A Global Shift To Plant-Based Diets May Save Millions

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Science is starting to create awareness on man getting less prone to diseases and even take great strides in saving the planet by consuming less meat and eating more fruits and vegetables in the very near future.

This was revealed recently in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences where a world transitioning to a plant-based regular diet could avert several million deaths by 2050, significantly reducing earth-warming emissions and climate damage.

Lead researcher Marco Springmann from the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, said that this would also help save billions of dollars in healthcare costs.

“We do not expect everyone to become vegan, but if they did they’d live longer and help reduce the changes that are skewing the climate,” Springmann said.

“A persons’ diet greatly influences their health and the global environment and imbalanced diets, such as diets low in fruits and vegetables, and high in red and processed meats, are responsible for the greatest health burden globally and in most regions,” Springmann said.

He also pointed out that food systems are responsible for more than 20 percent of all global greenhouse emissions – a major driver to climate change, especially global warming.

This means that a regular diet of fruit and vegetables, with very little meat could prevent some 5.1 million deaths annually until 2050 and 8 million less people dying in a world dominated by vegans who remove eggs and milk in their diets.

This vegan lifestyle then creates a chain reaction that vastly impacts climate change, as it also cuts down food-related emissions by no less than 30% for simply following the recommended dietary selection of more vegetables-less meat,  a vegetarian diet by 63 percent and a purely vegan diet by as much as 70 percent.

Shifting to this suggested diet could save as much as $700 billion to $1 trillion every year on health case, lost productivity and unpaid health insurance.

The study also indicated that the economic benefits of reduced greenhouse gas emissions could be as high as $570 billion.

Springmann also pointed out that the biggest impact of this lifestyle and dietary shift could be seen among developed countries where the economic and health impacts could be as much as 70%.

The study also revealed that this shift will be very challenging, considering that a diet based on the studied guidelines would mean a 25% increase in the global consumption of vegetables and fruits and a 60% reduction the total consumption of meat.

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