What To Eat To Save The Planet
Author: Marko Balašević
Time for reading: ~4
minutes
Last Updated:
November 08, 2022
How to feed the ever-growing global population will be one of the most important and complex problems in the coming decades.
How to feed the ever -growing global population will become one of the most important and complex problems in the coming decades .
Scientists believe that by 2050, the number of people on Earth will exceed 10 billion, so they are already raising the question of how to feed everyone .
In this regard, the Norwegian analytical center Eat and the British Lancet magazine conducted a global study that covered 35 countries in different parts of the globe, The Guardian writes.
Should a person eat everything? Or maybe she should eat only organic and local produce? Or, perhaps, it is better for humanity to switch to a vegan diet en masse ? Which is better - fish grown on a farm or in the wild? And maybe it is better to not have fish in the diet at all? Which milk has more calcium - natural or almond? A real war broke out around all these questions - each scientist passionately defended his point of view.
The report argues that the global food system is already broken. And judging by the numbers, it's hard to disagree with that statement: more than 2 billion people suffer from micronutrient deficiencies, and nearly 1 billion people go hungry, while 2.1 billion adults are overweight or obese.
Unhealthy diets , according to a report by the Eat-Lancet company, are "the largest source of disease in the world" and lead to more disease and death than "unsafe sex, alcohol, drug and tobacco use combined." The planet doesn't feel much better than people : what people eat has a lot to do with their impact on the climate and the environment. The report says that food production "is the biggest source of environmental degradation."
How do researchers propose to change the situation? They offer all people of the world to go on a diet . Research has identified a daily win-win diet that is good for health and good for the environment. It is based on the Mediterranean diet , but at the same time it has a smaller amount of eggs, meat and fish and almost no sugar. However, the diet takes into account the interests of absolutely all people : those who eat everything, do not consume pork, pescetarians ( people who eat only fish), vegetarians and vegans.
Now they want to test this diet on representatives of all types of nutrition in order to prove or disprove its effectiveness. The diet is designed for 7 days a week, based on 2,500 kcal per day, which, according to the report, corresponds to the average energy needs of a 70-kg man and a 60-kg woman aged 30 years, with moderate to high levels of physical activity. Scientists are sure that people who switch to this diet will make a huge contribution to saving the planet .
For your attention, diet by day.