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Inverness GP Andrew Dallas asks us to think of food in terms of both our health and that of the planet


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Oatmeal porridge and fruit.
Oatmeal porridge and fruit.

AS we start a new year with resolutions to be fitter and healthier, hundreds of thousands of people worldwide will take part in Veganuary, a challenge to eat only a vegan diet for a month.

With news coverage reporting incessantly on research relating to what we eat, it can be very confusing to know what we should be consuming. There is also much debate and confusion about how our diets impact on climate. Do we need to be vegan? Do we need to change at all?

From a climate perspective, there are very important adaptations around eating local, seasonal produce, with minimal packaging and waste, while avoiding ingredients like unsustainable palm oil. In this column, however, I want to look specifically at meat and dairy consumption.

The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown, a collaboration of scientists tracking the health implications of a changing climate, reiterates some stark data. Food systems account for around a quarter of total worldwide emissions.

Over the last 20 years, the emissions from livestock have risen 16 per cent, with around half of agricultural emissions relating to beef and dairy. Emissions come mainly from fertilisers, methane released by cows, animal feed production, and the destruction of land that captures carbon, such as forest, in order to create space for animal feed and grazing. These increased emissions occur in the context of falling global crop yields, while our human population rises.

People in affluent countries have a diet-related carbon footprint 41 per cent higher than those in less affluent countries, mostly due to meat and dairy consumption. So, the dietary choices of those in affluent nations is, in part, driving the changing climate that will further threaten the food security of those in the global south.

Added to this is the fact that, if some of the land used for livestock agriculture was converted to other uses, it would be able to absorb more carbon. It is estimated that if everyone switched to a plant-based diet, we would need 75 per cent less agricultural land.

This is due to the fact that growing crops for human consumption is far more efficient than feeding it to animals for us to consume. Just 1kg of chicken meat takes 3.2kg of crops to produce.

Looking at meat consumption from a health perspective in developed nations, we see increasing deaths from excess red meat consumption of around 800,000 per year. The increased disease burden associated with red meat is mainly a result of increased cardiovascular and cancer deaths. Excess deaths related to red meat consumption are nine times higher in affluent countries than those in more deprived parts of the world.

I do not wish to overlook the vital work our farmers do to feed our nation and I am not necessarily advocating veganism. But I do believe there are changes we can make for our health and the health of our planet by significantly reducing our meat and dairy intake.

An analysis by Harvard found Britain could make a shift towards rewilding land for carbon capture, while moving away from current meat and dairy farming levels and still being able to feed the country, with less reliance on imports.

Any changes will need to look after farmers and food security but I believe we ought to take the issue of our diets seriously, both for our health and that of the planet.

n Dr Andrew Dallas is is a GP partner at Cairn Medical Practice in Inverness and the north of Scotland Royal College of General Practitioners’ climate champion.


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