A Conservative minister whose family farms beef and lamb signed off on a £5m advertising campaign encouraging people to eat more red meat – despite government advice that doing so can pose health risks, openDemocracy can reveal.
The ‘Let’s Eat Balanced’ campaign by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) failed to warn of the dangers of excessive red meat consumption, instead claiming that eating red meat and dairy reduces tiredness and prevents iron deficiency.
A group of NHS doctors is now calling for the campaign to be retracted because it “is at odds with established scientific evidence on healthy and sustainable diets”.
