Eating ‘for the planet’ risks human health

Nina Teicholz is an excellent resource for reviewing the complicated landscape that is our dietary recommendations. She noted since a “planetary diet” known as EAT-Lancet was published in 2019, nutritionists (like myself) have been worried that our move towards a plant-based diet would involve a serious cost to human health. (The EAT-Lancet authors were organized by a foundation close to the World Economic Forum and, at the time, the United Nations, to fulfill sustainability goals.) 

A principal concern with EAT-Lancet was that such a heavily plant-based diet would be deficient in essential nutrients, especially those in a “bio-available” form that humans can digest. The first person to sound the alarm, as far as we know, was the nutrition expert Zoe Harcombe, whose analysis of EAT-Lancet found that the diet would be deficient in vitamins B12, D, K and A (retinol, the form we can absorb) as well as the minerals sodium, potassium, calcium, iron and probably omega-3 fatty acids.

Now a comprehensive paper– a systematic review of the scientific literature–has largely confirmed Harcombe’s assessment. This again points to the fact that human-appropriate diets should not be primarily plant-based despite it being considered more “eco.” Even in America, 40% of young women are already iron deficient, what we to do it help people eat more nutrient dense foods in replacement of ultra-processed foods.