Nat. Commun. 7, 10244 (2016).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

R.Y. conceived the study, performed the analyses and wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Richard York.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Tables 1A–3C.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

York, R. Poultry and fish and aquatic invertebrates have not displaced other meat sources. Nat Sustain 4, 766–768 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00714-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00714-6

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing