University of Otago
Increased uptake of plant-based diets in New Zealand could substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions while greatly improving population health and saving the healthcare system billions of dollars in the coming decades, according to a new University of Otago study.
Lead researcher and Otago medical student Jono Drew explains the global food system is driving both the climate crisis and the growing burden of common chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.
“International research has highlighted the climate and health co-benefits that arise from consuming a diet that is rich in plant foods like vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes. We wanted to understand if this holds true here in New Zealand, and to tease out which eating patterns could offer the greatest co-benefits in this context.”
The research team developed a New Zealand-specific food emissions database that, in estimating greenhouse gas emissions arising from foods commonly consumed in New Zealand, considers important parts of the ‘lifecycle’ of each food, including farming and processing, transportation, packaging, warehouse and distribution, refrigeration needs, and supermarket overheads. Using their database, the team was then able to model climate, health, and health system cost impacts stemming from a range of dietary scenarios.
Senior author Dr Alex Macmillan, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Health, says results from the study show that greenhouse gas emissions vary considerably between different foods in New Zealand. As a general rule, the climate impact of animal-based foods, particularly red and processed meats, tends to be substantially higher than that of whole plant-based foods, including vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains.
“Fortunately, foods that are health-promoting tend also to be those that are climate friendly. Conversely, certain foods that carry known health risks are particularly climate-polluting. Red and processed meat intake, for instance, is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes and certain cancers,” Dr Macmillan says.
The research ultimately shows that a population-level dietary shift could, depending on the extent of changes made, offer diet-related emissions savings of between 4 to 42 per cent annually, along with health gains of between 1.0 to 1.5 million quality-adjusted life-years (a single quality-adjusted life-year is equal to one year of optimal health) and cost savings to the health system of NZD $14 to $20 billion over the lifetime of the current New Zealand population.
Mr Drew says the analysis reveals emissions savings equivalent to a 59 per cent reduction in New Zealand’s annual light passenger vehicle emissions could be possible if New Zealand adults consumed an exclusively plant-based diet and avoided wasting food unnecessarily.
“All of our scenarios were designed to meet New Zealand’s dietary guidelines. We began with a baseline scenario where we looked at minimal dietary changes required, relative to what New Zealanders are consuming now, to meet the guidelines. These changes included increased intake of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and milk, along with decreased intake of highly processed foods. From there, we tailored our dietary scenarios to be progressively more plant-based- that is, substituting animal-based foods with plant-based alternatives.
“We thought it was important to show what was possible if people were willing to make changes to their eating pattern, and what would be possible if our entire population made a significant shift in that same direction,” Mr Drew says.
“As our modelled dietary scenarios became increasingly plant-based and therefore more climate-friendly, we found that associated population-level health gains and healthcare cost savings tended also to increase. A scenario that replaced all meat, seafood, eggs, and dairy products with plant-based alternatives, and that also required people to cut out all unnecessary household food waste, was found to offer the greatest benefit across all three of these parameters,” he says.
Mr Drew says this is exciting because we can now better understand what it means to promote a climate-friendly eating pattern in the New Zealand context. “Essentially, the message is highly comparable to that being delivered in other countries already, and we should be rapidly looking for ways to effectively support our population in making eating pattern changes.”
The researchers argue that these findings should prompt national policy action, including revising the New Zealand dietary guidelines to include messaging on climate-friendly food choices. They also advocate for the implementation of other policy tools, such as pricing strategies, labeling schemes, and food procurement guidelines for public institutions.
“Well-designed public policy is needed worldwide to support the creation of a global food system that no longer exacerbates the climate crisis, nor the burden of non-communicable disease,” Mr Drew says.
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To retread an old cigarette slogan:
“I’d rather fight (any and all efforts to force a deficient diet down my throat) than switch (to a “plant based” garbage diet)!”
Another typical steaming pile of EurekAlert! nonsense.
There aren’t even half as many people in all of New Zealand as there are in Wuhan (less than 4.8M vs 11M). Frankly nothing that kiwis do or don’t do has any significant impact on the planet.
Having or not having 30 million sheep also has little to no significant impact on anything. That’s less than 3% of the world sheep population. China alone has nearly 7 times as many sheep. (~195M)
I wonder whether this opportunist has the moral balls to say ‘First thing we should do is ban all hamburgers, fries and fizzy drinks in MacDonalds, Burger King and similar joints’?
Of course he would not. He would get a rapid call from the Dean of his Medical School telling him to STFU or else.
A ‘medical student’ as ‘lead researcher’/
That is a novel concept. When I was a PhD student (akin to being a medical student currently in clinical preregistration studies), lead researchers tended to be Professors, at the very least lecturers or Research Fellows.
For such a person to have influence on national government policy suggests that ‘ask those with no experience’ is now the de facto standard for government decision-making.
Madness.
If it’s out of a University, 97% chance it’s fake/fishing for grants.
My thoughts exactly.
No two digestive systems are equal, …mindful and aware folks should be left alone to write their own personal dietary program. Those who have become addicted to fast and processed food will do whatever they will do. None of us need so-called science dictate what we eat.
What is killing people on the “Western” diet is not meats and processed foods per se. It is the modern introduction of sugar loading and resultant insulin signalling.
It is clear that “paleo diets” and keto-centric diets do have merit as long as they are moderate and not extreme. And a regular fasting of 72 hours once a month will have dramatic effects on long-term health. Of course regular exercise, even in just the form of walking 100 minutes everyday, also brings substantial offsetting health benefits to countering even a poor diet.
The insulin signaling on metabolism leads to insulin resistance (genetic background plays a large role in this as well), altered calorie storage, development of adipose tissue, and the long-term effects of all that on health that is leading to elevated rates of CVD, high blood pressure, strokes, and even sugar-fueled tumor growth.
We see this vividly in Samoan populations, Native American populations, populations with genetic backgrounds that were based on regular periods of near-starvation, and no access to high carbohydrate (sugar) foods.
The source of protein is not the problem, as suggested by Mr Jono Drew. His is just an agenda-driven proclamation. Rational analyses make clear it is excessive carbohydrate driven calories and insulin signaling in genetic backgrounds not able to cope with that, which is driving a higher Metabolic Syndrome X, CVD, high blood pressure, heart disease/failure, and stroke risks.
modern introduction of sugar loading and resultant insulin signalling
Agree. Below youtube says they get people off insulin by diet alone (occasionally supplemented by fasting):
https://youtu.be/mAwgdX5VxGc
Thank you Mr Rotter for that information. I will consider it,
Now stand back and respect my choices.
Here’s what I hear:
We are giving you people a choice. But be careful. I if you make the wrong choice we will take away your ability choose.
A herbivorous diet a cure for diabetes, cardiovascular ills and cancer????
Utter nonsense. Diabetes and cardio stuff is most prevalent on the Indian subcontinent where many people are vegetarians. And a cure for cancer is just utter nonsense bordering on deliberate falsehood.
The epidemic of obesity and diabetes occurred while we followed dubious (based on unsound science) guidelines to reduce consumption of red meat/saturated fats and replaced most of the calories with carbohydrates, vegetable fats and manufactured trans fats. The very belated review of those long lasting guidelines is only recently pulling back the curtain on how bad that advice was and what harm it may have done. Recently (November 2019) the Annals of Internal Medicine published several review studies on the evidence on red meat cardiovascular disease and cancer. Those studies found that there is no reliable evidence of health benefit on which to base recommendations to reduce consumption of red meat.
So “co-benefits” is not a claim supported by science. That leaves the reduction in CO2 emissions as the only theoretical benefit of a plant based (silly term as all food is essentially plant or photosynthesis-based) and that is founded on two assumptions. The first is that they have an accurate model that truly reflects the CO2 emission impact of any particular segment of food production and consumption. The second is that there actually is a benefit to reducing CO2 emissions, a claim that remains theoretical and for which there is no objective reliable evidence. All we have are climate models and a very wide range of estimated climate sensitivities that failed to converge on a common supported number over several decades, and a belief without evidence that mild climate warming is primary due to CO2 and dangerous in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Please pass the steak sauce.
Guess my midnight comment was too toxic.
New Zealand had no large meat bearing critters prior to the arrival of european explores,the flightless birds having been eaten and cannibalism was part of the native culture.
A friend of mine brags of his grandfather being banished to the Chattam Islands because of his refusal to give up the “old ways”.
These “experts “better hope they fail,or they might become that famous side dish Puha & Pakeha.
Need an Amendment in the US banning governments from discriminating against omnivores. I don’t want to be forced to buy bacon, barbecue, or beef on the blackmarket.
Breaking News!!!!
Eating plants is healthier and less climate damaging says some guy.
Why did no one else ever think this up?
It’s not as simple as he probably thinks. It never is.
Some meat products, such as the cured meats found in the “Mediterranean diet” are actually associated with decreased cardiovascular disease risk. This is likely due to the nitrates and nitrites used in the curing process. (The leafy green vegetables associated with the diet are also a rich natural source of nitrates/nitrites.)
I have yet to meet a vegetarian who wasn’t a survivor of some sort of severe emotional trauma. In fact anybody who worries and tinkers with his diet is usually just an obsessive fool who is overly anxious about aging. I’m 67 and I am telling you, no matter what you eat or what exercises you do, you will suffer the deficits of aging. I have quite a few friends in their 70s and 80s, and all of them have long since lost the resilience and energy and natural exuberance of youth. We’re mortal, and you can’t eat your way out of it.
Who’s that guy? Michael Pollan? His advice is, eat real food, not too much, mostly plants. Yeah? Would you rather be a wolf or a caribou?
I liked Billy Connoly’s comment that if you follow all the guidelines about diet, alcohol, smoking and exercise it might give you another ten years of life.
The only problem is that it comes at the end of your life when you are probably in a care home.
He would prefer the extra ten years when he was thirty and able to make better use of it.
Edited to
As regards nitrates, there was a big scare in the 1970s with claims that nitrates in drinking water causing stomach cancer and blue baby syndrome.
There was only one case of blue baby that occurred in Lincolnshire which was traded to contaminated well water that caused an upset stomach and nitrites being converted to nitrosamine which in turn caused the blue baby symptoms.
Research done on ammonium nitrate plant workers showed no increase in stomach cancers, and IIRC nitrates are supposed to have some benefits on heart health. Eat up your green salads.
The problem with nitrates is more with the eutrophication of rivers and lakes, along with phosphates, that causes excessive vegetation and algal growth.
Just another fad-driven salvo in The Meat Wars. A sure-to-be-published paper that depends on earlier, invalid, faddish papers already “in the literature”… deatrhly silly.
Meatless Diet?
Modern Scientific Controversies Part 7: The Meat War
The Meat Wars: JAMA Stirs the Pot
The same lies, the same fake news spinning over and over again:
“The researchers argue that these findings should prompt national policy action, including revising the New Zealand dietary guidelines to include messaging on climate-friendly food choices. They also advocate for the implementation of other policy tools, such as pricing strategies, labeling schemes, and food procurement guidelines for public institutions.
“Well-designed public policy is needed worldwide to support the creation of a global food system that no longer exacerbates the climate crisis, nor the burden of non-communicable disease,” Mr Drew says.”
____________________________________
Is New Zealand a healthy country?
New Zealand health system compared to OECD averages
Overall, New Zealanders live relatively long and healthy lives.
Life expectancy at birth sits at 81.4 years, above the OECD average of 80.5 years.
It is below that of Australia, at 82.2 years, but higher than in the UK, at 81.1 years.Sep 19, 2017
theconversation.com › new-zealands…
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Charles Rotter is the truffle hog for the most odorous Internet fake news.