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Picture source: Wix
Most people know eating fruit and vegetables is good for health as they are packed full of minerals, vitamins and fibre. Not everyone is aware it benefits the planet also. At the start of 2019, a report was published in one of the worlds most renowned scientific journals, The Lancet. This report was based on the findings of nearly 40 of the best scientists from around the globe and is titled: Food in the Anthropocene: The Eat-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. It's a bit of a mouth full and is more commonly known as The Planetary Health Diet, but this shorter more known title might cause a little confusion. At first, I thought it must be aimed at those following a vegan diet, but I was very wrong. It's not just about eating for ourselves but it's about eating for our families, our communities and ultimately our planet.
Picture source: Wix
So how does the planetary diet help humans and their health?
The findings of the report are not just another scientific article but is a commission to the way we eat and live in the hope to eat, live and enjoy life. For many decades, and even now, the Eat Well Guide is the recommended source relating to diet advice for most healthcare professionals, and although some of its elements are still appropriate and similar to the new planetary diet, some is outdated and more harmful than good. So what does the planetary diet suggest and why? The biggest element is the planetary diet suggests your plate should be: Half full of fruits and vegetables (as opposed to only a third as suggested by the eat well guide). The remaining half should be made up of a range of things, but predominantly whole grains (such as barley, buckwheat, oatmeal and brown rice), plant proteins (such as lentils, nuts, pulses, beans and seeds), unsaturated plant oils, limited meat and dairy and some supplementary sugars and starchy vegetables. This is very different from the eat well guide which suggests basing a third of meals on starchy vegetables and carbohydrates. See the difference in both below. (left - eat well guide, right - planetary health diet).
Picture sources: NHS Eat Well Guide & EAT
The planetary health diet can be vegan or vegetarian, depending on the individual's preference, but the great thing is the flexibility of it. What are the main findings of the report, suggestions of the diet and why? The diet is said to be optimal for both human health but also environmental sustainability, by advocating for people to eat locally, whole and appropriately sourced, as well as seasonally and sensibly. One element where the planetary diet matches the eat well guide is the daily calorie intake, which is suggested as around 2500 per day, but this is dependant on age, sex and the likes. It does not eliminate the likes of meat and dairy food but rather suggests these should be much less than the eat well guide suggests, with a plant-forward emphasis along with whole grains and legumes.
Picture source: Wix
Here are the planetary diets recommendations on amounts of foods:
Picture source: EAT for Healthcare Professionals
"Food is the single strongest lever to optimize human health and environmental sustainability on Earth" - EAT-Lancet Commission Summary Report
The report also suggests:
"More than 820 million people have insufficient food and many more consume low-quality diets that cause micronutrient deficiencies and contribute to a substantial rise in the incidence of diet-related obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases, including coronary heart disease, stroke, and diabetes."
It's important to note that the planetary diet is not about all or nothing, it is about changes that we can all make at an individual level, without perhaps even realising their wider implications and benefits. Something I was shocked to realise in one of my first academic essays was the number of people in the UK (which is the 5th largest national economy) who rely on food banks and the planetary health diet suggests over 820 million people globally, go hungry each day. This is where the link between the planetary diet and its benefits interlink with community growing projects and initiatives. Not everyone has the finances to purchase fresh fruit and vegetables (the main composition of the planetary diet) and community growing can allow access to fresh, local, seasonal fruit and vegetables to all.
Picture source: Wix
But why is this planetary diet of 50% fruits and vegetable so good for human health? We know that obesity along with other non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and some cancers can be predominantly diet-related and diet inducing. A diet of carbohydrates, red meats, sugars, saturated fats and the likes all have a long term negative effect on health. On the other hand, and again thanks to several studies and years of research, this movement of food as medicine is coming more and more to the frontline of healthcare approaches. The planetary diet suggests that switching from an unhealthy diet intake to the plant-focused diet, somewhere around 11 million adult deaths can be prevented worldwide.
Picture source: Wix
The reason fruits and vegetables are so good for our health are hard to summarise. One reason is the vast amount of phytonutrients that fruit and vegetables contain. Phytonutrients have been studied and proven to have anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties and effects. Many fruits and vegetables will also benefit the microbiome in our gut, ensuring we have a "healthy gut" which plays such a vital role in many aspects of our health such as immunity. As time goes on, more and more experts are starting to move away from disease treatment and towards disease prevention and this is where the planetary diet is vital. The Doctors Kitchen is a website with the host being a general practitioner, who has begun to appreciate, investigate and advocate for a food as medicine movement. There are many more, such as Living Medicine, and Dr William W. Li's blog.
Picture source: Wix
Dr Rupy Aujla, a GP, A&E doctor and the author of the books The Doctors Kitchen and Eat To Beat Illness has a degree in medicine as well as a masters in nutritional medicine and science. He has also founded Culinary Medicine and is looking to create the first UK accredited culinary medicine course for healthcare practitioners because he knows of the sheer benefits of plants on health.
I want to make this clear so there is no doubt on this statement: food is medicine. Its not my opinion, im not saying it because its fashionable and trendy, its quite frankly a fact. - The Doctors Kitchen.
So how does the planetary diet help the planet?
Picture source: Wix
When James Hansen testified before the US congress in 1988, he spelt out the impending dangers of CO2 emissions and what was then known as global warming. Engulfed by the articles and analysis of what was, for sure, a prediction of a true disaster, I was peeved. I felt that the greenhouse gas issues were eclipsing and therefore neglecting humanity’s reckless, irreversible destruction of ecosystems, habitats and biodiversity. The emissions thing seemed relatively easy to solve: stop using fossil fuels, ease up on the reproduction and it could all have been nipped in the bud back then.
The EAT-Lancet report only confirms those fears, reporting that fully 40% of the Earth’s land area has lost its indigenous ecosystems and been forced into the service of growing crops for humans. This means that pretty much everywhere that can be cultivated is cultivated. Farmland can be managed to some wildlife benefit but is inevitably impoverished compared to what would naturally grow there. The small areas that are left wild end up unsustainably isolated, with animals unable to migrate, plants unable to spread seed and creatures that need a large territory simply dying out. Those creatures that can thrive among humans, such as rats and pigeons, are prime candidates for incubating potential pandemic viruses: our exploitation of nature directly leads to the generation of zoonotic diseases like Covid-19.
Picture source: Wix
The most alarming figure in this report shows that the extinction rate and biodiversity loss is far and away the most difficult damage to reverse. By 2050, biodiversity loss is going to be 10,000% higher than planetary boundaries if we carry on doing things the way we are now. Biodiversity loss is the most pressing, vulnerable and urgent issue that can be addressed by changing our food systems. But the analysis further indicates that it is impossible to bring biodiversity loss back (well, extinct is extinct…) under control and into the ‘safe’ zone when we have this many people to feed. People have always destroyed habitat, from the first development of agriculture and the domestication of livestock.
Picture Source: EAT-Lancet Commission Summary Report
There is an on-going argument in environmental circles: the human population is not the problem, billionaires and profit-seeking, extractive industries are. There is plenty of food to go around [all the people] and anyone who suggests that large numbers of humans are causing planetary destruction are ecofascists promoting eugenics. But things are never black and white. Ecologists would see the desperate plight of our ecosystems, against the background of human biomass and reach the inevitable conclusion that the human species has killed, exploited, extracted and wasted their way to absolute domination of the planet. The annexation of 40% of earth’s land space to the absolute maintenance of a single species is simply unacceptable and unsustainable in ecological terms.
Picture sources: Wix
"Unhealthy diets pose a greater risk to morbidity and mortality than does unsafe sex, and alcohol, drug, and tobacco use combined. Because much of the world's population is inadequately nourished and many environmental systems and processes are pushed beyond safe boundaries by food production, a global transformation of the food system is urgently needed."
Cowritten by Brian Webster Cert HSC, Community Garden Founder and 3rd-year Adult Nursing Student with an interest in Lifestyle Medicine and Dr Kate Treharne BSc (Hons), PhD, MSc, OT, Community Growing and Allotments Officer and Climate Change Activist.
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