\n\n“Germany is one of the few places in the world where meat consumption is decreasing \u2014 and fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2011, Germans ate 138 pounds of meat each year. Today, it\u2019s 121 pounds \u2014 a 12.3 percent decline. And much of that decline took place in the last few years, a time period when grocery sales of plant-based food nearly doubled<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The trend runs counter to virtually everywhere else on the planet, where meat consumption is quickly rising \u2014 from citizens of low-income countries adding more meat<\/a> to their diet as incomes increase, to rich countries<\/a> where meat consumption has more or less plateaued at a high level or continues to slowly increase. (Sweden<\/a>, like Germany, is a notable exception.)”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Meat and dairy production account for around 15 percent<\/a> of global greenhouse gas emissions, and most countries\u2019 per capita meat consumption far exceeds the 57 pounds<\/a> per year recommended by the EAT-Lancet Commission, a panel of climate and nutrition experts.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “One poll<\/a> found that, from 2016 to 2020, the number of vegans in Germany doubled, hitting 2.6 million people or 3.2 percent of the population. A big jump, to be sure, but not enough to explain the sharp decline in the country\u2019s meat consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather, says Jens Tuider of ProVeg International, a Berlin-based organization that advocates for reducing meat consumption, \u201cit\u2019s the flexitarians that drive this development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Experts say the rise in flexitarians<\/a> \u2014 those who reduce but don\u2019t eliminate<\/a> their meat consumption \u2014 could be due to a number of scandals in recent decades that have put the German meat sector under closer scrutiny. Expos\u00e9s of forced labor<\/a> in slaughter plants, reports of rotten meat<\/a> sold across the country, bird<\/a> and swine flu<\/a> outbreaks, and animal cruelty investigations<\/a> may have affected attitudes toward meat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But those same problems are playing out elsewhere<\/a> with far less effect on diet, including in the US, where Americans eat 225 pounds<\/a> of red meat and poultry (fish excluded) per capita per year, almost twice the amount as Germans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What seems to set Germany apart is its young people, who are deeply worried about climate change and see reforming the food system as one way to pump the brakes on their country\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions. \u201cEspecially among the young people, you can see a cultural change, because they are much more aware of … what they eat, how they consume,\u201d says Inka Dewitz of Heinrich B\u00f6ll Stiftung, a foundation in Germany that is affiliated with the German Green Party.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n