Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems

TLDR: Food in the Anthropocene : the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems focuses on meat, fish, vegetables and fruit as sources of protein.

About: This article is published in The Lancet.The article was published on 2019-02-02 and is currently open access. It has received 4710 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Food security & Food systems.

Figures

Table 1. A Healthy Reference Diet, with possible ranges, for an intake of 2500 Kcal/day.1

Figure 3. The “diet gap” between current dietary patterns and recommended intakes of food in the reference diet. Data on current intakes are from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) database.12

TABLE 7. Reasons to be cheerful: examples of Systems Change / Systemic Action

Table 3. Scientific targets for six key Earth system processes and the control variables used to quantify the boundaries.

Table 8. Applying the Nuffield Ladder of Policy Intervention to Health Diets from Sustainable Food Systems

Table 2. Estimated avoided premature deaths among adults by global adoption of reference diet.

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the contributions in "Our food in the anthropocene: the eat-lancet commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems" ?

Willett et al. this paper presented the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. 

Q2. What is the key to achieving the SDGs?

Substantially reducing the amount of food lost and wasted across the food value chain, from production to consumption, is essential for the global food system to stay within its safe operating space. 

Q3. What is the need to improve the management of the world’s oceans?

there is a need to improve the management of the world’s oceans, to ensure that fisheries do not negatively impact ecosystems, fish stocks are utilized responsibly, and global aquaculture production is expanded sustainably. 

Q4. What is the focus of the report?

In this report, their focus is mainly on environmental sustainability of food production and health consequences of final consumption. 

Q5. What is the objective of the Commission's quantitative scientific targets for sustainable food systems?

The objective is to provide scientific boundaries to reduce environmental degradation arising from food production at all scales. 

Q6. What is the way to make meals that are consistent with taste and dietary preferences of all?

Within the sustainable food production boundaries, the components of the reference diet can be used to make meals that are consistent with taste and dietary preferences of all regions of the world. 

Q7. What is the strategy for achieving the SDGs?

This implies implementing a zero-expansion policy of new agricultural land into natural ecosystems and species-rich forests, management policies aimed at restoring and reforesting degraded land, establishing international land use governance mechanisms, and adopting a "Half Earth" strategy for conservation of biodiversity in intact ecosystems. 

Q8. What is the scientific evidence for a sustainable food system?

There is strong scientific evidence that food production is among the largest drivers of global environmental change due to its contributions to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, biodiversity loss, freshwater use, eutrophication, and land-system change (as well as chemical pollution, which is not assessed by this Commission). 

Q9. What is the need for a global transformation of the food system?

With much of the world’s population inadequately nourished and many of the environmental systems that regulate the state of the planet pushed beyond safe boundaries by food production, the need for a global transformation of the food system is urgent. 

Q10. What is the conclusion of the report?

It is a hopeful conclusion that this Commission finds that global food systems have the potential to provide “win-win” diets to everyone on the planet in 2050 and beyond, while greatly improving health and enabling a sustainable future. 

Q11. What is the definition of a transformation of the global food system?

A transformation of the global food system must ultimately involve multiple stakeholders, from individual consumers to policy makers and actors along the food value chain, working together toward the shared global goal of healthy and sustainable diets for all. 

Q12. What is the important step in achieving the SDGs?

An unprecedented opportunity exists to develop food systems as a common thread between many ambitious international, national, and business policy frameworks aiming for improved human health and environmental sustainability goals. 

Q13. What are the scientific boundaries for sustainable food systems?

the uncertainty range for these food boundaries remain high, due to the inherent complexity in Earth system dynamics from local ecosystems to the functioning of the biosphere and the climate system. 

Q14. What is the scientific target for sustainable food systems?

Applying this framework to future projections of world development, indicates that food systems can potentially provide the healthy diets (i.e. reference diet) for an anticipated world population of nearly 10 billion people by 2050 and still stay within a safe operating space on Earth. 

Q15. What is the scientific framework for sustainable food systems?

The authors propose that this framework is universal for all food cultures and food production systems in the world, with a high potential of local adaptation and scalability. 

Q16. What is the scientific target for a healthy diet?

Scientific Targets for Healthy Diets*Food group Food subgroup Reference diet (g/day) Possible ranges (g/day)Whole Grains All grains 232 0 to 60% of energyTubers/Starchy Vegetables Potatoes, cassava 50 0 to 100Vegetables