Science1 publisher2 min readPublished
Swedish schoolchildren slightly prefer less meat per recipe to more all-vegetarian days
Swedish researchers surveyed 1,268 pupils, who were somewhat more open to less meat per recipe than to more all-vegetarian days. That favours kitchens trimming meat inside familiar dishes, on the evidence of what pupils said in one municipality.
The Scientist · Science desk
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What happened
- The survey covered pupils in grades 4 to 9 at six schools in Lund Municipality in fall 2021.
- About four in 10 pupils were neutral toward more climate-friendly school meals, leaving roughly three in 10 on each side.
- Girls expressed more positive attitudes toward climate-friendly school meals than boys did.
- Researchers also held qualitative group sessions with 20 pupils at two schools.
- In those sessions meat was the benchmark for a proper, filling meal, and vegetarian dishes fared better when they resembled foods pupils already knew.
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Why it matters
- decision A kitchen choosing where its next emissions cut comes from can expect less pupil resistance to smaller meat portions in familiar dishes than to another meat-free day.
- constraint Classroom lessons on food footprints have little room to move pupils' views, because the sceptics already know red meat costs more carbon.
- precedent Municipalities already serving meat-free days have a case for adding recipe reformulation as a second lever while keeping the vegetarian days in place.
Pupils in the survey treated knowing about climate and caring about it as separate things. Awareness that red meat has a larger footprint than vegetarian food was high even among the pupils most negative about greener meals, and it was only weakly associated with their attitudes [9]. Caring was another matter. The two strongest correlates of a positive attitude were considering climate important when choosing food and eating vegetarian food at school more often [7].
So climate does shape these attitudes, as a value some pupils hold. The vegetarian link is harder to read. Pupils who like vegetarian food may pick it more often, or eating it more often may bring them round, and a survey taken at one point in time cannot separate the two [7].
Monica Hunsberger, an associate professor of public health at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, described what takes over at mealtimes. "Students are aware of the climate footprints of foods, but when it comes time for lunch, other things become more important. Above all, they think about whether the food tastes good, fills them up and feels familiar," she said [12]. In the group discussions, pupils described cutting the amount of meat in recipes as easier to accept than adding all-vegetarian days [14].
The comparison has a baseline. At the time of the study, the schools already served one or two all-vegetarian days a week [15]. "More all-vegetarian days" therefore meant extending a routine pupils already had. The alternative was smaller amounts of meat inside dishes they already ate, and pupils were somewhat more supportive of that option [5]. The press account of the paper, published in Appetite [4], calls the preference "somewhat" stronger and does not give its size.
Reformulation also has intake data behind it. The survey ran alongside an intervention that cut the meals' carbon footprint by 20 percent without affecting how much pupils ate or how satisfied they were, results reported in an earlier study [10]. Erik André, a doctoral student at Chalmers University of Technology and the City of Gothenburg, said many school kitchens already cut back high-footprint ingredients in recipes while also serving a high share of vegetarian dishes [16]. "This study suggests that such recipe reformulation can be a useful complementary approach for reducing climate impact while ensuring that the food is still appreciated by students," he said [11].
What to watch
- Whether the full Appetite paper puts a number on how much more pupils favoured leaner recipes over extra meat-free days.
- A trial that adds a meat-free day and measures intake and satisfaction, for direct comparison with the earlier 20 percent reformulation result.
- Whether pupils at schools with no existing meat-free days rank the two approaches the same way.