Damaging Diet

Globally, people should be eating half the red meat and sugar they are doing at present; instead, they would do well to double their consumption of vegetables, fruits and nuts. Not eating smart has played havoc with human health and caused catastrophic damage to Planet Earth. This is the conclusion drawn in a study by the NGO ‘EAT’ and leading medical journal ‘The Lancet’, which aimed at providing a nutritious and sustainable diet to the world population projected to grow to 10 billion by 2050. It says that ‘eating too much of the wrong food’ causes more than 11 million premature deaths each year due to obesity, diabetes, malnutrition and several types of cancer. The inefficient farming methods employed have made the global food system the largest emitter of greenhouse gases by expanding farmlands at the cost of carbon absorbing forests, and feeding grain to meat producing animals (5kg of grain for every kg of meat); agriculture is the main cause behind global fresh water crisis by using up 70 percent of the supply, the biggest driver of biodiversity loss, and the major trigger for deadly algae blooms along coasts and inland waterways. Calling for a ‘great food transformation and global agricultural revolution’, Lancet editor-in-chief Richard Horton warned that the Earth is reaching a stage where “we can no longer feed our population a healthy diet while balancing planetary resources”. The ideal diet? Not more than 14 gram of red meat daily, 13 gram eggs, 28 gram fish, protein intake to be mainly from plant sources like peas and lentils, 35 percent of daily calories from grains and tubers, 250 gram dairy foods, a little more than 100 grams of nuts and oils, 31 gram added sugars, along with 500 grams of fruits and vegetables. At least 820 million people go hungry worldwide while nearly 2 billion people eat the wrong food. Cutting food waste and investing in technologies to reduce environmental impacts are other major recommendations of this landmark study.