Study: Healthy food choices is also good for the environment

It's not new news that the population is gaining weight and unhealthier in general. A new study led by Univ. of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman shows how a shift away from this trajectory and toward healthier traditional Mediterranean, pescatarian or vegetarian diets could not only boost human lifespan and quality of life, but also slash greenhouse gas emissions and save habitat for endangered species.

David Tilman, a professor in the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, and Michael Clark, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota authored a paper called "Global Diets Link Environmental Sustainability and Human Health" which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The researchers find that rising incomes and urbanization around the world are driving a global dietary transition that is, in turn, diminishing the health of both people and the planet.

"These dietary shifts," they write, "are greatly increasing the incidence of Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and other chronic non-communicable diseases that lower global life expectancies."

"We showed that the same dietary changes that can add about a decade to our lives can also prevent massive environmental damage," said Tilman, a professor in the university's College of Biological Sciences and resident fellow at the Institute on the Environment. "In particular, if the world were to adopt variations on three common diets, health would be greatly increased at the same time global greenhouse gas emissions were reduced by an amount equal to the current greenhouse gas emissions of al all cars, trucks, plans trains and ships. In addition, this dietary shift would prevent the destruction of an area of tropical forests and savannas as large as half of the U.S."

The study also compared health impacts of the global omnivorous diet with those reported for traditional Mediterranean, pescatarian and vegetarian diets. Adopting these alternative diets could reduce incidence of type II diabetes by about 25 percent, cancer by about 10 percent and death from heart disease by about 20 percent relative to the omnivore diet.