The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said that a tweet it sent over the weekend which advocated cutting back on red meat consumption was intended to “share helpful advice”.

The tweet, which has since been deleted, suggested that cutting back on red meat could make you “healthier, wealthier and more fabulous”.

When asked by the Irish Farmers Journal whether the EPA’s remit includes issuing dietary advice, an EPA spokesperson said: “The EPA has a responsibility to provide the public with advice on any measure that may help to protect and sustain our environment and lower carbon emissions.

“We regularly share sustainable options on social media platforms that some people might like to explore and, from time to time, this includes advice on food and food waste,” the spokesperson said.

Interpretation

“We acknowledge that this particular tweet was open to interpretation. Our intention was to share helpful advice, not to cause any confusion, but we acknowledge how it may have been perceived differently.

“Therefore, we decided to remove the tweet to avoid any unnecessary attention on what is a complex area. We are engaging with agricultural groups on this and we are confident that the engagement will bring clarity for all,” the spokesperson added.

ICSA

Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association (ICSA) president Dermot Kelleher has called on the EPA to clarify if it is comfortable with being involved in “overtly political campaigns” given that it is a body with a regulatory, science-based mandate.

“[The] ICSA was taken aback to see a blatant anti-meat crusade on the EPA social media platforms in the past few days,” Kelleher said.

“The tweet from the EPA suggests that cutting back on meat makes you ‘healthier, wealthier and more fabulous’ - views which are subjective depending on context and then compounds this with the misleading suggestion that food waste is a meat problem, when in fact most research says it is much more pronounced with fruit and vegetables, as well as bread,” he said.

He said that “dishing out dietary advice is not an area the EPA should be getting into given their role as a trusted scientific referee”.