Meat-eating 'kills 45,000 each year'

Excessive meat-eating kills 45,000 each year reports the Independent The Independent:

A Dietry Judgement Day approaches.

This time it's Oxford University who has released statistics that show it would be better for health and better for the environment if we ate less meat.

The University study reveals lowering meat consumption in the UK would prevent about 45,000 premature deaths a year.

Oxford University's heart unit analysed the health consequences of a range of diets.

It concluded that eating meat no more than three times a week would prevent 31,000 deaths from heart disease, 9,000 deaths from cancer and 5,000 deaths from strokes each year, saving the NHS £1.2bn.

Friends of the Earth, which commissioned the research for its Healthy Planet Eating report, published today, said reducing meat consumption would also help slow the rates of climate change and deforestation.

Clearly this is the sort of thing that George Osbourne needed to address in his budget to make savage cuts to save the economy.

Healthier food in schools, hospitals and government offices is long overdue, the government needs to lead by example.