‘A Great Food Transformation’ is needed to save the planet! What we know about the EAT-Lancet report.

Firstly, who wrote this report?  

EAT is a global, non-profit foundation established by the Stordalen Foundation, Stockholm Resilience Centre and Wellcome Trust.  The Lancet is one of the world’s best known medical journals. The EAT-Lancet Commission involved a three-year collaboration between 37 scientific experts from 16 countries aiming to address the need to feed a growing global population a healthy diet while also ensuring sustainability within global food systems.

With the global population expected to reach approx. 10 billion by the year 2050, this report is encouraging us to eat a much more sustainable diet in order to protect both the health of humans and the health of our planet. The authors predict that adopting this approach will prevent 10.8 – 11.6 million deaths per year.

In terms of diet we are encouraged to increase our intake of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes and wholegrains by more than 100% and decrease our intakes of red meat, added sugars, refined grains and starchy vegetables by more than 50%. A moderate reduction of poultry (equating to 29g per day) and fish is also recommended.

This reduction equates to approx one hamburger per week, one and a half eggs per week or half a slice of bacon per day.

In terms of sustainable food production boundaries have been set out in relation to climate change, land use, freshwater use, nitrogen cycling, phosphorous cycling and the loss of biodiversity.

So, more plants, less meat! What are your thoughts on this new report? Get in touch and let us know. Stay tuned for more blogs on this topic and keep an eye on our social media channels 🙂