Diet Shift

Our food choices can make a positive difference to people and nature – improving our own health, the health of others, and the health of the planet. But over-dependence on select foods, a lack of diversity in our diets and the continued consumption of unsustainably produced items have a harmful impact on nature.

Globally, our diets are too narrow. We get around 75 per cent of our total calories from just 12 crops and five animals and many of these are farmed in monocultures on freshly-converted land. Eating a wider variety of foods, especially those produced in agrobiodiverse systems which preserve ecosystem services, will ease pressures on forests. Many people in middle-income and developed countries, and wealthier people in developing countries, consume more animal-based foods than required for nutrition alone. Plant-based foods tend to have a lower planetary impact than animal-based foods so, in instances of excess animal-food consumption, eating a higher proportion of plants can help. Much of the meat eaten everywhere is unsustainably produced, but by choosing pasture-raised beef that keeps grasses short and soil healthy, or chicken and pork fed on food waste, it is possible to limit the impacts of meat and reduce the pressures on forests created by the need to grow crops for animal feed.