Numerous studies indicate that the Danes want to eat less meat. Almost every second of the respondents in a survey from May 2022 among more than a thousand 18-75-year-olds answered that they eat healthier today compared to three years ago, and the majority associate eating healthy with eating varied and green. Also, according to Gallup, one in five Danes had a New Year's resolution in 2021 for more sustainability in everyday life. However, this is not shown in retail salesdata for meat and vegetables – at least not yet.
Sales of meat alternatives, such as plant-based mince and plant-based steaks, have more than tripled from 2015 to 2021, sales data from Euromonitor shows. But if you compare sale of fresh and processed meat, it still amounts to comparing a pea with an elephant, says Senior Advisor Sisse Fagt from the DTU National Food Institute.
For several decades, she has followed the dietary habits of the Danes and has contributed to providing the scientific basis for the latest official dietary advice, which also takes the climate into account.
Danes still love meat, gravy and potatoes
The sale of plant-based meat alternatives corresponds to each inhabitant of Denmark buying two packages per year, while the sale of fresh and processed meat corresponds to each inhabitant buying just over one kg per week.
"The Danes are still fond of meat, gravy and potatoes. Our diet is characterized by the fact that we are an agricultural country, where meat and dairy products have a large share", Sisse Fagt says.
However, she believes that we in the next decade will see a significant change, because many studies indicate that we want to eat more plant-rich and sustainable.
"Just like other health trends, it is the young, the women and people in larger cities who are best at changing behaviour, and this also applies to the meat-free diet," she says.
How do we become best friends with the legumes?
According to the new official food based dietary guidelines launched in 2021, we must replace meat with, among other things, legumes. The Danes bought approx. 3 kg of ready-to-eat legumes per inhabitant in 2021, which corresponds to less than 10 grams per day.
Price, taste, old habits as well as lack of knowledge and skills are, according to a study by the Danish Climate Council, some of the things that prevent us from becoming best friends with legumes.
"It is difficult to break old habits, and we have not been used to using legumes, which are not part of a traditional Danish diet. We must learn to use a wider palette of spices to flavor the legumes. I expect it to come down the road. The more often we encounter climate-friendly diet in everyday life, the more the climate-friendly diet will be perceived as the norm, and the easier it will be to adopt the new dietary habits," says Sisse Fagt.
Read more
Read the e-article "Mere bæredygtighed i hverdagen – det går langsomt med at købe mere grønt og mindre kød og mælk" (pdf) only in Danish
Read the article Why do Danes find it difficult to eat meat-free? from DTU's Magazine Dynamo
