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The Foundation Food marketing campaign played an important role in
decreasing the number of mums who limit red meat consumption from
57 per cent to 34 per cent.
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FORTIFYING RED MEAT
ENHANCE THE NURTRITIONAL REPUTATION OF RED MEAT
The role of red meat in a healthy balanced diet was challenged during the year with the release of the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) report on Food, nutrition, physical activity and the prevention of cancer: a global perspective. It claimed the link between “…red meat (beef, pork, lamb) to colorectal cancer is more convincing than it was a decade ago.”
Leading up to the report’s release, we supported a number of independent scientific studies into the nutritional benefits of red meat and developed an awareness campaign aimed at communicating the facts on eating red meat to health professionals and consumers.
A key element of the program was the MLA commissioned report The role of red meat in healthy Australian diets, in which nine independent health and nutrition experts reviewed the latest scientific evidence relating to the nutritional benefits of eating red meat. The report, launched by the then Federal Health Minister The Hon Tony Abbott in August 2007, concluded that red meat plays an important role in human health due to its nutrient density and should be eaten 3–4 times a week in line with Australian dietary guidelines. A summary of the report was distributed to more than 3,000 dietitians and 15,000 health professionals to ensure they were aware of the facts on eating red meat prior to the release of the WCRF report.
The Foundation Food marketing campaign, which has played an important role in enhancing nutritional attitudes towards red meat, returned for the third consecutive year with the fourth instalment of the television campaign featuring actor Sam Neill. An extensive public relations campaign supported the ‘Chicken chase’ television commercial and further reinforced that lean red meat provides a greater bundle of key nutrients—omega-3s, zinc, iron, vitamin B12—than chicken.
Consumer response to the Foundation Food campaign has shown almost half of those surveyed strongly believed that red meat is a central part of a healthy diet, 38 per cent strongly believed that red meat is beneficial for a healthy mind and 41 per cent strongly believed that we are meant to eat red meat 3–4 times a week.
