Reducing meat in a diet plan has several health and environmental benefits.health

Animals convert only a small portion of the calories they are given into meat. Ruminants also produce methane, which further accelerates global warming, suggesting recent research findings.

In addition, what we eat is also Our health and animal welfare.. These aspects should also be taken into account when comparing meals. Experts also refer to the optimal health of humans, animals and the environment from a “one health” perspective.

“Research to apply this Prospects for nutrition problems But it’s still rare, “explains Juliana Paris, Center for Development and Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn (Germany).

Real food basket compared to 3 options

Paris worked with colleagues to conduct an analysis aimed at closing some of the gaps in this study. The findings were published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

“To do this, we looked at examples of products in people’s food baskets in North Rhine-Westphalia,” she explains. “Next, we compared this reference diet with three different scenarios. The transition according to the recommendations of the German Nutrition Society (DGE), the transition to a Mediterranean diet with more fish and seafood, and Move to a vegan diet.. “

In each of these three scenarios, the food was chosen to be as close as possible to the reference diet. “This means, for example, that the Mediterranean version has increased the proportion of fish, seafood, vegetables and grain products,” says Paris. In addition, the product-wide selection must contain the same amount of the same nutrients as before. This allowed researchers to obtain and further analyze the food basket for each scenario.

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“We depended on various databases to do this,” says Dr. Neus Escobar of the Austrian Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, who oversaw the work. “We were able to estimate the impact of each diet on specific environmental aspects, such as the amount of greenhouse gases produced during production and the amount of water consumed. Using a similar approach, each on health. We evaluated the effects of diet. ”For example, lean meat is known to increase the risk of certain cancers and cardiovascular diseases.

Researchers used several indicators to estimate the impact on animal welfare. These included how many animals died as a result of food consumption and under what conditions they were bred. “But we also used the number of neurons and the size of the brain relative to the body to estimate how much each animal would suffer when actually used,” explains Juliana Paris.

Fish instead of steak: good for the environment, bad for animal welfare

All three diets are sustained and beneficial from a one-health perspective. However, this comes at the expense of other aspects as well. The vegan diet has achieved the highest scores in many areas. However, the production of vegan food is accompanied by increased water consumption. “In addition, vegans need to take certain nutrients such as vitamin B12, vitamin D, and even calcium separately,” says Paris.

A Mediterranean diet (albeit healthy) also requires more water due to the high amount of nuts and vegetables. Moreover, as the study envisions, if the consumed meat is completely replaced by fish, the impact on animal welfare will be surprisingly negative. Fish and seafish are much smaller than cows and pigs, for example, so quite a lot of animals suffer. The result of this diet.

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Increased consumption of honey, which requires intensive management of bee colonies, also has a negative effect. “Therefore, it is beneficial to meet the needs of all animal-derived proteins,” emphasizes Neus Escobar. “In addition, many people today have a very rich diet. If they reduce the amount of food they eat to what they really need, it may have additional positive effects. . “

Research shows that DGE recommendations are moving in the right direction. However, when it comes to human health, the other two options are better. Nevertheless, the data here also show that: Often you don’t use meat, and instead putting whole grains, vegetables, and fruits on a plate is doing something good for you, your animals, and the environment.

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