A study from the University of Edinburgh found that using vegetables, beans and eggs rather than meat and dairy could help cut emissions- without increasing food costs.
The researchers assessed 33 different ways of meeting the UK Climate Change Committee’s recommendations for sustainable diets, examining the impact of dietary changes on the environment and potential health benefits.
This included reducing greenhouse gases, land and water use, nutrition and cost of diets, as well as conditions such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Reducing meat and dairy yielded meaningful long-term benefits
Across all of the 33 modelled scenarios, reducing the consumption of processed and unprocessed meat and dairy was associated with improvement across both health and environmental factors.
Replacing even small amounts of meat in everyday meals like sandwiches and pasta did not adversely effect nutrient intake.
It was noted that lower dairy consumption could reduce iodine intake among some populations, experts suggest that this could be averted through iodine fortification of plant-based dairy substitutes.
The research, published in Nature, challenges common perceptions that sustainable diets are more expensive, with most dietary changes explored in the study having little impact on overall food costs.
Targeted reduction of red meat consumers and agriculture emissions
The study suggested that rather than reducing intake across the entire population of Scotland, helping high consumers of red meat to lower their intake would prevent almost 60,000 cases of type 2 diabetes over a decade, with positive environmental impact to boot.
The carbon footprint of imported food and other emissions associated with food consumption in Scottish adults exceeds the emissions of agricultural production in Scotland, confirming that dietary changes could have a positive effect on efforts to reduce emissions from agriculture.
Dr Joe Kennedy, from the University of Edinburgh’s Division of Global Agriculture and Food Systems, said: “The findings show that modest, realistic dietary changes, when scaled across a population, can deliver substantial benefits to people and the planet. Making healthier, sustainable options more available and convenient will be key to enabling such change.”
The study was carried out in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Oxford and Food Standards Scotland.
