The system-wide impact of healthy eating: Assessing emissions and economic impacts at the regional level

Abstract

Encouraging consumers to shift their diets towards to a lower meat/lower calorie alternative has been the focus of food and health policies across the world. The economic impact on regions has been less widely examined, but is likely to be significant, where agricultural and food activities are important for the host region. In this study we use a multi-sectoral modelling framework to examine the environmental and economic impacts of a dietary change, and illustrate this using a detailed model for Scotland. We find that if household food and drink consumption follows healthy eating guidelines, it would reduce both Scotland's "footprint" and "territorial" emissions, and yet may be associated with positive economic impacts, generating a "double dividend" for both the environment and the economy. Furthermore, the likely benefits to health suggest the potential for a "triple dividend". The economic impact however depends critically upon how households use the income previously spent on higher calorie diets.

The impacts of a reduction in British meat and dairy consumption on Northern Ireland’s agri-food sector

“…Unlike assumptions in other UK studies (e.g. Allan et al, 2019;Comerford, 2017), demand-side shocks to livestock farming can only be transmitted through the food manufacturing sector first with the possible exception of fresh fruit and vegetables. For NI farms, crops which can predominantly be sold directly to households were mostly potatoes and mushrooms, while changes in demand for NI livestock and raw milk will only be induced from meat food manufacturing industries.…”

“…While this type of impact analysis offers potential insight into the novel environmental and life expectancy synergies, these effects are somewhat decoupled. It is felt that input-output modelling systems, like those used elsewhere in the United Kingdom (Allan et al, 2019), offers a firmer foundation theoretically for an agri-food systems analysis, where induced supply-side effects from demand-side dietary changes can be more explicitly captured, and even extended to include nutritional information required for life expectancy estimations in the future (see Chepeliev, 2020).…”

Measurement of diets that are healthy, environmentally sustainable, affordable, and equitable: A scoping review of metrics, findings, and research gaps

“…In some cases, the net benefit economy-wide (versus accruing at the household level), required that lower spending on food (in Scotland) associated with less meat consumption be spent locally to generate economic multipliers other than reduced healthcare spending ( 63 ). The benefit could also be different by country.…”

Preparation of chicken nuggets breaded with tropical fruit peel flours: physicochemical and sensory evaluation

“…High-calorie diets composed of saturated lipids and simple sugars can lead to the emergence of non-communicable chronic diseases. Thus, encouraging the consumption of less caloric meat products and with ingredients with nutritional properties has been the focus in the discussion about healthy eating (Allan et al, 2019;López-Lluch & Navas, 2020).…”