The human diet, full of meat and low in vegetables, is causing ‘catastrophic’ damage to the environment and kills 11 million people a year , according to a recent study published in The Lancet magazine by 37 experts from 16 countries in a project that has lasted three years.
If we all embraced the so-called ‘Planetary Diet’ , cutting our meat intake in half and doubling our intake of vegetables, nuts and legumes, fewer people would die of starvation and diet-related heart disease, cancers, obesity and many others, they say The experts.
It would also reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect biodiversity and the supply of fresh water, which is absorbed by the agricultural industry.
A radical diet change
The cornerstone of the “great food transformation” called for in the study is a diet of approximately 2,500 calories a day.
The new diet plan would mean that each person should only eat around 7 g of pork a day, 7 g of beef or lamb, or 28 g of fish (to give us an idea, a typical hamburger usually has about 125 grams of meat).
Dairy and butter intake should be reduced to 250 g, the equivalent of half a glass of milk, a slice of cheese and a small piece of butter.
The consumption of eggs would be reduced to one egg every week and a half.
Sugar intake would be reduced to 31 grams per day.
Hence, to recover the rest of calories, we would have to eat three times more vegetables, legumes and nuts.
‘Only’ with this change – radical, yes – we would avoid around 11 million early deaths by 2050, according to experts.
And it is that the way in which humanity produces and eats food must change radically for these “catastrophic” damages to the planet. The key to saving our health and that of the planet is a dramatic change in the global diet: in short, cut about half the amount of sugar and red meat, and eat twice the amount of vegetables, fruits and nuts.
“To have any chance of feeding 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary limits, the limits of the Earth’s ability to absorb human activity, we must adopt a healthy diet, reduce food waste and invest in technologies that reduce environmental impacts. It is feasible, but it will take nothing less than the global agricultural revolution, “explains Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change Impact Research and co-author of the paper.
Where to start?
Scientists are launching a campaign to promote the planetary diet by calling for additional taxes on meat and for the worst foods to be removed from supermarket shelves.
” We are not talking about deprivation. We are talking about a way of eating that can be pleasant and tasty,” clarifies Walter Willett, from Harvard Medical School and co-author of the study.
“This doesn’t mean giving people a tablespoon of meat a day, but it does mean eating a hamburger once a week or, if you really like steaks, once a month,” he says.
” We need to change the way we look at some foods, to make them special .”
What do you think?
Referencia: Tamara Lucas, Richard Horton. The 21st-century great food transformation. The Lancet, 2019; DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)33179-9
