A LANDMARK report by 70 leading international experts has found that the widespread adoption of a plant-rich "Planetary Health Diet" (PHD) could prevent 40,000 early deaths per day globally—equating to 15 million adult deaths annually.

The PHD is a flexible diet that prioritises consuming more vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes, and whole grains, while allowing for modest meat consumption.

Its adoption would simultaneously improve human health and address the climate crisis by slashing food-related greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2050 and freeing up land for reforestation.

Researchers stress that with the global food system accounting for a third of all emissions, climate goals are impossible to meet without changing what we eat.

Currently, most people in the UK eat more red meat and dairy produce than is good for them and this measure would enable us to contribute to reducing one of the important global inequalities.

Billions of the world’s population can’t afford a healthy diet but the wealthiest 30 per cent of the population generate over 70 per cent of the food-related environmental damage.

The government should consider the recommendations, such as shifting taxes to make healthy food cheaper and unhealthy food more costly, regulating advertising, and redirecting agricultural subsidies toward sustainable food production.

Such a change would cost money to implement, but that would be outweighed by saving to the NHS and avoiding lost productivity resulting from the chronic illnesses made worse by our diets.

In November last year, an analysis commissioned by the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission calculated that the health consequences of our unhealthy food system in the UK, cost us a mind boggling £268 billion a year.

It would also reduce the health inequality we see in the UK and free up land for nature.

But adjusting our dietary habits is something that we can all do while we wait. It is genuinely a “Win win” choice.

Penny King

Maycroft

Lapford