Eco-tycoon Dale Vince says Tobacco-style health warnings should be put on packets of bacon to save the planet.
The millionaire Labour donor, 63, appeared to suggest treating the rashers like cigarettes by placing then behind ‘roller shutter doors’.
Vince, who is a vegan, said we shouldn’t be putting a picture of a face of a ‘happy pig’ on the packs with the medical science ‘very clear that eating more plants and less animals is better for our health’.
The World Health Organisation in 2015 classified ‘processed meats’ as a group one carcinogen alongside tobacco, which means there is ‘sufficient’ evidence that they cause cancer.
Vince, the CEO of green firm Ecotricity, even proposed introducing a ‘meat tax’ as a way to put people off eating bacon.
Speaking to The Sunday Times and BBC Radio 4’s A Week in Westminster, he said: ‘Now look what we do with tobacco. We hide it behind roller shutter doors, we stick it in unbranded packages with pictures of diseased organs on the front. That’s how we deal with tobacco.
‘Bacon? We stick it in a supermarket, we stick the face of a happy pig on it and we say to people, it’s OK, but we know that it’s not OK.’
Vince has joined Chris Packham in backing non-profit organisation Vegan FTA’s campaign for NHS hospitals to have plant-based menus.
He said changing what we eat is the ‘biggest single thing we can do’ to make people healthier and reduce carbon emissions.
‘The role for government is to give us better advice, to put health warnings on meat and dairy products, to change the menu in the NHS and our public institutions,’ he said.
Sir Keir Starmer last week told the Cop29 climate meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, he will not be ‘telling people how to live their lives’ despite setting an ambitious target to cut emissions in the UK by 81pc by 20235.
‘We are not going to start dictating to people what they do,’ the Prime Minister said.
‘But we are going to be clear that that involves hitting the clean power 2030 mission that we have set out, one of the five big projects of the Government.’
Scientists last year called for tobacco-style health warnings to be slapped on on packs of meat in supermarkets to shame buyers.
The stickers could include sad images of animals, accompanied by messages such as: ‘Animals suffer when you eat meat.’ They could also include images of decimated forests with the words: ‘The Amazon rainforest is destroyed when you eat meat.’
A study from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands found that consumers were less inclined to buy products featuring the labels.
‘Meat-shaming messages trigger shame but also other negative emotions that translate into reduced purchase intentions,’ the authors wrote.
‘Our analyses show that adding a sticker to a meat package, warning potential customers about the negative consequences of their purchase, may be an effective way to influence buyers’ behavior.’