A planet-first diet can feed the world by 2050 while improving the environment, new scientific analysis finds

Reducing meat production while boosting the consumption of plants is a key way to improve the health of the planet and its inhabitants. (Fetrinka/iStockphoto/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Nearly everyone on the planet could have access to nutritious, culturally appropriate food by 2050 — all while improving the environment — if nations work together to implement a “planetary health diet,” a new report has found.

By adopting a healthy, planet-friendly diet — along with reducing food loss and waste and boosting agricultural productivity — some 9.6 billion people could eat “nutritiously and equitably” by 2050, according to the report published Thursday by the 2025 EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets From Sustainable Food Systems. (EAT stands for Engage, Act, Transform.)

There are currently more than 8.2 billion people on the planet, according to the United Nations.

These changes could also help cut annual greenhouse gas emissions from global food systems by more than half, according to the EAT-Lancet commission, a group of leading experts in agriculture, climate, economics, health and nutrition from more than 35 countries across six continents.

About 30 per cent of global gashouse emissions comes from growing, processing and transporting food and converting forested land into agriculture — the other 70 per cent comes from fossil fuel consumption, the report said.

“A diet good for both people and the planet focuses on fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and whole grains — a moderate amount of meat and dairy — and very little added sugar, saturated fat and salt,” said commission co-chair Dr. Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

When it comes to meat and dairy, think one plus one, Willett said — one daily serving of dairy, such as milk or yogurt, along with one daily serving of an animal protein such as fish, poultry, eggs or meat. Red meat (beef, lamb and pork) should be limited to a 4-ounce serving only once a week, however, due to its impact on overall health.

“This diet doesn’t eliminate meat and dairy, and it’s not a deprivation diet,” Willett told CNN. “It’s much like the Mediterranean diet and keeps dairy to once a day, red meat to once a week and eggs, poultry and fish to about twice a week.”

However, the path to change is about more than eating healthy food, said commission co-chair Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and professor of Earth system sciences at the University of Potsdam in Germany.

“It’s also necessary to reduce food waste and to transition towards sustainable land, water, nutrient and ecosystem management practices — you need to invest in all of these simultaneously,” Rockström said at a Tuesday press briefing. “You have to choose to produce healthy food that is affordable and accessible to all people. That is why this is quite a challenge.”

A pro-meat backlash

The landmark EAT-Lancet Commission report was first published in 2019. Then, as now, The Lancet medical journal collaborated with the environmental nonprofit EAT and dozens of international researchers to determine how food producers could feed the burgeoning global population without further harming the environment.

The commission estimated in 2019 that if the planetary health diet was adopted globally, up to 11.6 million premature deaths could be avoided each year by improving nutrition and lowering the risk for diabetes, heart disease and other diet-related illnesses.

Using advanced modeling methods, the updated 2025 report estimated global use of the diet could prevent some 15 million premature deaths every year. In the United States alone, “about 31 per cent of premature adult deaths could be avoided,” Willett said.

Changing the planet’s food system could also save $5 trillion a year by restoring ecosystems, reducing health costs and slowing the effects of the climate crisis, according to the 2025 report. That figure is more than 10 times the $200 billion to $500 billion investment needed to accomplish the global effort.

CNN reached out to the National Institute for Animal Agriculture, which represents the US dairy and livestock industry, but did not receive a response before publication.

According to commission members, however, negative reaction to the new publication has already begun, reminiscent of what they described as a coordinated backlash that followed the publication of the 2019 EAT-Lancet report.

“We all in the commission share the same concern over this return of what I would call mis- and disinformation and denialism on climate science,” Rockström said in the briefing.

Investigative reports have chronicled how the hashtag #YestoMeat was used to spread distrust in the commission’s 2019 findings. A study published in The Lancet in 2019 decried the use of “conspiracy theories” and “personal attacks” on commission members by #YestoMeat detractors.

“There’s been an orchestrated attempt last time and also this time … mainly coming from groups that are closely aligned and really part of the beef industry, some of the dairy industry as well,” Willett said at the briefing.

In addition, the “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, movement spearheaded by US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is embracing a “more animal-centric diet” while also “censoring” information about the effects of livestock on the environment and global warming, Willett said.

“That’s one reason this report is really important, because it’s not censored,” he added. “It is based on the best scientific evidence from around the world.”

Modeling the future

If things remain as they are, farmers continue to increase food output, more forests are converted into land for animal feed, and greenhouse gases created by farming rise 33 per cent, according to the 2025 EAT-Lancet report. Nearly 70 per cent of the planet’s ecoregions have already lost more than 50 per cent of their natural areas, mostly to farming, the report said.

Transforming the global food system, however, could reduce projected greenhouse emissions by some 60 per cent compared with 2020 levels, according to the commission. Cattle numbers would fall by 26 per cent with an accompanying 11 per cent reduction in land dedicated to grazing.

“That’s a huge, fundamental point,” Willett said, “because it means that we could stop chopping down the Amazon to grow more soy and other crops to feed to animals. That is happening at an alarming rate.”

On the flip side, aquatic food production could rise by 46 per cent, with the market for vegetables increasing by 42 per cent. Fruit production could be boosted by 61 per cent, nuts by 172 per cent and legumes by 187 per cent. Overall, food prices would drop by about 3 per cent in this scenario.

A variety of tools to accomplish change

Currently, the wealthiest 30 per cent of the planet’s population are responsible for “more than 70 per cent of all food-related environmental impacts,” while fewer than 1 per cent are in a situation in which their rights and food needs are met without damaging the environment, commission member Christina Hicks, professor of political ecology at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, said in the briefing.

Therefore, lessening the impact of food production on the planet while also making enough to feed the global population will take planning and a coordinated effort among nations, Hicks said.

To accomplish the task, the commission suggested a number of possible actions. Subsidies for agricultural production could be shifted from meat and dairy to more planet-friendly vegetables, fruits, legumes and grains in an effort to make those healthy but more sustainable options more affordable, said commission member Line Gordon, Curt Bergfors Professor in Sustainability Science and director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University in Sweden.

Taxing foods with high sugar, salt and saturated-fat levels, and restricting marketing for those foods, could be combined with regulations around the “marketing of foods, especially towards children, and also clear warning labels on unhealthy foods,” Gordon said in the briefing.

“We also emphasize (it) is not just about getting the prices lower, but it’s also about bringing purchasing power up so that people afford a healthy diet,” Gordon added.

Protecting and promoting plant-based traditional diets around the world is another key way to move the needle on protecting the environmental while boosting nutrition, Willett said.

“We’re not dictating any specific one fit-for-all type of diet,” he told CNN. “The planetary health diet allows for major diversity and is very much aligned with traditional diets across the world. Some may need some tweaks, but it’s very doable.”

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN