A global dietary and environmental crisis is coming, and it’s because of our (meat eating) sins. So says an academic commission with global participants, which recently released a report titled, “Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems.”
[inline_image file=”f553e3df581eb661b6e01cdfc637ea93.jpg” caption=”This is a 47-page PDF report”]
Today’s food production is causing poor health and environmental degradation, says the report, published in The Lancet scientific/medical journal on Jan. 16. As such, “global efforts are urgently needed to collectively transform diets and food production.”
A key takeaway: The end is near, unless we all but denounce red meat and dairy.
Safely feeding the world’s population 30 years from now will take “nothing less than a Great Food Transformation,” claim the report’s 37 coauthors. Those authors include MDs and Ph.D.s from places like Harvard; the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Germany); the Stockholm Resilience Centre (Sweden); the World Health Organization; and many more.
The report ends with a list of 357 scientific references—many of which were also published by The Lancet and boast the same authors as the report itself.
Sin of red meat
The authors claim to have come up with a “healthy reference diet” that “largely consists of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and unsaturated oils, includes a low to moderate amount of seafood and poultry, and includes no or a low quantity of red meat, processed meat, added sugar, refined grains, and starchy vegetables.”
The new food system, the report predicts, “can provide healthy diets … for an estimated global population of about 10 billion people by 2050” (the current global population is around 7.7 billion) while remaining in an environmentally “safe space.”
As an added bonus, the new system will “help ensure that the UN [United Nations] Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris Agreement” are achieved.
However, even small increases in consumption of red meat or dairy foods would make this goal difficult or impossible to achieve, the report warns.
Report claims red meat health risks
The report calls red meat “not essential” and even compares it to smoking tobacco. It goes on to say red meat, in meta-analyses, “appears to be linearly related to total mortality and risks of other health outcomes in populations that have consumed it for many years…”
The report cites “associations” between consumption of red meat with increased risk of death (for any reason); cardiovascular disease; strokes; and type 2 diabetes. Although “associations” do not equal “causation” in science, and although the authors admit that the studies they cite can’t pinpoint red meat as the actual cause of the aforementioned ailments, the report nonetheless concludes that the “optimal [red meat] intake might be 0 grams per day.”
Instead of zero, however, the reference diet allows for less than half of one ounce of red meat per day—one small bite. The report puts North American red meat consumption at about 700 percent of what the authors think it should be.
Feeding people: a threat to the planet
What happens if everyone adopts the reference diet? A “large reduction in total mortality,” predicts the report, averting “about 10.8-11.6 million deaths per year, a reduction of 19-23.6 percent.”
While saving people sounds like a worthy goal, the report, in a bit of a paradox, simultaneously argues that population growth is itself a risk to the planet and humanity. Food production is “the largest pressure caused by humans on Earth,” the report states, “threatening local ecosystems and the stability of the Earth system.” What’s more, projected population growth exacerbates the risk.
“Agriculture occupies about 40 percent of global land, and food production is responsible for up to 30 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions and 70 percent of freshwater use,” reads the report.
“Conversion of natural ecosystems to croplands and pastures is the largest factor causing species to be threatened with extinction. Overuse and misuse of nitrogen and phosphorus causes eutrophication and dead zones in lakes and coastal zones.”
Specific to livestock, the report states, “The growing demand for animal source foods puts pressure on land use, increases greenhouse-gas emissions, and, if the animals are grain-fed, are water intensive.”
However, the report does make some concessions. “…[I]n some contexts, animal production can also be essential for supporting livelihoods, grassland ecosystem services, poverty alleviation, and benefits of nutritional status,” the report says.
It also recognizes that “grazing lands … are important for biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration.”
Diet police?
How do the authors propose their new food system will be implemented?
“A transformation of the global food system should ultimately involve multiple stakeholders, from individual consumers to policy makers and all actors in the food supply chain, working together towards the shared global goal of healthy and sustainable diets for all,” reads the report.
When it comes to government, “a full range of policy levers, from soft to hard, will be needed,” the report says.
Table 6 lists options for government action, ranging from “Do nothing” (which it calls the “all-too common” government role) to “Guide choices through incentives” to “Eliminate choice.”
There is more coming from the EAT-Lancet Commission. According to EATforum.org, the group will continue working to “reach a scientific consensus that defines a healthy and sustainable diet.” A “launch lecture” was held in Oslo, Norway on Jan. 17, and 35 more events are scheduled around the globe.
As early as this month, The Lancet has plans to release a second report, Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change. — Theodora Johnson, WLJ correspondent
