Regarding meat as 'treat' may help tackle obesity

London, Dec 31 (ANI): One should only eat meat on feast days to help tackle obesity, a government food advisor has advised.

According to Tim Lang, a professor of food policy at City University, London, people should re-adopt the tradition of regarding meat as a treat and only eating it on feast days, such as Christmas.

He also said that dramatically reducing one's intake of meat would also help prevent climate change.

"Let's go back to where culture has been for thousands of years, which is meat is an exception," the Daily Mail quoted Lang as telling the Telegraph.If you were growing meat yourself, it is an incredibly slow process and killing and eating an animal is a special day.

"At Christmas if we were well off we had beef. It was a big deal. We killed an animal as an exception, for a feast," he said.

Lang said that he was not suggesting we only have meat once or twice a year, but no more than once a week.

In medieval times, there were a large number of feast days to celebrate saints or recognise the changing of the seasons.

Prof Lang, who advises the World Health Organisation, as well as the Department for Environment, on food policy, said eating too much meat can lead to serious health issues like obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. (ANI)