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  ‘A vegetarian world would be healthier’

‘A vegetarian world would be healthier’

WWW.NEWS.YAHOO.COM
Published : Mar 23, 2016, 10:37 pm IST
Updated : Mar 23, 2016, 10:37 pm IST

By eating less meat and more fruit and vegetables, the world could avoid several million deaths per year by 2050, cut planet-warming emissions substantially and save billions of dollars annually in he

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 vege.jpg

By eating less meat and more fruit and vegetables, the world could avoid several million deaths per year by 2050, cut planet-warming emissions substantially and save billions of dollars annually in healthcare costs and climate damage, researchers said.

A new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, is the first to estimate both the health and climate change impacts of a global move toward a more plant-based diet, they said.

Unbalanced diets are responsible for the greatest health burden around the world, and our food system produces more than a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, said lead author Marco Springmann of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food.

The Oxford University researchers modeled the effects of four different diets by mid-century: a “business as usual” scenario; one that follows global guidelines including minimum amounts of fruits and vegetables and limits on red meat, sugar and total calories; vegetarian and a vegan diet.

When it comes to climate change, following dietary recommendations would cut food-related emissions by 29 per cent, adopting vegetarian diets would cut them by 63 per cent and vegan by 70 per cent.

Dietary shifts could produce savings of $700 billion to $1,000 billion per year on healthcare, unpaid care and lost working days, while the economic benefit of reduced greenhouse gas emissions could be as much as $570 billion, the study said.

Regional differences The researchers found that three-quarters of all benefits occur in developing countries, although the per capita impacts of dietary change would be greatest in developed nations, due to meat consumption.

The study looked at regional differences which could be used to identify the most suitable interventions for food production and consumption. For example, lower red meat consumption would have the biggest effect in East Asia, the West and Latin America, while boosting fruit and vegetable intake was found to be the largest factor in cutting deaths in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

To achieve a diet that sticks to common guidelines would require a 25 per cent increase in the number of fruits and vegetables eaten globally, and a 56 per cent cut in red meat.