Towards a sustainable diet combining economic, environmental and nutritional objectives

Donati, Michèle; Menozzi, Davide; Zighetti, Camilla; Rosi, Alice; Zinetti, A.; Scazzina, Francesca

doi:10.1016/j.appet.2016.02.151

Cited by 114 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Fourteen sustainable dietary patterns were proposed: vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian, replacing ruminant with monogastric meat, balanced energy intake, following healthy guidelines, Mediterranean diet, New Nordic diet, and meat reduction, with other sub-scenarios such as type of food supplemented by meat reduction, and healthy guidelines with further optimisation (Table 1). Several studies designed sustainable diets by starting with national healthy guidelines and optimised the balance of foods further, through linear programming [9, 11, 53, 56, 63, 66, 72, 75] or manually [32, 34, 38, 45, 54, 55, 59, 67], to generate additional environmental benefits; these scenarios have been termed “healthy guidelines plus further optimisation”. Balanced energy intake were scenarios where the average current diet was scaled down to recommended caloric intakes without changing the mix of food groups eaten.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impacts of Dietary Change on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Land Use, Water Use, and Health: A Systematic Review

et al. 2016

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Food production is a major driver of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water and land use, and dietary risk factors are contributors to non-communicable diseases. Shifts in dietary patterns can therefore potentially provide benefits for both the environment and health. However, there is uncertainty about the magnitude of these impacts, and the dietary changes necessary to achieve them. We systematically review the evidence on changes in GHG emissions, land use, and water use, from shifting current dietary intakes to environmentally sustainable dietary patterns. We find 14 common sustainable dietary patterns across reviewed studies, with reductions as high as 70–80% of GHG emissions and land use, and 50% of water use (with medians of about 20–30% for these indicators across all studies) possible by adopting sustainable dietary patterns. Reductions in environmental footprints were generally proportional to the magnitude of animal-based food restriction. Dietary shifts also yielded modest benefits in all-cause mortality risk. Our review reveals that environmental and health benefits are possible by shifting current Western diets to a variety of more sustainable dietary patterns.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impacts of Dietary Change on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Land Use, Water Use, and Health: A Systematic Review

et al. 2016

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“…A multi-objective method used to optimise diets in Italy found that a sustainable diet (integrating environmental and economic sustainability) used the least water 7 . To date, studies have used only stochastic methods to examine uncertainties.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Few studies have attempted to derive optimised diets that reduce water use in their production, and to our knowledge, no assessment of the potential effects of such optimised diets on health has been done 7 . Here, we investigate the resilience of the Indian food system to future changes in the availability of groundwater for agricultural irrigation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Projected health effects of realistic dietary changes to address freshwater constraints in India: a modelling study

Milner

Joy

Green

et al. 2017

The Lancet Planetary Health

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SummaryBackgroundThe availability of freshwater for irrigation in the Indian agricultural sector is expected to decline over the coming decades. This might have implications for food production in India, with subsequent effects on diets and health. We identify realistic and healthy dietary changes that could enhance the resilience of the Indian food system to future decreases in water availability.MethodsIn this modelling study, we optimised typical dietary patterns in an Indian population sample to meet projected decreases in the availability of water per person for irrigation (blue water footprint) due to population growth (to 2025 and 2050). The optimised diets met nutritional guidelines and minimised deviation from existing patterns. Resulting changes in life-years lost due to coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancers were modelled using life tables, and changes in greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of diets were estimated. The primary outcomes of the model were changes in life-years per 100 000 total population over 40 years (to 2050).FindingsThe optimised diets had up to 30% lower blue water footprints and generally contained lower amounts of wheat, dairy, and poultry, and increased amounts of legumes. In the 2050 scenario, adoption of these diets would on average result in 6800 life-years gained per 100 000 total population (95% CI 1600–13 100) over 40 years. The dietary changes were accompanied by reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The magnitude of the health and environmental effects varied between dietary patterns.InterpretationModest changes in diets could help to address projected reductions in the availability of freshwater for irrigation in India. These dietary changes could also simultaneously reduce diet-related greenhouse gas emissions and improve diet-related health outcomes.FundingWellcome Trust.

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“…These three indexes account for the greenhouse gas emissions, the consumption of water resources, and the amount of biologically productive land/sea needed to produce a unit of food product, respectively. The CF (expressed as g CO 2 eq./kg), WF (L/kg), and EF (global m 2 /kg) of foodstuffs were weighed according to the actual consumption, as previously described 30 , and the mean daily CF (g CO 2 eq./day), WF (L/day), and EF (global m 2 /day) were calculated for each participants.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental impact of omnivorous, ovo-lacto-vegetarian, and vegan diet

Rosi

Mena

Pellegrini

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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Food and beverage consumption has a great impact on the environment, although there is a lack of information concerning the whole diet. The environmental impact of 153 Italian adults (51 omnivores, 51 ovo-lacto-vegetarians, 51 vegans) and the inter-individual variability within dietary groups were assessed in a real-life context. Food intake was monitored with a 7-d dietary record to calculate nutritional values and environmental impacts (carbon, water, and ecological footprints). The Italian Mediterranean Index was used to evaluate the nutritional quality of each diet. The omnivorous choice generated worse carbon, water and ecological footprints than other diets. No differences were found for the environmental impacts of ovo-lacto-vegetarians and vegans, which also had diets more adherent to the Mediterranean pattern. A high inter-individual variability was observed through principal component analysis, showing that some vegetarians and vegans have higher environmental impacts than those of some omnivores. Thus, regardless of the environmental benefits of plant-based diets, there is a need for thinking in terms of individual dietary habits. To our knowledge, this is the first time environmental impacts of three dietary regimens are evaluated using individual recorded dietary intakes rather than hypothetical diet or diets averaged over a population.It is well known that food choices are strong determinants of human health, but recently awareness has grown about the fact that the foods and beverages we produce, choose and consume may significantly affect the environment 1-3 . Since plant-based diets often emerge as nutritionally and environmentally advantageous 4 , a potential strategy to reduce both the rate of many human non-communicable diseases and prevent environmental deterioration might lie in promoting the consumption of plant-based instead of animal foods 4-8 .The Mediterranean Diet (MD), which could be considered a plant-oriented dietary approach, appears able to face both health and environmental concerns. A MD regimen has been associated with reduced incidence of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and has been shown to represent a valid preventative strategy towards certain cancers [9][10][11][12][13] . At the same time, MD has been described as a wise choice to reduce the environmental impact associated with food consumption 3,6,14 .Despite the general agreement on the environmental impact of food 1 , there is a lack of information about the real influence of the whole diet not based on hypothetical intake on different indexes of environmental impact. Although greenhouse gas emissions have been extensively studied, the assessment of other indicators, such as water consumption and land use demand, have not been examined in relation to specific populations and actual dietary choices 15 . To improve evidence-based nutritional and environmental joint recommendations, more thorough research should be carried out to properly demonstrate the exact capability of dietary regimens on overall env...

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Towards a sustainable diet combining economic, environmental and nutritional objectives

Cited by 114 publications

References 24 publications

The Impacts of Dietary Change on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Land Use, Water Use, and Health: A Systematic Review

The Impacts of Dietary Change on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Land Use, Water Use, and Health: A Systematic Review

Projected health effects of realistic dietary changes to address freshwater constraints in India: a modelling study

Environmental impact of omnivorous, ovo-lacto-vegetarian, and vegan diet

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