By Laura Porterfield, Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine, Interim Vice Chair of Clinical Affairs, UTMB
What if a diet could improve not just an individual’s health, but also the health of the whole planet?
A recent collaboration of international experts found evidence for just such a diet. They call it the “great food transformation.” [i] The EAT-Lancet Commission—composed of 37 experts from the fields of food systems, environmental sustainability, nutrition, human health, economics, and politics—spent years reviewing the best evidence on diet, nutrition, and environmental sustainability. Their goal was to make recommendations about a diet that would maximize the health of humans and our planet. One of their key recommendations: eat less meat – especially red meat.
The Commission recommended that red meat be limited to ½ ounce per day or less. That’s one-fifth of what the average American consumes. So what’s the beef with red meat?
First, there are the health concerns to individuals. While the complexity of human diets makes them challenging to study, the preponderance of evidence suggests significant health risks from red meat. For example, increased consumption of red meat has been linked with increased risk of stroke[ii], diabetes[iii] and mortality.[iv] If that’s not bad enough, the International Agency for Research on Cancer has categorized processed red meat as a Group 1 carcinogen and unprocessed red meat as a Group 2 carcinogen.[v]
Our craving for red meat has also taken a toll on our planet’s health. Setting aside the cattle industry’s substantial role in deforestation[vi], the world’s supply of cattle also produce significant greenhouse gas emissions, due to a cow’s digestive processes. Though we usually think of transportation and industry sectors as the main culprits, the global livestock sector actually accounts for 18% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, compared with 15% for the transportation sector.[vii] In fact, if a family of four were to forgo a steak dinner once a week, the reduction in greenhouse gases would be the same as taking their car off the road for almost three months of the year.[viii]
Beyond greenhouse gas emissions, red meat is also a far less efficient source of protein and energy than vegetables, grains, and legumes. It takes roughly twenty-five pounds of grain to produce one pound of edible beef.[ix] This inefficiency has a massive effect on world hunger. Global population numbers have skyrocketed since the 1900s[x], yet our capacity to produce more food has only increased slightly. Currently, 80% of the earth’s agricultural land is used for grazing animals or raising their crops, leaving only 20% of agricultural land for human crops.[xi]
Meanwhile, 820 million people are undernourished, 51 million children exhibit physical wasting from lack of food, and 2 billion people are deficient in micronutrients.[xii] As the world’s population continues to grow, the experts from EAT-Lancet believe the only way the earth can produce enough food will be if we eat less meat—particularly red meat. The good news is, if we learn to use less of our arable land for grazing and animal feed, and more for growing crops for humans, our planet will be healthier. And so will we. Now that’s what I call a whole earth diet!
[i] Willet W, Rockstrom J, et al. Food in the Anthropocene: The EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The Lancet. 2019; 393 (10170), P447-492. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4
[ii] Chen GC, Lv DB, Pang Z, Liu QF. Red and processed meat consumption and risk of stroke: a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2013 Jan;67(1):91-5. doi: 10.1038/ejcn.2012.180. Epub 2012 Nov 21. PMID: 23169473.
[iii] Feskens EJ, Sluik D, van Woudenbergh GJ. Meat consumption, diabetes, and its complications. Curr Diab Rep. 2013 Apr;13(2):298-306. doi: 10.1007/s11892-013-0365-0. PMID: 23354681.
[iv] Pan A, Sun Q, Bernstein AM, et al. Red Meat Consumption and Mortality: Results From 2 Prospective Cohort Studies. Arch Intern Med. 2012;172(7):555–563. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2011.2287
[v] Bouvard V, Loomis D, Guyton KZ, et al. Carcinogenicity of consumption of red and processed meat. Lancet Oncol. 2015;16(16):1599-1600. doi:10.1016/S1470-2045(15)00444-1
[vi] DeSy V, Herold M, et al. Land use patterns and related carbon losses following deforestation in South America. Environmental Research. 2015;10(12), 1-15. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/124004
[vii] Gerber P, Mooney H, et al. (Eds.) Livestock in a Changing Landscape. Island Press; 2010.
[viii] Environmental Working Group. Meat Eater’s Guide to climate change + health. 2011. Accessed September 28, 2020. https://www.ewg.org/meateatersguide
[ix] Smil V. Eating meat: evolution, patterns, and consequences. Population and Development Review, 2008;28(4), 599-639. doi: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2002.00599.x
[x] Hathout D. Modeling Population Growth: Exponential and hyperbolic modeling. Applied Mathematics. 2013;4, 299-304. doi: 10.4236/am.2013.42045
[xi] Food and Agriculture Organization. Arable land. World Bank Group. 2016. Accessed from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.ARBL.ZS
[xii] Nadakavukaren, A. Our Global Environment: A Health Perspective, Waveland Press. 2011: 449.