Diet, the food system and the planet

Food choices connect human health with the environmental effects of food production. Reducing consumption of animal products is one proposed way to reduce those effects while improving health.

Dietary change and environmental benefits

Predominantly plant-based nutrition is one approach through which health systems seek benefits for both human health and the environment. ¹ Reducing animal-product production and consumption is recommended as a principal way to lower food-system emissions, with substantial effects at very low cost and accompanying improvements in human health. ^{2, 3}

Food-system pressures and projections

A business-as-usual projection presented in 2020 compared food-group consumption and production in 2010 with projections for 2050, distinguishing staples such as wheat and rice, other food groups and animal products. ^{4, 2} Animal products already had high greenhouse gas emissions at the 2010 baseline and were projected to have the largest emissions increase among food groups by 2050 if prevailing consumption levels continued. ² The projection also identified large pressures from cropland use and phosphorus and nitrogen application. ² Substantially reducing animal-based food consumption could therefore have a large positive environmental effect. ²

Fish and aquaculture

In 2020, most global fish stocks were overexploited, depleted or fully exploited. ⁵ Fish farming also has environmental costs: feed can divert small fish and other organisms from wild food webs, farms generate large volumes of excrement, and antibiotics given to farmed fish can remain in the water. ⁵

Production-side measures

Feed supplements and changes in livestock management can reduce methane emissions. ³ Manure management is another way to reduce emissions, because manure releases nitrous oxide and methane. ³