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Comment
. 2018 Feb 20;115(8):E1701-E1702.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1720738115. Epub 2018 Feb 12.

Causing confusion in the debate about the transition toward a more plant-based diet

Koenraad Van Meerbeek  1   2 , Jens-Christian Svenning  3   2
Affiliations
Comment

Causing confusion in the debate about the transition toward a more plant-based diet

Koenraad Van Meerbeek et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .
No abstract available

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
(A) Implicitly assumed linear relationship between the share of animal-based products in the American diet and GHGE (in red) and nutritional capacity (in blue) by White and Hall (1). The black crosses represent results for GHGE and nutritional capacity of the considered diets, as calculated in their analysis. (B) More likely (although uncertain) relationships (solid lines), with the optimum not situated in one of the two considered scenarios. Red and blue cross indicate more likely levels of GHGE and nutritional capacity of a plant-based diet. The net GHGE (solid red line) achieve a minimum and increase again when the indirect adverse effects on emission reduction of the removal of animals from agriculture (dotted red line) outweigh the gross emission reduction (dashed red line). Given the highly complex nature of the GHG balance, the shape of the GHG emission curve is uncertain. The position of the maximum and minimum of the curves on both axes are purely illustrative. Only relative positions are considered. Healthy diet limits the consumption of sugar, oil, meat, and dairy, as recommended by the Harvard Medical School (3). Vegetarian diet is without meat or fish consumption. Plant-based or vegan diet is without any animal-based products.
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References

    1. White RR, Hall MB. Nutritional and greenhouse gas impacts of removing animals from US agriculture. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2017;114:E10301–E10308. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bajželj B, et al. Importance of food-demand management for climate mitigation. Nat Clim Chang. 2014;4:924–929.
    1. The Harvard Medical School 2011 The healthy eating plate. Available at https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-plate/. Accessed November 20, 2017.
    1. US Department of Health and Human Services and US Department of Agriculture 2015 Scientific report of the 2015 dietary guidelines advisory committee. Available at https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015-scientific-report/. Accessed November 20, 2017.
    1. Mariotti F. Vegetarian and Plant-Based Diets in Health and Disease Prevention. Academic; New York: 2017.

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