With 3 billion ‘malnourished’, report urges ‘radical changes’ to world’s diet
- Findings state that global consumption of red meat and sugar needs to decrease by 50 per cent
Around the world, people eat far too much red meat and sugar, and nowhere near enough nuts, fruits and vegetables, according to a report released Wednesday.
The report, published by the British medical journal The Lancet, said the population’s diet and food production must radically change “to improve health and avoid potentially catastrophic damage to the planet.”
Overall, transformation of the global food system is “urgently needed” because more than 3 billion people are malnourished, the report said. That includes people who are either undernourished or overnourished.
Changing the diet of billions of people “will require global consumption of foods such as red meat and sugar to decrease by about 50 per cent, while consumption of nuts, fruits, vegetables and legumes must double,” it said.
“The dominant diets that the world has been producing and eating for the past 50 years are no longer nutritionally optimal, are a major contributor to climate change, and are accelerating erosion of natural biodiversity.”