A new plant-based diet would "transform" the future of the planet, say scientists | Environment

The first science-based diet that addresses both poor food eaten by billions of people and avoids a global environmental disaster has been developed. This requires huge reductions in the consumption of red meat in Western countries and radical changes around the world.

The "Global Diet" was created by an international commission that aims to develop guidelines that provide nutritious food to the rapidly growing world population. At the same time, food addresses the major role of agriculture, especially livestock, in driving climate change, destroying wildlife and polluting rivers and oceans.

Globally, the diet requires that red meat and sugar be halved, while vegetables, fruits, legumes and nuts must double. But in specific places, the changes are striking. North Americans must eat 84% less red meat, but six times more beans and lentils. For Europeans, consuming 77% less red meat and 15 times more nuts and seeds is in line with the guidelines.

According to scientists, the diet is a winning solution because it would save at least 11 million people a year from deaths caused by an unhealthy diet, while preventing the collapse of the natural world on which depends. humanity. Given that 10 billion people are expected to live on Earth by 2050, the continuation of today's unsustainable diets would inevitably mean even more serious health problems and severe global warming.

Unhealthy diets are the leading cause of ill health in the world, with 800 million people currently hungry, 2 billion people suffering from malnutrition and 2 billion people overweight or obese. The world science academies recently concluded that the food system was down. Industrial agriculture is also devastating for the environment because forests are razed and billions of cattle emit methane that warms the climate.

"The world's diets need to change dramatically," said Walter Willett of Harvard University and one of the leaders of the commission convened by the Lancet medical journal and the NGO Eat Forum. The report, published in the Lancet and presented to policymakers in 40 cities around the world, also concluded that food waste must be halved to 15 percent.

"Humanity now represents a threat to the stability of the planet," said Professor Johan Rockström of Stockholm Resilience Center, Sweden, another author of the report. "[This requires] nothing less than a new world agricultural revolution. The report stresses that agricultural yields in the poorest countries need to be improved to create a sustainable and healthy world.

The planetary diet for health is largely herbal and allows an average of 2,500 calories a day. It allows one beef burger and two servings of fish a week, but most protein comes from legumes and nuts. A glbad of milk a day, cheese or butter complies with the guidelines, just like an egg or two a week. Vegetables and fruits make up half of every dish of food in the diet, and one-third is whole grain.

Willett said that these provide the ingredients for a flexible and varied diet: "We are not talking about a deprivation diet here; we are talking about a way to eat healthy, tasty and enjoyable.

"The figures for red meat seem few in the United Kingdom or the United States," he said. "But they do not seem modest for the vast majority of the world's population who already consume about as much, if not less. It's very much in line with traditional diets. "

The planetary health diet resembles those already known to be healthy, such as Mediterranean diets or Okinawa, the researchers said.

"The diet of the planet is based on very harsh epidemiological evidence, according to which researchers have followed a large number of people for decades," said Marco Springmann, of Oxford University, a member of the Commission. "It turns out that if you gather all that evidence, you get a diet that looks like some of the healthiest diets that exist in the real world."

The report recognizes the radical change it advocates and the difficulty of realizing it: "Humanity has never sought to change the global food system to the scale envisaged. Achieving this goal will require rapid change, as well as unprecedented global collaboration and commitment: nothing short of a major food transformation. "

But he notes that major global changes have already occurred, such as the green revolution that dramatically increased food availability in the 1960s. Measures to tax red meat, to prevent the expansion of agricultural land and to protect ocean expanses must all be taken into account, the commission said.

Professor Guy Poppy, from the University of Southampton, UK, who is not part of the commission, said: "This call to arms with its clear solutions is timely, thoroughly researched and worthy of immediate attention . "

"This badysis is the most advanced ever done," said Professor Alan Dangour of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and is not part of the team. "But there is a major question about people's ability to make such dietary recommendations and their acceptability to the general public."

Professor Nigel Scollan of Queen's University in Belfast and a member of the meat advisory group said: "This report tells us what we have known for millennia: an omnivorous diet is optimal. In the UK, encouraging people to eat less red meat and dairy products will have little impact on the environment and could harm the health of the population. "

But Richard Horton and Tamara Lucas, editors of the Lancet, said in an editorial that the global changes defined by the global diet were essential: "Civilization is in crisis. We can no longer feed our people with a healthy diet while balancing global resources. If we can eat in a way that works for our planet and for our body, the natural balance will be restored. "