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New Study Says to Eat More Beans, Less Beef

Updated February 1, 2019

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“Transformation to healthy diets by 2050 will require substantial dietary shifts. Global consumption of fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes will have to double, and consumption of foods such as red meat and sugar will have to be reduced by more than 50%. A diet rich in plant-based foods and with fewer animal source foods confers both improved health and environmental benefits.”
– Professor Walter Willett, MD Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

A recent report by the EAT-Lancet Commission, comprising of 37 leading scientists from 16 countries whose expertise range from human health, agriculture, political sciences and environmental sustainability, has found that “the global adoption of healthy diets from sustainable food systems would safeguard our planet and improve the health of billions.”

Here are a few excerpts from their report:

  • Food is the single strongest lever to optimize human health and environmental sustainability on Earth.
  • Unhealthy diets now pose a greater risk to morbidity and mortality than unsafe sex, alcohol, drug and tobacco use combined. Global food production threatens climate stability and ecosystem resilience and constitutes the single largest driver of environmental degradation and transgression of planetary boundaries. Taken together the outcome is dire. A radical transformation of the global food system is urgently needed. Without action, the world risks failing to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement, and today’s children will inherit a planet that has been severely degraded and where much of the population will increasingly suffer from malnutrition and preventable disease.
  • How food is produced, what is consumed, and how much is lost or wasted all heavily shape the health of both people and planet. The EAT-Lancet Commission presents an integrated global framework and for the first time, provides quantitative scientific targets for healthy diets and sustainable food production. The Commission shows that feeding 10 billion people a healthy diet within safe planetary boundaries for food production by 2050 is both possible and necessary.

 

This is not new information. Dr. McDougall has been lecturing on the importance of a starch-based diet, with the addition of fruits and vegetables and no added oils, for the sustainability of both optimal health and the planet, for over 45 years. The gravity of our situation can be remedied overnight by simply choosing the correct foods to eat that will allow both you and the planet to flourish. Allow us, in multiple languages, to show you the way…

Dr. McDougall’s Color Picture Book