Abstract
The EAT–Lancet planetary health diet (PHD) provides guidelines on a global scale and calls for red meat consumption to be halved. Operational PHD guidelines at country level have yet to be determined. Here we argue that the biological link between milk and bovine-meat production must be considered when operationalizing the globally calculated PHD to national contexts. Using a stylized computer simulation model rooted in a food system approach, we explore the impact of dietary scenarios on milk and bovine-meat production and show that ignoring this biological link can lead to substantial imbalances between national dietary guidelines and production outcomes and potentially lead to food waste. Furthermore, we assess current national dietary guidelines in Europe and find that most disregard this biological link and are incompatible with the PHD, with implications for policymakers and consumers to consider when adapting the PHD in national contexts.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are openly available.
An interactive version of the model is freely available at https://exchange.iseesystems.com/public/birgit/no-milk-without-meat.
The model and a full technical documentation are available at https://github.com/bkopains/no-milk-without-meat/. The model and its documentation are also submitted as Supplementary Information. The model can be run with the isee Player (https://www.iseesystems.com/softwares/player/iseeplayer.aspx). Source data are provided with this paper.
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Acknowledgements
We thank J. Struben and M. Tilebein for valuable feedback, and the participants of the 2022 International System Dynamics Conference for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. The authors received no financial support for the conduct of the research and the preparation of the article.
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B.K. designed the study, conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analysed the data, contributed materials and analysis tools, and wrote and reviewed the paper. F.K. designed the study, conceived and designed the experiments, reviewed the experiments, analysed the data, contributed materials and analysis tools, and wrote and reviewed the paper.
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Nature Food thanks Hannah Van Zanten and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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Online methods and technical documentation.
Supplementary Data
Food-based dietary guidelines for milk and dairy products and for meat in 32 countries in Europe.
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Source Data Fig. 1
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Kopainsky, B., Kapmeier, F. Dynamic implications of the biological link between bovine milk and meat production for operationalizing the planetary health diet. Nat Food 4, 1070–1074 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00883-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00883-x
