Decreasing your daily meat consumption by 10% would add 48 minutes of healthy living per day

Vegetarian and vegan options have become a standard alternative in the diet, from upscale restaurants to fast food chains. Many people know that the food choices they make affect their health and that of the planet. But in everyday life, it is difficult to know how the different options they can translate into general personal and environmental health. This is the void that Olivier Jolliet, professor of environmental health sciences and Katerina S. Stylianou, researcher in the same discipline, both from the University of Michigan, are trying to fill with new research.

As part of a team of researchers experienced in food sustainability and environmental life cycle assessment, epidemiology, environmental health and nutrition, they strive to obtain “A deeper understanding beyond the debate on animal versus plant food, which is often too simplistic, and to identify ecologically sustainable foods that also promote human health”, says Jolliet, author of dozens of research published in Nature and Science.

“On the strength of this multidisciplinary experience – explains Stylianou – We combine 15 dietary risk factors based on nutritional health with 18 environmental indicators to assess, rank and prioritize over 5,800 individual foods”. Their working hypotheses were as follows: “Are drastic changes in diet necessary to improve individual health and reduce environmental impacts?” Does everyone need to become vegan to make a significant difference to human health and that of the planet? ”

In their new study published in the journal NatureFood, they provided some of the first hard numbers regarding the health burden of various food options. They analyzed individual foods based on their composition to calculate the net benefits or impacts of each.

The nutritional health index they developed converts this information into minutes of life lost or gained per serving of each food consumed.. “For example,” suggests Jolliet, “we have found that eating a hot dog costs a person 36 minutes of healthy living. In comparison, we detect that to eat a 30 gram serving of nuts and seeds provides a gain of 25 minutes of healthy living, that is to say a Increased life expectancy of good quality and disease-frees “.

Their study also showed that replacing just 10% of the daily calorie intake of beef and processed meats with a diverse mix of whole grains, selected fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and shellfish could, on average, reduce the dietary carbon footprint a one-third American consumer and add 48 minutes of healthy living per day. “This is a substantial improvement for such a limited dietary change, ”explains Jolliet.

The nutritional health index they developed is based on a large epidemiological study called the Global Burden of Disease, a comprehensive global document and database that was developed with the help of over 7,000 researchers around the world. that identify the risks and benefits associated with multiple environmental factors. , metabolic and behavioral, including 15 dietary risk factors. “Our team took this data and adapted it to the individual diet,” Jolliet explains.Taking into account more than 6,000 specific risk estimates for each age, sex, disease and risk, and the fact that there are approximately half a million minutes per year, we calculate the health burden of consumption of the value of one gram of food for each of the dietary risk factors ”.

For example, they found that on average, 0.45 minutes is lost per gram of processed meat a person eats. They then multiplied that number by the corresponding food profiles they had previously developed. Returning to the example of a hot dog, the 61 grams of processed meat in such a sandwich results in the loss of 27 minutes of healthy life just because of that amount of processed meat alone. Then, considering the other risk factors, such as sodium and trans fatty acids within the hot dog, offset by the benefit of its polyunsaturated fats and fibers, they reached the final value of 36 minutes of healthy life lost. by a hot dog.

“We repeated this calculation for more than 5,800 foods and mixed dishes,” Jolliet continues. We then compared the health index scores to 18 different environmental metrics, including carbon footprint, water use, and human health impacts from air pollution. Finally, using this link between health and the environment, we color-code each food in green, yellow or red. Like a traffic light green foods have beneficial health effects and low environmental impact and should be increased in the diet, while red foods should be reduced ”.

What is it all for? Their study identified some priority actions that people can take both to improve their health and to reduce their environmental footprint. When it comes to environmental sustainability, they detected surprising variations both within and between foods of animal and plant origin. In the case of “red” foods, beef has the largest carbon footprint over its entire lifecycle: twice that of pork or lamb and four times that of poultry and dairy products. From a health standpoint, eliminating processed meat and reducing your overall sodium intake provides the greatest gain in healthy living compared to all other types of food.

Therefore, people might consider eating less foods high in processed meat and veal, followed by pork and lamb. And, in particular, among plant-based products, greenhouse-grown vegetables have a low environmental impact due to combustion emissions from heating. “The foods that people might consider increasing are those with high health benefits and low environmental impact,” continues Stylianou. We see a lot of flexibility between these “green” options, which include whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, and low-impact seafood.

These items also offer options for all income levels, tastes and cultures. The study also shows that when it comes to food sustainability, it is not enough to consider the amount of greenhouse gases emitted, the so-called carbon footprint. Water-saving techniques, such as drip irrigation and gray water reuse, or domestic wastewater such as sinks and showers, can also take important steps to reduce the water footprint of food production. Your Nutrient for Health Index has the potential to be adapted periodically, incorporating new knowledge and data as it becomes available. And it can be personalized all over the world, as has already been done in Switzerland. “It was encouraging to see how small, specific changes can make such a significant difference to health and environmental sustainability, one meal at a time,” concludes Stylianou.

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