Our global food system is a major driver of climate change, producing between one and two fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. Different steps of the food production process contribute to the degradation of ecosystems around the planet with many adverse effects on human health. The Planetary Health Diet, developed by a commission for the Rockefeller Foundation and the Lancet in 2019, is a nutritional guideline as well as a vision for the transformation of the global food system. The diet has health benefits for the individual consumer, focusing on nutritious foods and lowering the risk for non-communicable diseases. Additionally, as the article illustrates in great detail, the diet has many co-benefits for the environment. Adopting it on a large scale would lower the environmental impact of the food system by reducing the consumption of animal products, reducing food waste and promoting forms of food production that are less resource-intensive.
The Promises of Planetary Health: An Integrated Approach to the Transformation of the Global Food System © 2022 by Karolina Kneller and Rosie Faure is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.