Achieving widespread shifts in dietary practices is challenging. Meat is seen as a symbol of indulgence and masculinity, and thus enjoys an entrenched cultural status that produces resistance to reducing its prominence in diets (Hundscheid et al., 2022; Mylan et al., 2019). The protein transition will require not only technological innovations, but also institutional support and emerging consumer norms (Hundscheid et al., 2022; Tziva et al., 2020; Jenkins et al., 2024). Even though scholars of system transformation often emphasize the interplay between individual behavior and systemic structures (Köhler et al., 2019), the field requires more insights into how individual agency and decision-making expedite system change (Huttunen et al., 2021). A key driver of the protein transition is the consumer whose perception of food shapes market trends and calls for action from government and agencies.
This paper leverages expert perspectives and research insights from a wide range of disciplines to design effective strategies to encourage individuals to adopt more sustainable dietary choices. One must first understand the social and individual behavioral factors that shape meat consumption (Eckl et al., 2024). We begin by focusing on the (perceived) barriers and benefits that individuals experience in a transition towards a more sustainable diet. Although the change takes place at the individual level in daily food choices, systematic interventions are necessary to make such large-scale dietary change possible. Insights from individual-level interventions can be useful to inform what system-level interventions will be most optimal for encouraging dietary change while minimizing burdens on individuals.
We develop these insights with a large network of scholars from multiple disciplines, including nutrition, communication, psychology, economics, and innovation studies. By highlighting areas of agreement and controversy across disciplines, we show how multi-actor and transdisciplinary research and governance efforts are required to map (local) challenges in transitioning towards plant-based food systems (Den Boer et al., 2021). Via breaking the silos between disciplines, we provide policymakers and institutions a clear blueprint on how to achieve a healthier, just and more sustainable food system.
Sustainable Dietary Change
Achieving a sustainable dietary shift requires significant changes in global eating habits, with a primary focus on reducing excessive animal protein consumption. According to EAT-Lancet dietary recommendations, most nations—particularly those with high intake levels—must cut back on animal protein, with red meat and dairy being the most critical areas for reduction.
The most urgent priority is decreasing red meat consumption, particularly beef, due to its severe environmental impact and negative health consequences. Similarly, reducing dairy intake is essential, as intensive livestock farming severely damages ecosystems. To ensure a balanced transition, these reductions should be complemented by an increased intake of fresh, nutrient-dense produce, maximizing both health benefits and environmental sustainability. While some regions may still require moderate levels of animal protein, the most significant reductions must take place in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) countries, where consumption remains disproportionately high. In these regions, transitioning diets towards EAT-Lancet recommendations would yield substantial health benefits.
Figure 1: Daily dairy and red meat consumption based on FAO data and the highlighted bar represents the Lancet EAT diet
Just dietary transitions must consider regional differences. Diets are highly context-specific and culturally embedded, requiring tailored strategies for different parts of the world. While Western countries should prioritize reducing red meat and dairy consumption, non-Western nations often face different nutritional challenges. For these regions, the focus should be on increasing/maintaining protein intake without reducing their consumption of fresh produce. A successful dietary shift also depends on changes in food production systems, as production methods significantly influence consumer demand. A transition toward more plant-based diets must align with both health objectives and sustainable agricultural practices. This paper explores how food production can adapt to support a healthier, plant-based diet in Western countries while ensuring that dietary strategies in non-Western regions remain nutritionally adequate and contextually appropriate. Recognizing these global differences is crucial for achieving a just and affordable transition to sustainable diets.
I-Frame and S-Frame
Many interventions to improve the sustainability of dietary choices are focused on changing individual preferences and behaviors, rather than changing the systems in which a large number of individuals make dietary choices. Numerous experiments test how education campaigns and voluntary labelling initiatives impact actual sustainable dietary choices (e.g. Brunner et al., 2018; Kurz 2018; Jalil, Tasoff, & Bustamante 2020; Edenbrand & Lagerkvist 2021; Lohmann et al., 2022). Many of these experiments are conducted using a relatively small number of individuals in laboratories or in limited product contexts (e.g., in university cafeterias). We exclude studies that only report on intentions or self-reported behavior which have limited value due to both the behavior-intention gap (Sheeran & Webb, 2016) and the attitude-intention gap (Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006).
However, there is an increasing recognition that individual-level interventions are insufficient to generate systematic change. The behavioral science literature has recently begun to distinguish between I-Frame (individual-framed) interventions, which attempt to alter individual choices and preferences, and S-Frame (system-framed) interventions, which attempt to change the system under which people make choices (see Chater & Loewenstein 2023; Connolly, Loewenstein, & Chater 2024). The key issue is one of scale: even in a well-attended university cafeteria, soft nudges will not sufficiently change consumption patterns in a large enough way to induce meaningful environmental change.
The sustainable diet transition is a challenge that individual-level interventions are particularly ill-suited to face, as consumers face a clear collective action problem. Dietary changes will not produce meaningful environmental benefits unless a large number of consumers commit to sustainable diets at roughly the same time. Individuals are thus non-pivotal, and because their choices will not meaningfully conserve the environment without the joint action of many other people, it is difficult to motivate individuals to change diets for the environment’s sake. We stress that sustainable dietary change is not the responsibility of individual people; sustainable dietary transitions require changes in the entire food system.
The interventions we consider in what follows are thus system-level (S-Frame) interventions. Specifically, we define S-Frame interventions as those which, for either consumers or producers, either (1) alter the available choice set of actions or products, or (2) change the explicit cost-benefit structure of available choices or actions in the choice set. As in Chater & Loewenstein (2023) and Connolly et al. (2024), this preserves interventions like taxes, production restrictions, or product bans as possible interventions, but excludes interventions like changes in choice architecture or labelling (though mandates to broadly require such changes may be acceptable S-Frame interventions).
Push and Pull Factors
Inspired by the literature on innovation and immigration, we distill key insights from prior literature on individual determinants and interventions for sustainable dietary choices into push factors that drive individuals away from unsustainable diets and pull factors that attract them to sustainable choices. These push and pull factors operate at both system and personal levels, including governance strategies for scaling new practices and phasing out old ones (Hebinck et al., 2022). At the system level, transforming meat-based agri-food systems (Herrero et al., 2020; Moberg et al., 2021) requires social, technical, and policy innovations. A mission-oriented innovation (Klerkx & Begemann, 2020) needs a coherent policy mix, including taxes, subsidies, and regulations. For instance, policies at various government levels can support plant-based meat substitutes (Tziva et al., 2020) while others simultaneously phase out meat production (Van Oers et al., 2021). In the remainder, we highlight learnings from various fields on materializing push and pull factors in industry and society to guide the transformation towards a sustainable diet. Bridging production and consumption sectors in agri-food policies requires synchronizing domains like agriculture and health (Candel & Pereira, 2017). Successful transformations often combine bottom-up governance with top-down interventions (Conti et al., 2025). We discuss how these factors can inform effective interventions for systematic dietary change.