Food systems account for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), with the livestock supply chain responsible for 14.5% of the global anthropogenic GHG. Therefore, a switch to more sustainable (and healthier) diet is needed. In this study we conducted a survey experiment to investigate how traditional nudges, reflection-based nudges such as nudge+ and a direct financial incentive, as carbon offsetting, may influence consumers sustainable food choices. We randomised a representative sample of 1,531 UK citizens into six treatment conditions: (1) a baseline, (2) an item-mapping label nudge, (3) a default nudge, (4) a social norm nudge, (5) the offset condition, where they had the opportunity to compensate for the emissions of the meal they chose, and (6) the nudge+. The nudge+ introduces a reflective trigger that enabled us to identify people’s barriers to consuming plant-based meals. According to the barrier selected, they were assigned to one of the three nudges in the other conditions (item-mapping label, default, social norm). We asked participants their perceived levels of fairness, acceptability and effectiveness of the policy they have been exposed to. None of the interventions significantly influenced participants’ selection of more sustainable food choice. Participants ranked the default nudge as the least effective, fair and acceptable. Carbon offset was also not perceived as fair, acceptable and effective, although among the people who had the possibility to offset, it led to a decrease of the carbon emissions of the meals chosen.