Our food is killing us, and the planet. That鈥檚 the message from a group of 37 experts called the EAT-Lancet commission, which spent three years poring over the evidence to work out the best diet in terms of health and the environment. Their conclusion: .
That means聽far more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and tubers, and far less meat, dairy and sugar. On an average day, for instance, we should eat just 14 grams of red meat and 250 grams of whole milk or derivatives such as cheese.
鈥淚t certainly is an enormous change, especially for the western world,鈥� says Fabrice DeClerck of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, one of the report鈥檚 authors.
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Huge body of evidence
Telling people to change their diets is always likely to spark anger. 鈥淭hey say 鈥榶ou are what you eat鈥� and that must be true, because this is nuts,鈥� Christopher Snowden of the聽Institute of Economic Affairs, a right-wing think tank.
But the reality is that the broad conclusions of the EAT-Lancet report are sound and should surprise no one, as they reflect a huge body of evidence. When 快猫短视频 looked last year at how to eat well for yourself and the planet, our answers were much the same.
The big question is really, how do we persuade people to change their diets? Or, in the case of most of the world鈥檚 population, how do we stop them adopting the terrible diets of people in the US and Europe as they grow richer?
The report essentially says we need to throw the kitchen sink at the problem. We need persuade consumers to change what they buy and cook, while farmers and shops must produce and promote healthier, more sustainable foods.
A carbon tax on food
Such radical change is unlikely to聽happen if left to the whim of the consumer. 鈥淓nvironmental and societal health costs of food supply and consumption should be fully reflected in pricing by introducing taxes,鈥� states the report. 鈥淎s a result, food prices might increase.鈥�
That statement is buried deep in the report, and DeClerck plays it down. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 one of the options. There are others,鈥� he says. For instance, subsidies could be redirected towards healthier foods. But it鈥檚 hard to see how diets could be radically changed without effectively imposing a carbon tax on the most polluting foods.
It鈥檚 not just about changing diets. The report also stresses the need for 鈥渟ustainable intensification鈥� 鈥� producing more food per hectare so land can be left aside for wildlife. It is agnostic about how this is achieved. It could mean using precision agriculture, genetically modified organisms or organic farming, if organic methods can produce high enough yields.
And then there鈥檚 food waste. This is not just about millennials letting avocados rot in the fridge. In poor countries much food is wasted before it even reaches markets because of inadequate storage and transport systems, the report says.
Changing all this will require joined-up policy. All too often countries鈥� health, environment and farming policies are all pushing in different directions.
What isn鈥檛 an option is continuing as we are. If billions more people start to eat as much meat as those in the US and Europe, for instance, we鈥檇 have to cut down most remaining forests to create more farmland, says DeClerck. 鈥淲e simply don鈥檛 have enough resources.鈥�
