This paper analyses data from selected hashtags on Twitter (specifically, #sustainablemeat, #ethicalmeat and #eatlessmeat) to outline how social media discussions of meat consumption relate to emerging societal narratives around the role of meat in sustainable healthy diets. 

This study explores why people choose to either see or avoid carbon emissions information when choosing a protein source, and the influence that seeing this information has on product choices. The study is based on an online survey where people were asked to make a hypothetical choice between a range of protein sources. 

In this episode of the Climate Proof-Food Podcast, food system research student Luke Spajic interviews Table’s Dr Tara Garnett on the history of research about food’s contribution to climate change, the EAT-Lancet Commission, contestation around livestock’s environmental impacts and three common perspectives on what to do about it, and what constitutes a healthy and sustainable diet.

This report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) examines three questions: how have food systems performed to date and what role did policies play? How can policy makers design coherent policies across the triple challenge of providing food security, livelihoods and environmental protection? How should policymakers treat the facts, interests, and values that often complicate the task of achieving better policies? It also presents case studies on the seed sector, ruminant livestock and processed foods.

This report by the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London summarises the qualitative research methods that are available to help understand how people interact with food environments, including interviews, community observation and photo elicitation. The report notes that there has been relatively little qualitative (compared to quantitative) research on lived experiences of food environments, and that existing qualitative research often guides commercial product development but is less often used to inform policy.

This paper discusses the ways in which nature-based solutions (NbS) to climate change and biodiversity loss are framed and understood, and traces the growth of interest in NbS among researchers, governments, NGOs and the private sector. It sets out four guiding principles for policymakers, practitioners and researchers to implement NbS in ways that provide benefits to the environment and society. 

This blog post by Dr Rosalind Sharpe of the UK’s Food Research Collaboration asks what is meant by a “sustainable food system”. A group of students on the Centre for Food Policy’s Master’s course discussed this issue, and came up with a list of attributes including “healthy, equitable, inclusive, affordable, nutritious, culturally sensitive, sustainable, circular, resilient, respectful, lasting and simply ‘real’”.

This book takes a broad, interdisciplinary look at current research on the food system, covering topics such as eating in restaurants, food poverty, school meals, public perceptions of the food system, and community food initiatives.

This paper, co-authored by Table member Sofie Errendal, uses a survey of people from Loma Linda, California and Copenhagen, Denmark to investigate why people follow plant-based diets, with the aim of informing the strategy of future initiatives to promote sustainable healthy diets.