[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER: The next natural question after this is, should we just stop eating meat altogether? We have evidence that high meat consumption, especially as part of an unhealthy pattern of low vegetables, whole grains, fruits and legumes, may put people at higher risk of chronic diseases. However, meat and dairy and eggs also efficiently provide important nutrients for growth and health, especially in lower income settings where undernutrition is prevalent. A recent World Bank report highlighted the importance of human capital in the thriving of a society. When a child is undernourished, her potential to earn income and contribute to society is diminished. So it's important to look at all aspects and impacts of sustainable and healthy diets. This means there cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution. Achieving both healthy and sustainable diets globally is more nuanced. It must balance prevailing issues of food insecurity and undernutrition as well as globalization. In order to truly achieve a sustainable and healthy world where all people can thrive and grow, we first have to acknowledge the global epidemic of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change that together represent the gravest threat to humankind according to a 2019 Lancet paper. We added freshwater depletion to this Venn diagram because of this close linkage with climate change. At the intersection of these global challenges to food and agriculture systems which contribute to problems like climate change, wastes, environmental degradation, and economic inequality. Where some regions produce and eat too much meat, others still experience unacceptable rates of undernutrition which prevent many children from growing to healthy adults and contributing to a healthy equitable society. So the approach must be different in different places. In high income countries that consume well above the guidelines for protein and meat, we carry the responsibility of reducing meat consumption in our food-related greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, in a recent paper, CLF demonstrated that for the 77 highest income countries, just practicing a meat-free day can reduce per person food-related greenhouse gas emissions by 12%. So the message here is limit and replace. Limit meat and replace with more high quality plant-based foods, whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fruits. And also reduce the intake of sugar and refined processed foods. But then lower and middle income countries where people rely heavily on staples for nutrition with smaller amounts of protein and micro-nutrients, there may be a need for more animal foods, especially in children. At the same time in these countries, there's a shift happening toward typical Western patterns with more processed foods high in refined grains, sugars, and oils. So the emphasis needs to move toward accessing quality animal and plant proteins, dairy, eggs, meat, legumes and nuts. But also ensuring that the growth of animal foods is not supported by concentrated methods such as industrial farm animal production, which have huge environmental and human rights consequences. And furthermore emphasizing more vegetables and fruits in place of nutrient poor staples such as rice, meat, and maize or corn, as well as reduced consumption of ultra processed food beverages. As seen here in this world map, the highest meat-eating in countries include most of North and South America, Australia, Israel, and some of Europe and Hong Kong. Africa and most of Asia consume the lowest quartiles. This map depicts the impact of adopting the Planetary Health Diet, a healthy plant food diet recommended by the EAT-Lancet Commission. The dark blue countries include most of those in North and South America, Europe, and Australia. These countries would have a 50% greater reduction in the per capita greenhouse gas emissions if they follow the Planetary Health Diet. Light blue countries would decrease between 10% and 50% and include China, South Africa, and a few other countries scattered around the world. The countries in dark and light red need to increase per capita greenhouse gas emissions because to address the high prevalence of malnutrition in these places, people, particularly young children need to increase intake of animal foods. These include India and several countries in Africa and Asia. This figure from the 2018 CLF paper depicts the greenhouse gas footprint of increasingly plant forward diets in the United States. The different colors in the columns represent food groups with red being beef and blue dairy. The black line represents the 2050 target that is the threshold for food system greenhouse gas emissions as recommended by the EAT-Lancet Commission. Only two diets that we modeled were below this line, the vegan diet and what we call the low food chain diet that includes only insects and bivalves, such as oysters as animal foods. For the US vegan diet, scaling up plant foods to replace meat, dairy, eggs, and fish, we grouped 100% of the calories and 63% of proteins with only 5% of the greenhouse gas emissions. But getting close to the target is a 2/3 vegan or flexitarian diet. In fact, this pattern of eating has a lower greenhouse gas footprint than lacto-ovo diet due to the replacement of meat with dairy. The good news is it's possible to include small amounts of animal products and still be climate friendly. It's not necessary to abstain 100%. We could think of this as stepwise transitions. And studies suggest that people are more likely to stick with a plant-based diet if they make gradual transition. And some people won't go all the way to a vegan diet. And that's OK. It can be problematic when we think in terms of dichotomies. You're either vegan or vegetarian or you're not. Whereas in reality there can be a space for people along the spectrum, particularly if we emphasize more climate friendly animal foods such as small fish, bivalves, and insects. [MUSIC PLAYING]
