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March 15, World Consumer Rights Day, gives us a crucial opportunity to reflect on how essential it is to provide citizens with the tools to make informed and therefore truly free choices. To be free, a consumer must develop a critical sense that enables them to receive, analyse, and process information, which must be clear but not simplified to the point of distorting reality. This is particularly true when it comes to food and lifestyle, key elements for our well-being and longevity.

Meats have become the target of ideological and commercial demonization, based on selectively distorted scientific information aimed at confirming preconceived truths. This narrative is not expanding the dietary variety of consumers; rather, it is pushing them to reduce – or eliminate – meat consumption, often without a real understanding of the consequences. The risk? Unbalanced choices that could negatively impact both individual health and the economy of producing territories.

We must therefore ask ourselves: do consumers really have access to all the necessary information to decide autonomously, or are they victims of conditioning that pushes them away from a balanced approach based on concrete data?

EMPOWERING THE CONSUMER

In today’s Western world, the consumer is often treated as someone to be protected, almost incapable of making conscious choices. Public policies adopt a paternalistic approach, based on the idea that citizens do not have access to the right information – because they lack the tools to understand it or because they are hindered by profit-driven lobbies. This view has roots in feudalism, where subjects depended on their feudal lords, invested with unquestionable authority. Today, these lords have changed faces: they are public officials who, appealing to science, arrogate the right to guide consumer choices.

But science is not dogma: it is an experimental method, a process in constant evolution that gets closer to the truth without ever fully reaching it. Yet those who govern consumption impose definitive truths, reducing the consumer to a subject to be directed rather than empowered.

We believe in a different approach: liberalism as a method to empower the consumer, providing them with knowledge and critical thinking. In this vision, the consumer is fallible, but it is precisely in failure that he find growth. They experiment, learn, and develop autonomy.

Food is a perfect example. Rather than relying on labels, purpose taxes, and forced reformulations that reduce choice to automation, we prefer education. An informed and critical consumer chooses based on their own needs, free from trends and ideologies. Will they make mistakes? Likely. But those will be their mistakes, from which they can gain experience and improve.

AN IDEOLOGICAL, NOT SCIENTIFIC DEBATE

Among the most distorted topics in public debate, meat occupies a prominent position. The communication around its consumption is often driven by slogans and generalizations rather than rational analysis based on data. We move from the absolutist “healthist” view, labeling it harmful without distinguishing between quantity, quality, and dietary context, to more radical views that introduce it into an ethical-environmental discourse without considering feasible alternatives or the production reality.

This polarization does not help the consumer to orient themselves. On the contrary, it generates confusion and fosters an atmosphere of distrust, where individual choices are guided more by social pressure than by balanced information. The result? A consumer who gives up a fundamental food for health without a true understanding of its nutritional value and the implications of their choices.

WHY MEAT IS FUNDAMENTAL FOR HEALTH

When we talk about healthy eating, the secret lies in balance. Meat is a fundamental pillar of our diet, as it is an irreplaceable source of:

• High-quality proteins: called “noble,” they contain all the essential amino acids in the ideal proportions to support metabolism.
• Exclusive nutrients: heme iron – absorbed by our body with an efficiency of up to 20%, compared to the modest 5% of non-heme iron found in plant-based foods – vitamin B12 – essential for the nervous system and the production of red blood cells – and vitamin D, crucial for bone health and the immune system. Additionally, minerals like zinc and selenium, vital for immune defenses and proper enzymatic functioning.

At all stages of life, meat plays a key role in ensuring optimal nutrition. Eliminating it without a real understanding of the alternatives can lead to nutritional imbalances that are difficult to compensate for.

QUALITY AND SAFETY

Protecting consumers’ rights also means ensuring that they have access to safe and high-quality food. In this regard, Europe is a model of excellence: the meat that reaches our tables is among the most controlled in the world, thanks to strict regulations and a traceability system that ensures transparency throughout the entire supply chain.

A topic often debated – and frequently a source of misinformation – concerns hormones and antibiotics. Let’s clarify: the use of growth hormones in European livestock has been prohibited for over forty years. Antibiotics, on the other hand, can only be administered for therapeutic purposes, under strict veterinary supervision and in compliance with suspension times that prevent residues from remaining in the meat.

To further guarantee safety, European and national regulations establish control actions to verify the presence of unwanted substances in food: every year, each member state must carry out the National Residue Testing Plan (PNR), a detailed program that monitors the presence of undesirable substances in animal-based foods.

RESTORING THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE

The real right of the consumer is to be able to choose freely and consciously what to eat, having access to accurate information. Meat, like many other demonized nutrients, is a safe and valuable food. Boycotting it and eliminating it from the diet means denying the consumer a fundamental nutritional option without a valid reason.
What is needed is education, information, and the freedom to choose with awareness. Only then will the consumer truly be the protagonist of their own diet and health.

Read Why Meat Is Essential In Our Diet>>>