Alignment of Healthy Dietary Patterns and Environmental Sustainability: A Systematic Review

Feb 1, 2017Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.)

How Healthy Eating Habits Match Up with Environmental Sustainability: A Systematic Review

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Abstract

A dietary pattern higher in plant-based foods and lower in animal-based foods is both healthier and associated with a lesser environmental impact.

Consistent evidence across studies indicates that diets rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, seeds, nuts, and whole grains are more beneficial for health.
Lower consumption of animal-based foods, particularly red meat, is linked to improved health outcomes.
Dietary patterns that are lower in total energy intake also correlate with reduced environmental impact.
The updated review includes 23 studies, confirming the findings of the original systematic review conducted by the US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.
Adherence to various sustainable dietary patterns, such as vegetarian, Mediterranean-style, and DASH diets, is associated with better health and less environmental harm compared to typical US dietary habits.

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To support food security for current and future generations, there is a need to understand the relation between sustainable diets and the health of a population. In recent years, a number of studies have investigated and compared different dietary patterns to better understand which foods and eating patterns have less of an environmental impact while meeting nutritional needs and promoting health. This systematic review (SR) of population-level dietary patterns and food sustainability extends and updates the SR that was conducted by the 2015 US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, an expert committee commissioned by the federal government to inform dietary guidance as it relates to the committee's original conclusions. In the original SR, 15 studies met the criteria for inclusion; since then, an additional 8 studies have been identified and included. The relations between dietary intake patterns and both health and environmental outcomes were compared across studies, with methodologies that included modeling, life cycle assessment, and land use analysis. Across studies, consistent evidence indicated that a dietary pattern higher in plant-based foods (e.g., vegetables, fruits, legumes, seeds, nuts, whole grains) and lower in animal-based foods (especially red meat), as well as lower in total energy, is both healthier and associated with a lesser impact on the environment. This dietary pattern differs from current average consumption patterns in the United States. Our updated SR confirms and strengthens the conclusions of the original US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee SR, which found that adherence to several well-characterized dietary patterns, including vegetarian (with variations) diets, dietary guidelines-related diets, Mediterranean-style diets, the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, and other sustainable diet scenarios, promotes greater health and has a less negative impact on the environment than current average dietary intakes.

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Alignment of Healthy Dietary Patterns and Environmental Sustainability: A Systematic Review

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