The sustainable diet

Move over the paleo, keto or lemon-detox diet. With civilisation in jeopardy due to human consumption, and the world’s population predicted to climb to 10 billion souls by 2050, scientists are urging us to eat not only for our own health, but for that of the planet.

In the EAT-Lancet Commission report published in January 2019, 37 scientists from varied disciplines and across 16 countries worked together to devise a healthy, global diet sustainable for the planet. Calling for a transformation in the way we produce and consume food in order to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement, they warned, “Food systems have the potential to nurture human health and support environmental sustainability; however, they are currently threatening both.”

What’s wrong with our diet?

In the Anthropocene, the name given to our present era of Earth being influenced by human activity, it seems we’re literally eating the planet, and by proxy ourselves, to death. “Global food production is the largest pressure caused by humans on Earth, threatening local ecosystems and the stability of the Earth system,” the EAT-Lancet authors state.

Feeding the planet’s 7.7 billion citizens guzzles 70 per cent of the world’s fresh water and consumes nearly 40