Evaluating the environmental impacts of dietary recommendations

2017/12/04 by Paul Behrens, Jessica C. Kiefte–de Jong, Thijs Bosker +3 · 3 citations
Environmental Science · Medicine · #Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact #Climate Change and Health Impacts #Nutritional Studies and Diet

paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.1711889114

openalex publication_date 2017/12/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

Significance Nationally recommended diets are a prominent method for informing the public on dietary choices. Although dietary choices drive both health and environmental outcomes, these diets make almost no reference to environmental impacts. Our study provides a comparison between the environmental impacts of average dietary intakes and a nation-specific recommended diet across 37 middle- and high-income nations. We find that following a nationally recommended diet in high-income nations results in a reduction in greenhouse gases, eutrophication, and land use. In upper-middle–income nations, we find a smaller reduction in impacts, and in lower-middle–income nations we find a substantial increase. The net result from large-scale adoption of nationally recommended diets for countries studied here results in a reduction in environmental impacts.

Citations

• Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat consumption
• Input-Output Analysis
• Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet
• Creating Healthy Food and Eating Environments: Policy and Environmental Approaches
• Global Consequences of Land Use
• The role of red meat in the diet: nutrition and health benefits
• Global nutrition dynamics: the world is shifting rapidly toward a diet linked with noncommunicable diseases

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