Food as Medicine — For People and the Planet

Fighting climate change can feel like a hopeless battle. Who can take on the giant fossil fuel companies when governments are not even bothering? How can countries act when every day temperatures rise, superstorms flood coastal areas, droughts devastate crops, and weather patterns bring insects and new diseases to areas previously spared?

But there is something powerful and important that each and every resident of this planet can do to improve the health of the planet and at the same time improve their own health: eat better.

A new report from the EAT-Lancet Commission lays out just how to do it and it details the benefits of what it calls the Planetary Health Diet. The current way people produce food contributes 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere, the report notes – and that in turn is causing the increasing disruption of weather systems. Even if the entire world stopped using fossil fuels tomorrow, if people keep producing food the way they do now, global warming would continue.

But a change in the way people eat can help stop it, and according to the commission, it would not be difficult or unpleasant.

The mostly plant-based diet the experts recommend would not be a radical departure from how many people around the world eat now and it is based on what research shows would reduce rates of the biggest killers of people in most high-income countries and increasingly in low- and middle-income countries – heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. It would mean eating mostly whole grains; fruits; vegetables; legumes, such as beans; tubers, such as sweet potatoes; and cutting out added fats and sugars. People could still eat some meat and dairy if they wanted to, but variety should replace ultra-processed foods.

This change in diet would drive a change in agriculture that would slow the destruction of forests that in turn could reduce pollution from burning and return biodiversity that nurtures a healthier environment, the report says. And moving away from intensive livestock farming could help stop the conditions that have fueled the rise of antimicrobial resistance – so-called drug-resistant superbugs – that evolve when farmers feed antibiotics to their animals.

In this episode, Dr. Patrick Webb, Professor of Food and Nutrition Economics, Policy, and Programs at Tufts University in Boston and an EAT-Lancet Commissioner, explains some of the ideas behind the report and why food is medicine, both for humanity and for the planet.

Guest

Dr. Patrick Webb works on food policy and climate change, health and nutrition, and has a PhD in Geography. He recently served on the High–Level Panel of Experts of the Committee on World Food Security and was a Commissioner for the Eat–Lancet 2.0 Commission. Previously, he was a member of the Science Council of the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research and worked as Chief of Nutrition for both the World Food Programme and USAID. Today, he holds the MacFarlane Chair in food and nutrition at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.