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Diet

Food choices for health and planet

Nature volume 515, pages 501–502 (2014)Cite this article

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Are you wondering what to prepare for dinner tonight? Data analyses reveal that certain food choices greatly benefit both your health and the environment. But what to do with this evidence remains a challenge to society. See Article p.518

Food production has a strong effect on the environment — it is responsible for about 25% of global greenhouse-gas emissions1, and biodiversity is greatly affected by agricultural land and water use, nutrient loss and fisheries. Within the agricultural sector, livestock farming has the largest environmental footprint2, and this impact is increasing as traditional diets around the world are being rapidly replaced by diets that are higher in meat, refined sugar and fat. As the scientific basis for the link between diet and the environment grows stronger, the idea has emerged that global dietary changes may contribute to climate-change mitigation3. In response, campaigns to promote meat-free days have been launched, such as 'Meatless Monday' in the United States and United Kingdom and 'Veggie Thursday' in Germany and Belgium. In this issue, Tilman and Clark4 (page 518) show that dietary adjustments would not only reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and agricultural land use, but also greatly reduce individual health risks.

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Figure 1: Dietary transitions.

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  1. Elke Stehfest is in the Department of Climate, Air and Energy, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Bilthoven, 3720 AH, the Netherlands.,

    Elke Stehfest

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  1. Elke Stehfest
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Correspondence to Elke Stehfest.

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Stehfest, E. Food choices for health and planet. Nature 515, 501–502 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13943

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