Can diets be both healthy and sustainable? Solving the dilemma between healthy diets versus sustainable diets

doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-811660-9.00013-8

Environmental Nutrition

Connecting Health and Nutrition with Environmentally Sustainable Diets

2019, Pages 197-227

https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-811660-9.00013-8 Get rights and content

Abstract

Current diets are neither healthy nor sustainable. Dietary risk factors that describe unhealthy consumption patterns, such as diets low in fruits and vegetable and high in red and processed meat, are together responsible for the greatest health burden on mortality globally and in most regions. At the same time, food production is a significant driver of climate change, biodiversity loss via land-use changes, and chemical pollution of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. In addressing these challenges, a large body of literature has emerged that explores ways to reduce the environmental and health impacts of the food system, both from the consumption and the production side. Here I summarize and contextualize the current state of the literature on sustainable diets. I base this chapter on global studies on the environmental impacts of agriculture, recent reviews of the sustainable-diet literature, and meta-analyses of epidemiological studies that detail the health associations of dietary changes.

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Cited by (8)

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Citation Excerpt :
Melina et al. (2016) suggests that plant-based diets, if planned correctly, are nutritionally adequate and may provide health benefits, further suggesting that these diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle. Furthermore, Springmann (2019) and Clark et al. (2019) discuss the positive relationship between plant-based diets and their effects on health and the environment. The authors conclude that plant-based diets are generally both healthier and more sustainable.
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Citation Excerpt :
Recently, the environmental impacts, and especially carbon footprint, of dietary choices have been receiving attention and it has been suggested that changes in dietary behavior can change the carbon footprint of an individual significantly (Hallstrom et al., 2015; Rabes et al., 2020). It has also been suggested that sustainable diets promote a healthier lifestyle, or at least sustainability and healthiness are not contradictory to one another as once suspected (Dupouy and Gurinovic, 2020; Willett et al., 2019; Springmann, 2019). Nonetheless, the relationship between climate change and food supply is not one-way as climate change also affects food systems worldwide (Veeramani et al., 2017).
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Chapter 11 - Can diets be both healthy and sustainable? Solving the dilemma between healthy diets versus sustainable diets

Abstract