Healthy and sustainable diets that meet greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and are affordable for different income groups in the UK

Abstract

ObjectiveTo model dietary changes required to shift the UK population to diets that meet dietary recommendations for health, have lower greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) and are affordable for different income groups.DesignLinear programming was used to create diets that meet dietary requirements for health and reduced GHGE (57 and 80 % targets) by income quintile, taking account of food budgets and foods currently purchased, thereby keeping dietary change to a minimum.Setting/ParticipantsNutrient composition, GHGE and price data were mapped to 101 food groups in household food purchase data (UK Living Cost and Food Survey (2013), 5144 households).ResultsCurrent diets of all income quintiles had similar total GHGE, but the source of GHGE differed by types of meat and amount of fruit and vegetables. It was possible to create diets with a 57 % reduction in GHGE that met dietary and cost restraints in all income groups. In the optimised diets, the food sources of GHGE differed by income group due to the cost and keeping the level of deviation from current diets to a minimum. Broadly, the changes needed were similar across all groups; reducing animal-based products and increasing plant-based foods but varied by specific foods.ConclusionsHealthy and lower-GHGE diets could be created in all income quintiles but tailoring changes to income groups to minimise deviation may make dietary changes more achievable. Specific attention must be given to make interventions and policies appropriate for all income groups.

The affordability of a healthy and sustainable diet: An Australian case study.

“…Globally, two studies from United Kingdom have determined the cost of a healthy and sustainable diet and compared it to the typical diet consumed in that country (both nding there was no cost increase to follow a healthy and sustainable diet). 65,66 Since the present study was completed, other research on the affordability of the PHD throughout the world has since been published, nding that the PHD was affordable for high-income countries such as Australia, but unaffordable for low-income countries. 67 The aims of this study were to: (a) Determine the affordability of the PHD food basket for low, middle and high socio-economic groups in metropolitan Australia; (b) Determine if the PHD food basket is more or less affordable than the Typical Australian Diet (TAD) food basket for low, middle and high socio-economic groups in metropolitan Australia.…”

Impacts of Reducing UK Beef Consumption Using a Revised Sustainable Diets Framework

“…The measurement of Food waste and loss is becoming standardised, thanks to the creation of the food loss and waste accounting and reporting standard [75] and the Food Waste Atlas [76,77]. However, there is a lack of product-specific information due to a variety of factors, including the cost and time intensity of survey methods [19,78], with differences of up to 40% being returned by different measurement methods [79,80].…”

“…One important dimension of sustainability which is not included in this paper or previous frameworks is "health". While the authors recognise that, in order for a diet to be sustainable, it must be healthy (see [19,21]), we also recognise the complexities surrounding the measurement and quantification of a healthy diet. The majority of evidence linking meat intake with diseases comes from observational studies which, while useful sources of information, can have problems with errors in epidemiology such as confounding bias relative to randomised controlled trials [22,23].…”

“…Current UK dietary guidance-the Eatwell guide [16]-recommends that people who eat more than 90 g (cooked weight) of red and processed meat a day cut down to 70 g. Evidence from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey [17] indicates that current typical portion sizes are still in excess of this recommendation for men aged 19-64 years and 65-74 years (This indicates that beef might not be consumed every week, by every person, but when it is, it is in portions larger than 90 g). Recently, Reynolds et al [18,19] found that thought there were some income-based differences to the proportion of beef purchased per day per person (between 26-28 g per person per day); these were not large differences (~6%). Furthermore, Reynolds et al found that all income groups needed to reduce their meat consumption to 8-10 g per day per person (a~65% reduction) (i.e., one portion per week to ten days) to deliver a healthy, low optimised diet.…”

“…As there are multiple dietary and economic shifts that can accommodate a reduction in beef consumption in the UK (for example, see [19,20]), this will be substituted by increased consumption of general plant-based foods, with a focus around pulses and legumes (According to the FAO (http: //www.fao.org/es/faodef/fdef04e.htm), the term 'pulses' refers to dried seeds of legumes, i.e., the plants whose fruit is enclosed in a pod, so it excludes green peas and fresh beans which are classified as vegetables. (Peanuts and soybeans are excluded from the group of pulses, as they are used mainly for processing: Soybeans for oil and fodder production, and peanuts for oil and peanut butter production).…”