From a bacon sandwich to a roast dinner, a lamb curry to a pepperoni pizza, our diet in the UK revolves around meat. But what is the environmental cost of having meat on the menu?
Across the world, 90% of people are meat-eaters – and global consumption is rising. Is our appetite for meat a necessity, or just a matter of taste? What’s the evidence that meat production is adding to our environmental crisis? If we eat less meat, what happens to all the people the industry employs? And our landscape, shaped by farming?
From May 2023-May 2024 Food Museum visitors were able to explore the past, present and future of producing meat, learn about contemporary issues and get the bigger picture. The exhibition included fascinating facts such as the typical weekly meat intake of different countries to the rise of alternative proteins such as insects.
Visitors could hear from campaigners and scientists, alongside farmers and butchers. Through the Food Museum’s collection, the exhibition explored the cultural history of meat-eating and farming and how our eating and buying habits have changed over time, and how they might change again in the future.
The award-winning Meat the Future started as a collaboration with the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and Oxford University’s Livestock Environment and People (LEAP) research programme, generously funded by the Wellcome Trust, and was expanded for the Food Museum.
