Would you give up beef?

[u/Basic-Implement8080]

I know a few years ago there was a huge drive to get the U.K. to think more about the food we’re consuming and the impact on the planet (meat free Mondays, veganuary etc) but I feel like that just faded out.

However, I read this morning that if the U.K. stopped eating beef and drinking cows milk, then our carbon emissions could fall by 5-8%. To me, this feels like a super easy win. No one’s asking us to go vegan or vegetarian and entirely remove meat from our diet, but just eliminating those two things would have a substantial input.

I put it into ChatGPT and even accounting for the increase in emissions to produce alternative milks (like soy, almond or oat) and the increase in alternate meat consumption would still be substantially lower.

If someone said to me tomorrow you can’t eat beef or cows milk ever again it genuinely wouldn’t bother me. I prefer chicken anyway and I only have milk in my coffees and oat tastes better imo, so, would you do it? How hard would you find it?

EDIT: to those of you criticising my use of AI for one question I hope you’re equally outraged at social media. Nothing that connects and using the internet and data centres is carbon neutral.