Planetary Health Diet: healthy and sustainable eating
Have you ever wondered how our food choices affect not only our health but also our planet? Today, more than ever, it is important to reimagine a food system that combines both the right nutritional intake as well as sustainable habits and processes. That's exactly the idea behind the Planetary Health Diet; a diet designed to help us eat in a healthy and sustainable way and rethink our food choices as well as their impact on our planet.
What is the Planetary Health Diet?
The Planetary Health Diet has been created, examined and promoted by the 'EAT-Lancet Commission', a commission of more than 30 health, nutrition, sustainability, economics, politics and agriculture experts.
It is designed around two key pillars: healthy consumption, meaning the development of eating behaviors that promote well-being; and increasingly sustainable food production processes.
According to the commission, thanks to the Planetary Health Diet, by 2050 around 10 billion people can be fed in a healthy way without destroying our planet. But what is this diet really based on and what are its goals?
What is the Planetary Health Diet?
The Planetary Health Diet has been created, examined and promoted by the 'EAT-Lancet Commission', a commission of more than 30 health, nutrition, sustainability, economics, politics and agriculture experts.
It is designed around two key pillars: healthy consumption, meaning the development of eating behaviors that promote well-being; and increasingly sustainable food production processes.
According to the commission, thanks to the Planetary Health Diet, by 2050 around 10 billion people can be fed in a healthy way without destroying our planet. But what is this diet really based on and what are its goals?
For a healthy diet
One of the objectives of the Planetary Health Diet is ensuring a healthy diet that improves people's physical and mental wellbeing. This type of diet is characterized by a substantial intake of plant-based products such as vegetables, fruit, whole grains, pulses, nuts and plant oils. To these can be added moderate amounts of animal foods such as meat, fish, eggs and dairy products.
According to the principles of the Planetary Health Diet, half of the dish should consist of fruit and vegetables, while the other half of whole meal products and plant-based protein sources such as legumes, nuts and seeds, plus the option of adding moderate amounts of animal products (image source: EAT-Lancet Commission Report ).
One of the objectives of the Planetary Health Diet is ensuring a healthy diet that improves people's physical and mental wellbeing. This type of diet is characterized by a substantial intake of plant-based products such as vegetables, fruit, whole grains, pulses, nuts and plant oils. To these can be added moderate amounts of animal foods such as meat, fish, eggs and dairy products.
According to the principles of the Planetary Health Diet, half of the dish should consist of fruit and vegetables, while the other half of whole meal products and plant-based protein sources such as legumes, nuts and seeds, plus the option of adding moderate amounts of animal products (image source: EAT-Lancet Commission Report ).
For more sustainable food production processes
The other important goal of the Planetary Health Diet is developing new food production processes that are fully sustainable. In fact, the existing system is one of the biggest factors behind climate change.
Here are five potential strategies that could lead towards a food system transformation:
1. Transitioning to new diets
Western diets have historically been characterized by a high consumption of animal products, as well as flour and sugar. Meat has become cheap and accessible to all, but its supply system has a number of environmental, and health-related implications. A transition to a more plant-based diet, such as the Planetary Health Diet, would mean a major change.
2. A new mindset
Developing a new mindset that will focus not so much on the number of calories to be produced to feed the world's population, but more on the quality and variety of food.
3. Sustainability synonymous with quality
Creating a food system that can be sustainable and at the same time offer a high level of quality. This is only possible by innovating and safeguarding the principles of environmental protection.
4. Balanced governance
Thinking about different ways to manage farmland and oceans, in order to ensure that existing land can be utilized as well as to protect and conserve bio-diversity.
5. Reducing waste
Meeting UN targets and reducing food waste and excess food production by at least 50%.
The Planetary Health Diet, therefore, is not just a diet designed to improve people's health. It actually represents a new way of approaching our food system, so that the entire world population can have access to sustainable, healthy, high-quality meals. Indeed, an important and ambitious goal in which we are all involved.
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