According to Canada’s Food Price Report, meat eating Canadians will benefit from dropping prices for animal protein in 2019, while the growing legion of meat-free eaters will pay more for their vegetables.
Some 40 percent of British Columbians aged 35 and under follow some variation of a meat-free diet, which is about three times the national average, said lead author Sylvain Charlebois, a professor of management and agriculture at Dalhousie University.
As vegetables will see the biggest price increase next year compared to other groceries -between 4 and 6 percent- there will be “a considerable challenge to consumers who struggle to afford healthy food,” the authors say. The price of vegetables has already gone up 4 per cent in the past 12 months.
“Because British Columbia is so dependent on California and Mexico for fruits and vegetables, the weather effects of El Niño create extra uncertainty,” he said. “El Niño will bring more rain, but not where we need it. Parts of Mexico and the United States will not have enough rain and that will affect crops and our food supply, so we will pay more.”
The cost of meat and seafood is predicted to drop as consumers increasingly turn to plant-based proteins in vegetarian and vegan diets, he said.
That sounds like good news for the fast-growing community of devotees to the ketogenic and carnivore diets, not to mention the emerging community of seagans, who add fish to their vegan diet.
