Spread of Western-style diets will affect health and climate: study
Researchers warn that diabetes and cancer will become more prevalent in the world
The spread of Western-style diets and eating habits will be bad for health, including the rise of diabetes and cancer, and the world's climate, according to researchers.
If past patterns dictate the menu, the serving staff will have to call out to the world's farms and fisheries for lots more meat, poultry and fish, as well as sugar.
According to research published in the journal , this trend will lead to more forest clearances in a bid to boost meat production. Feeding the growing guest list will also increase fuel expenditure for the operation of tractors, sea-going trawlers, refrigerators, fertiliser production, transportation and industrial food processing plants.
The result - if nothing changes - would be a sicker planet all round, the new research calculates. As the developing world's diet shifts to more unhealthy fats, higher consumption of sugar and more processed food, not only would global rates of type 2 diabetes, certain cancers and heart disease rise, so too would the amount of greenhouse gases spewed into the air.
A new global analysis by University of Minnesota ecologists David Tilman and Michael Clark predicts that by 2050, growing affluence and demand for a Western-style diet would increase the volume of greenhouse gases to 4.1 gigatons from the current 2.27. By the middle of this century, they reckoned the dietary demands of a more affluent world would drive an 80 per cent increase in yearly greenhouse gas emissions related to food production.
But neither poor health nor runaway greenhouse gas emissions were written in stone, the authors said. Compared with traditional Western-style diets, three diets - vegetarian, Mediterranean and pescatarian - drive lower rates of fossil fuel consumption and could be expected to yield better health.
A vegetarian diet has been found to greatly reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, cancer and coronary mortality.
A Mediterranean diet, which is rich in fruits, vegetables, nuts and vegetables, has been shown to dramatically drive down coronary mortality and, to a lesser extent, type 2 diabetes and cancer.
A pescatarian diet - a vegetarian diet that includes seafood - has been found to reduce the risk of all three and is particularly potent in lowering cancer risk.
