Are PB diets cheaper than omni diets

• CAWF NHS report MOC

• The effects of the protein transition on the macro economy

• Healthcare cost savings from shifting diets

• Which.co.uk did an interesting comparison in 2022

• Springmann, 2024

• This study simulates a diet that meets all micronutrients and macronutrients using the cheapest possible foods and finds that a vegan diet can be quite a bit more expensive because it needs to supplement many nutrients.

One US study in over 200 overweight individuals randomly assigned to either a low fat vegan diet or regular diet found that 4 months later, the food bill for the vegan group was 16% lower compared to controls

Observatoire de la Restauration Collective Bio et Durable (Observatory of organic and sustainable collective catering) based on a cohort of 6,000 canteens, the daily whole-food vegetarian option is 25% cheaper than the conventional one.

Berners-Lee et al., 2012 Modelled 6 veggie/ vegan scenarios and found that all of them cost less compared to the average British diet, with savings on weekly food bill ranging from 5.0% to 14.6%. All diets, real and hypothetical, had enough protein and no more salt than the UK average. Largest savings were seen in diets that are arguably less realistic (one simply replaced all protein from meat with protein from dairy products for example). Following a hypothetical veggie diet resulted in significant food bill savings of 12.3%, and using real consumption data from US veggies (UK data was not available at the time) still resulted in an 8.8% decrease. This

Lusk and Bailey Norwood (2009) also conclude that some types of plant-based sources of food are less expensive, but they considered only major commodity crops like corn, wheat, soybeans, and peanuts—not the specific meals that vegetarians and their counterparts actually eat.

Reynolds et al., 2022 found that if the population of New Zealand replaced all red and processed meat with legumes and nuts and such, they'd save approximately 7% on their food bill

Another study on Swedish consumers Found that if Swedes adopted a vegetarian diet similar to actual US vegetarians (they got that from Haddad and Tanzman, 2003), they'd save 10% on their annual food and drink bill.

2 recent, large US studies have found that a plant based diet was cheaper than all other popular diets examined (Low grain, low carb, low fat, and fasting) (Conrad et al., 2023 and Conrad et al., 2023b) and either superior or comparable in nutritional quality and greenhouse gas emissions.

Mathematically modelling optimal diets

After profiling the diet of a sample of Italian secondary school pupils, This study used mathematical optimisation to find the most environmentally friendly and lowest cost diets^[1]. They found that in order to minimise cost and environmental footprint, participants would have to reduce their meat consumption to 0.

A similar study^[2] that produced a mathematical optimal diet for people in the UK also recommended reducing weekly meat intake by half (392g to 190g). This diet minimised greenhouse gas emissions, whilst also meeting (but not significantly exceeding) nutritional needs and including a variety of products eaten by the majority of the British population. To ensure their optimised diets were more than just theory, they constructed a 7-day menu that met the diet and had an academic kitchen prepare all the foods to ensure that the diet was possible in reality. Weekly meat intake was reduced to 4 main meals, and dairy was reduced to enough for morning cereal every day and 3 hot drinks a week. They also found that this diet, if purchased at a mid-range UK supermarket (Sainsbury's for example) would cost 11% less (£29 a week in 2012) than the UK average.

Fun case study

An economic vegetarian is one who shuns meat because it is more expensive, and the person seeks a more austere life. This was the motivation for Christians centuries ago, when they would avoid meat on religious holidays (Montanari, 1996).

Other fun case study

Miguel Barclay, author of the bestselling 'One Pound Meals' series of cookbooks, says, ‘I definitely agree that cutting down your meat, or cutting it out completely, will save you money. I've written seven budget cookbooks and have costed up hundreds of recipes, and without doubt vegan and vegetarian meals consistently come in at a much lower price than recipes with meat.’

References