On this day in vegan history · January 16, 2019
The Lancet Draws Up a Diet for the Planet
Thirty-seven scientists spent three years answering one blunt question: can the world feed ten billion people a healthy diet without wrecking the planet that grows it?
The facts
- Published
- January 16, 2019, in The Lancet
- Authors
- 37 scientists (19 commissioners, 18 co-authors) from 16 countries
- Co-chairs
- Walter Willett (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) and Johan Rockström
- Projected impact
- Universal adoption estimated to prevent 11.1 million deaths a year
On January 16, 2019, The Lancet published the EAT-Lancet Commission's report, the work of 37 scientists from 16 countries spanning nutrition, agriculture, and environmental science. It proposed a "planetary health diet": a plate roughly half full of vegetables, fruits, and nuts, with the rest made up of whole grains, plant proteins, unsaturated oils, and only modest amounts of meat and dairy. The Commission wasn't proposing veganism. It was asking whether a diet that keeps people healthy could also fit inside the planet's ecological limits, and it answered yes, but only with a steep cut to red meat and sugar and a large increase in beans, vegetables, and grains. The report's math was blunt enough that a PR firm working for the meat industry organized a backlash campaign before the Commission had even finished presenting it.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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Can we feed a future population of 10 billion people a healthy diet within planetary boundaries?
The question the EAT-Lancet Commission set out to answer, as summarized by EAT in its account of the 2019 report
Source: EAT Forum -
unhealthy foods, such as red meat and sugar
From Wikipedia's account of the report's call for a more than 50% cut to consumption of these foods
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
It turned a vague 'eat less meat' instinct into a specific, peer-reviewed number, backed by dozens of scientists rather than one influencer, and advocates have cited it ever since even though the diet itself still leaves room for meat and dairy.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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