How Families Can Cook More Sustainably

It’s far easier to make changes to our lifestyle if the rest of our family is on board. Discover why the family unit is so important when it comes to food choices, and how we can consume a healthy and planet-friendly diet at home.

The power of families to make a more sustainable society

I still remember the response of a past boyfriend when I told him I would like to take a break from eating meat. “But I won’t be able to make you my grandma’s Irish stew”, he said, genuinely sad that our tradition of curling up with a blanket and a bowl of slow-cooked mutton was off the menu. 

I can understand his disappointment. After all, sharing food is a great way to connect with our loved ones. Research has shown that food choices are deeply affected by the family unit and if we forget that, we will undermine our ability to create a more sustainable society.¹

What does eating sustainably actually look like?

When it comes to health and sustainability, there is no one perfect diet we should follow. There will always be many factors to balance - like food allergies and intolerances, the family history of my stew-loving boyfriend, as well as factors like whether we can afford certain foods or whether they are available to buy in our area. 

But at least in Europe, we know that significantly reducing our intake of meat and increasing our consumption of fruits, vegetables, and protein-rich pulses like lentils, beans and chickpeas could go a long way to reducing the impact of our food system and help us eat a balanced and healthy diet.^2,3  We don’t all need to go vegan, but we know that shifting towards a plant-forward diet would have many positive outcomes for our planet and our bodies.

It is additionally true that eating local food can have a positive impact on our communities, but it’s worth remembering that only about 5-9% of food-related emissions come from actually getting the food to where you buy it (not including transporting the fertilisers, farm-equipment and pesticides.)^4,5  It is also true that in wealthier countries, we have a disproportionate share of food miles. So eating more local food in Europe is still important, but eating higher-impact foods from a local farm isn’t automatically “better for the planet” than eating lower-impact foods from another country. It’s up to you what your priority is. But if you’re specifically hoping to reduce the impact of your diet - in terms of water use, land use, greenhouse gases and pollution -  it would be most effective to keep reducing your meat portions, as well as looking for local and seasonal produce whenever possible.³

But making changes isn’t easy - especially when you’re trying to prepare food for the whole family. The University of Aarhus, in Denmark, carried out a study with 20 families with teenagers to better understand how we can reduce meat in our diets at home. This is particularly relevant in Denmark, as Danish people eat twice the amount of meat than the average world citizen - getting through about 1kg per person per week compared to the 350g of meat the Danish government recommends per week for a healthy diet.^1,6

In the land that loves hot dog stands, meatballs and crispy pork with parsley and potatoes - how can we help families make a little more space for sustainable, protein-rich pulses like lentils and chickpeas?

Easy and no-drama approach to reducing meat at the dinner table

1. You don’t have to go vegan

Firstly, you don’t have to go vegan to eat more sustainably. “Simply reducing the portion of meat on your plate and increasing the portion of vegetables can reduce the impact of your meal as well as helping you and your family eat more healthily,” explains Dr Alice Grønhøj, who specialises in consumer behaviour related to health and sustainability at Aarhus University.

After all, a European Food Information Council (EUFIC) survey about food myths discovered that most people in Europe overestimate how much protein they need to eat anyway - thinking it should be around 50% of the plate, rather than the more accurate 25%.⁷ “For many people, it is more realistic to reduce the meat portion size than cut it out altogether, and it still makes a significant difference,” Grønhøj adds.

Recent research from the UK backs this up. A Nature Food study found that smaller meat portions were the largest contributor to reduced meat consumption in the UK in recent years. The second biggest contribution was more people participating in “meat-free days” during the week. Surprisingly, both of these approaches had a bigger impact on how much meat the UK was eating than an increased number of vegetarians, highlighting the effectiveness of mindful meal planning and portion control.⁸

 2. Give Mum a break from the food work

Although there has been progress in this area, food work - all the tasks and effort that goes into planning, preparing, serving and cleaning up meals - continues to fall mostly on the shoulders of mothers. In interviews carried out by Aarhus, some mothers revealed that they had nothing against eating more sustainably in theory - but they were tired of having to think of what to cook and be the driving force to make it happen. 

Grønhøj explains, “for changes in the family diet to be sustainable in the long run, it’s important that this doesn’t become yet another invisible task on the shoulders of women.” Some concrete ways to help with this would be having a meal rota, ensuring that multiple people in the home are cooking and thinking about what to eat. For example, you could have a meat-free Monday, where different family members take turns to select the recipe and lead the cooking efforts.

3. Refer to traditional recipes

By preserving traditional cooking methods, families can significantly reduce their environmental impact. Grønhøj told FoodUnfolded that eating more sustainably doesn’t have to mean eating modern meat replacements, which can worry parents who want to prepare meals based on whole ingredients for their children. In fact, Denmark has a rich history of soups and stews that include protein-rich legumes, so it is possible to embrace tradition while at the same time making more sustainable choices. But it’s not always easy to break with existing habits, she explains: “We have lost the skills to prepare some of these more traditional meals, and many people just don’t know how to cook dried legumes these days.” 

There are a few solutions to this:

1. Give Grandma a call. You may find that people in your family still have the knowledge to help with this - and will enjoy sharing it with you.
2. Get online and find some recipe.
3. Compromise. Just buy cans of precooked lentils or split peas to add to your meals. It will cost more than buying sacks of dried legumes, but it should still be cheaper than meat, and it is a quick and easy solution for people with busy schedules.

4. Keep it simple

If we have to learn a new set of recipes, it can be a real barrier to changing our diets - especially if they include ingredients that we aren’t used to cooking or eating. One solution is to adapt recipes that are already firm family favourites. For example, if your family loves lasagne, try reducing the minced meat in the recipe and “bulking it out” with some lentils. By adapting recipes that are already easy to get on the table, you can significantly reduce the mental load of changing your diet - and continue to share meals that your family loves.

“I can’t overstate that teenagers do influence what is eaten at home - but not because they are necessarily coming home with militant ideas about how to eat. Rather, parents will do anything for their children. And at the same time, many teenagers don’t want to disrupt the harmony at home,” Grønhøj told FoodUnfolded.

So keep sharing those firm family favourites, with some adaptations, and you don’t have to sacrifice on “hygge” -  the warmth and good feeling the Danish people value so much.

5. And finally, don’t take it all on your shoulders 

Even if there is a lot we can do at the individual level, combining individual change with broader societal change would be most effective. For example, Grønhøj suggests, “We need to make eating more sustainable meals the “norm”, and one way to do this would be if teenagers were served more legumes at school. But for now, Denmark doesn’t have school meals - kids bring their lunch packs into school - so this would take a lot of investment to make a reality.” Denmark is, however, planning a large-scale trial in the coming years where selected schools will start serving school meals. It will be interesting to observe the results of this initiative.

Embracing a plant-based diet doesn’t mean eliminating meat entirely but shifting towards more eco-friendly alternatives that also provide good nutrition. And eating a healthy and sustainable diet doesn’t have to mean making sacrifices. If I could go back to the university kitchen where I announced I’d be giving up Grandma’s beef stew to my ex-boyfriend, I would come armed with a couple of recipes. Like this vegetarian lentil stew or - a compromise - this beef and root vegetable stew, which uses less beef than a traditional recipe but doesn’t cut meat out altogether.