According to a landmark report by 70 experts from 35 countries, adoption of a plant-rich “planetary health diet” could prevent 40 000 early deaths a day around the world.
The Guardian reports that the diet, which includes moderate meat consumption, and related measures would also halve – by 2025 – the food-related emissions driving global heating. Today, a third of greenhouse gas emissions come from the global food system and taming the climate crisis is impossible without changing how the world eats, the researchers said.
Food production is also the biggest cause of the destruction of wildlife and forests and the pollution of water.
The planetary health diet (PHD) describes how the world can simultaneously improve the health of people and the planet, and provide enough food for an expected global population of 9.6bn people by 2050.
The diet is flexible, allowing it to be adapted to local tastes, and can include some animal products or be vegetarian or vegan. However, all versions advise eating more vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes and whole grains than most people in the world currently eat.
In many places, today’s diets are unhealthy and unsustainable due to too much meat, milk and cheese, animal fats and sugar.
People in the US and Canada eat more than seven times the PHD’s recommended amount of red meat, while it is five times more in Europe and Latin America, and four times more in China.
But in some regions where people’s diets are heavily reliant on starchy foods, such as sub-Saharan Africa, a small increase in chicken, dairy and eggs would be beneficial to health, the report found.
Severe inequalities in the food system must also be ended to achieve healthy and sustainable diets, the researchers said. The wealthiest 30% of the world’s population generates more than 70% of food-related environmental damage, it found.
Furthermore, 2.8bn people cannot afford a healthy diet and 1bn are undernourished, despite enough food being produced globally.
The food system is also failing the 1bn people who are obese. The report recommends shifting taxes to make unhealthy food more costly and healthy food cheaper, regulating the advertising of unhealthy food and using warning labels, and the shifting of today’s massive agricultural subsidies to healthier and more sustainable foods.
“What we put on our plates can save millions of lives, cut billions of tons of emissions, halt the loss of biodiversity, and create a fairer food system,” said Professor Johan Rockström, who co-chaired the EAT-Lancet Commission that produced the report. “The evidence is undeniable: transforming food systems is not only possible, it’s essential to securing a safe, just, and sustainable future for all.”
The report, published in The Lancet, builds on the 2019 report that introduced the PHD, but includes new evidence of the health benefits of the diet.
Overall, the researchers estimated global adoption of the PHD could prevent 15m early deaths a year in adults. The estimate did not include the impact of the diet reducing obesity, meaning it is probably an underestimate.
Dr Marco Springmann from University College London and an author of the report said the differences between the PHD and current diets vary: “What needs to be reduced differs a lot. In low income countries, it’s the starchy foods and grains, whereas in high income countries it is animal-sourced foods, sugar, saturated fats and dairy. It’s insane how much dairy is consumed in Europe and North America.”
The data underlying the report are available online and can be used to tailor different planetary health diets for the tastes of people in specific countries and of different ages. The website also shows how much the diets reduce deaths, improve nutrition and cut environmental impacts.
“Hopefully this will lead to more science-based policymaking,” said Springmann.
Moving diets towards the PHD could be achieved by helping consumers make better everyday choices, said Professor Line Gordon, director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, for example, by shifting taxes to make healthy foods cheaper, and putting warning labels on unhealthy foods.
“But it is not just about getting prices lower, it’s also about bringing purchasing power up so that people can afford a healthier diet” she said.
The report estimates that food-related ill health and environmental damage costs society about $15tn a year. It said investments to transform the food system would cost $200bn to $500bn a year, but save $5tn.
The launch of the PHD in 2019 led to attacks from meat industry interests. Rockström said: “The (new report) is a landmark achievement. It is a state-of-the-art scientific assessment that quantifies healthy diets for all human beings and the environmental boundaries all food systems need to meet to stay safe. So we have a really rigorous foundation for our (results). We are ready to meet that assault.”
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Healthy diet may modify link between obesity and CVD mortality — 21-year study
The Longevity Diet: How nutrition affects ageing and healthy lifespan – US analysis
Plant protein diets linked to lower risk of death – International evidence review
Cancer risk could drop by 45% with vegetarian diet – US study