The EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health has gathered scientists from across the world to try and answer the follow questions:
1) What is a healthy diet?
2) What is a sustainable food system?
3) What are the trends shaping diets today?
4) Can we achieve healthy diets from sustainable food systems? How?
5) What are the solutions and policies we can apply?
Their aim is to define ‘what is a healthy and sustainable diet?’. But more so, what actions can support and speed up food system transformation. (Eatforum, 2019). Whilst it seems they have the right intentions in some areas discussed, we do need global food systems to change if we have any hope of obtaining a truly sustainable and eventually a regenerative farming system, it also seems they have missed the mark in areas like nutrition and the limitations of reducing beef and lamb consumption over poultry.
We want to make sure you, as our customers and followers, aren’t mislead or confused by the outcome of this report. We want to re-assure you of our, joint, beliefs in what a healthy and regenerative diet should look like.
The Eat Lancet Diet is Nutritionally Deficient
Firstly, if we look at the wonderful work of Dr Zoe Harcombe and her latest article, we can see the suggested ‘healthy reference diet’, also known as the EAT diet, by Lancet is deficient in the following nutrients:
Vitamin B12 – the US RDA is 2.4mcg, the EAT diet is slightly deficient in providing 2.27mcg.
Retinol – The EAT diet provides just 17% of retinol recommended.
Vitamin D – the EAT diet provides just 5% of vitamin D recommendation.
Sodium – the EAT diet provides just 22% of the sodium recommendation.
Potassium – the EAT diet provides just 67% of potassium recommended.
Vitamin K – 72% of the vitamin K in the EAT diet came from the broccoli (K1). As is the case with all nutrients, the animal form (K2) is better absorbed by the body.
Calcium – more seriously, the EAT diet provides just 55% of calcium recommended.
Iron – the EAT diet provides 88% of iron recommended. Our bodies better absorb heme iron, which comes from meat, poultry, seafood and fish. It is recommended that vegetarians eat 1.8 times more than those who eat meat.
Omega-3 – essential fatty acids. Unfortunately, the tool doesn’t aggregate to the fatty acid level, but this diet is highly likely deficient in omega-3 and highly likely (given the 350 calories of nutritionally poor, highly unsaturated, vegetable oils) has an unhealthy omega-6 to omega-3 ratio. This is a concise overview from ‘the eat lancet diet is nutritionally deficient’, Zoe Harcombe, 2019)
The Problem with Epidemiology Science
Another major issue with this report is the ideology that red meat is bad for human health, this has never been proved by sound science and the data for this report has been extracted from epidemiology science, which cannot be used to work out causation (The Nutrition Coalition, 2019). This means the evidence in the study can suggest a pattern but it can’t confirm or deny the cause of certain health issues. Are we really going to build a whole new diet, farming method and lifestyle from a pattern?
The Nutrition Coalition explains “A prominent example of this (weak
epidemiology science) was the World Health Organization’s 2015 designation of red meat as a carcinogen (for colorectal cancer). But this decision depended entirely upon epidemiological data which showed that the relative risk of getting this cancer for red meat eaters, compared to non-meat eaters, was only 1.17 to 1.18. Relative risks below 2 are generally considered in the field of epidemiology to be too small to establish a reliable correlation.”
What we do know about the effect of Red Meat on our health
The following findings from ‘Scientific Evidence on Red Meat and Health’ by The Nutrition Coalition, 2019, highlight:
Two of the largest clinical trials of 54,000 men and women, concluded that saturated fats had no effect on cardiovascular mortality or total mortality.
Two large clinical trials on more than 50,000 men and women who significantly cut back on red-meat consumption (while increasing fruits,vegetables and grains) did not see any risk reduction for polyp re-occurrenceor anykind of cancer.
Two meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials (in theJournal of ClinicalLipidologyand theAmerican Journal of Clinical Nutrition) both found that red meat had either neutral or positive effects on most cardiovascular outcomes (blood pressure, cholesterol and other lipids).
Red meat cannot possibly cause diabetes, because glucose (sugar) is the principal driver of type 2 diabetes, and meat contains no glucose. Moreover, red meat availability has dropped dramatically as diabetes has skyrocketed , making any proposed connection between red meat and diabetes self-evidently unreasonable
How should we manage our land?
The Eat Lancet report shows we need to action change in farming systems and modern diets. However, as presented in ‘EAT-Lancet report’s recommendations are at odds with sustainable food production’ by the Sustainable Food Trust, it doesn’t educate the public about how we can achieve a sustainable future and in some key areas it could make things worse.
Patrick Holden, chief executive of the SFT said, “A key weakness in the report is the failure to fully differentiate between livestock that are part of the problem and those that are an essential component of sustainable agricultural systems. This results in messages that are likely to add to existing confusion around what constitutes a healthy and sustainable diet”.
Furthermore, the report correctly shows that excessive nitrogen fertiliser use in farming has led us to exceed sustainable planetary boundaries for reactive nitrogen. However, they recommend maintaining current fertiliser usage levels by increasing use in developing countries to match any decreases that can be achieved in developed countries. This is likely to accelerate the rate of soil degradation and loss and reduce yields in some of the most vulnerable communities. This isn’t a solution. (The Sustainable Food Trust, 2019)
Is there a healthy, sustainable diet out there?
We have partnered with Wilderculture to create a new set of guidelines for eco-omnivores. The Wildervore Approach is designed to drive sustainability, save the planet and recover your health. A Wildervore is someone who chooses foods that are ethical, environmentally regenerative and right for their unique health requirements over and above a simplistic segregation of vegan, vegetarian or meat eater.
References
Eatforum, 2019. Access at https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/
Zoe Harcombe, 17th January 2019, The EAT Lancet diet is nutritionally deficient. Access here: http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2019/01/the-eat-lancet-diet-is-nutritionally-deficient/
The Nutrition Coalition, 2019. Scientific Evidence on Red Meat and Health. Accessed at: https://www.scribd.com/document/397606855/Two-pager-Scientific-Evidence-on-Red-Meat-and-Health
The Sustainable Food Trust, 2019. EAT-Lancet report’s recommendations are at odds with sustainable food production. Accessed at: https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/eat-lancet-reports-recommendations-are-at-odds-with-sustainable-food-production/
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