Small targeted dietary changes can yield substantial gains for human health and the environment

Katerina S Stylianou; Victor L Fulgoni 3rd; Olivier Jolliet

doi:10.1038/s43016-021-00343-4

Small targeted dietary changes can yield substantial gains for human health and the environment

Nat Food. 2021 Aug;2(8):616-627. doi: 10.1038/s43016-021-00343-4. Epub 2021 Aug 18.

Authors

Katerina S Stylianou¹, Victor L Fulgoni 3rd², Olivier Jolliet³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. kstylian@umich.edu.
² Nutrition Impact, LLC, Battle Creek, MI, USA.
³ Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. ojolliet@umich.edu.

PMID: 37118177
DOI: 10.1038/s43016-021-00343-4

Abstract

To identify environmentally sustainable foods that promote health, we combined nutritional health-based and 18 environmental indicators to evaluate, classify and prioritize individual foods. Specifically for nutrition, we developed the Health Nutritional Index to quantify marginal health effects in minutes of healthy life gained or lost of 5,853 foods in the US diet, ranging from 74 min lost to 80 min gained per serving. Environmental impacts showed large variations and were found to be correlated with global warming, except those related to water use. Our analysis also indicated that substituting only 10% of daily caloric intake from beef and processed meat for fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and selected seafood could offer substantial health improvements of 48 min gained per person per day and a 33% reduction in dietary carbon footprint.