It’s reassuring to see that the nutritional advice from this report is balanced overall and encourages more plant-based foods — rather than restricting all animal-based products.
The report also highlights that the guidelines aren’t intended to be an exact blueprint to follow — “local interpretation and adaptation of the universally-applicable planetary health diet is necessary and should reflect the culture, geography and demography of the population and individuals”. This is important, as for a diet to be truly sustainable it needs to be culturally acceptable, fair, affordable, nutritious, and accessible. As well as having a low environmental impact.
Beyond diet, this report also highlights the need for improvements in agriculture, food production, conservation policies, and reducing food waste. In order to achieve the ‘great food transformation’ that our planet needs, many of these initiatives will require a lot of cooperation between different nations and the food industry.
The EAT-Lancet report didn’t set any targets related to food poverty, a vital piece of the sustainable puzzle. A diet can’t be truly sustainable if it isn’t accessible. Unfortunately, the current ‘planetary health diet’ simply isn’t realistic for many people — as it requires cooking skills, equipment, storage space, time, planning, and access to healthy ingredients.
It’s great to see sustainable eating getting so much attention. And this report highlights a number of vital issues related to improving the sustainability of food systems.
In terms of practical dietary changes, the main message is to move towards a more plant-based diet — this reflects healthy eating guidelines across the world. But as we work towards this hugely important goal, it’s crucial that sustainable eating initiatives strive to be as fair and inclusive as possible.
EAT (2019). EAT-Lancet Commission Summary Report. Retrieved 22 July 2020 from https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/eat-lancet-commission-summary-report/.