Abstract
Diets link environmental and human health. Rising incomes and urbanization are driving a global dietary transition in which traditional diets are replaced by diets higher in refined sugars, refined fats, oils and meats. By 2050 these dietary trends, if unchecked, would be a major contributor to an estimated 80 per cent increase in global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from food production and to global land clearing. Moreover, these dietary shifts are greatly increasing the incidence of type II diabetes, coronary heart disease and other chronic non-communicable diseases that lower global life expectancies. Alternative diets that offer substantial health benefits could, if widely adopted, reduce global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, reduce land clearing and resultant species extinctions, and help prevent such diet-related chronic non-communicable diseases. The implementation of dietary solutions to the tightly linked diet-environment-health trilemma is a global challenge, and opportunity, of great environmental and public health importance.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 518-522 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Nature |
| Volume | 515 |
| Issue number | 7528 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 27 2014 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Acknowledgements We thank M. Burgess, A. Clark and E. Hallström for their comments, K. Thompson for assistance with data collection, editing, and creating figures, and the LTER programme of the US National Science Foundation and the University of Minnesota Foundation for support.
