Independent: Sustainable eating is cheaper as well as healthier, reveals new study

Often seen as an option reserved for the privileged middle class or ‘woke’ Hollywood actors, research shows that sustainable eating is the cheaper option

Adopting a vegan, vegetarian or flexitarian diet in countries like the US, UK, Australia and across Western Europe could slash your food bill by one third, research conducted by the University of Oxford has revealed.

The study, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, compared the cost of seven sustainable diets to the current typical diet in 150 countries, using food prices from the World Bank’s International Comparison Program. It focused on whole foods and did not include highly-processed meat replacements or eating at restaurants or takeaways.

The results showed that, in high-income countries, vegan diets were most affordable and reduced food costs by up to one third. Vegetarian diets showed similar reductions, between 27 to 31 per cent, while flexitarian diets with low amounts of meat and dairy reduced costs by 14 per cent. In contrast, pescatarian diets increased costs by up to two per cent.

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