Plant-based diet

Food from plants

A plant-based diet is a diet consisting mostly or entirely of plant-based foods.[1][2][3] Plant-based diets encompass a wide range of dietary patterns that contain low amounts of animal products and high amounts of plant products such as vegetables, fruits, whole cereals, legumes, nuts and seeds.[4][5] They do not need to be vegan or vegetarian[6][7] but are defined in terms of low frequency of animal food consumption.[8][9]

Terminology

T. Colin Campbell claims responsibility for coining the term "plant-based diet" to help present his research on diet at the National Institutes of Health in 1980.[10] He defined it as "a low fat, high fibre, vegetable-based diet that focused on health and not ethics".[11]

Vegan author Ellen Jaffe Jones wrote about the origins of the term in a 2011 interview:

"I taught cooking classes for the national non-profit, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and during that time, the phrase 'plant-based diet' came to be used as a euphemism for vegan eating, or "the 'v' word. It was developed to take the emphasis off the word 'vegan', because some associated it with being too extreme a position, sometimes based exclusively in animal rights versus a health rationale."[12]

Some sources use the phrase "plant-based diet" to refer to diets including varying degrees of animal products, for example defining "plant-based diets" as diets that "include generous amounts of plant foods and limited amounts of animal foods" and stating that "The American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund call for choosing predominantly plant-based diets rich in a variety of vegetables and fruits, legumes, and minimally processed starchy staple foods and limiting red meat consumption, if red meat is eaten at all".[13] Others draw a distinction between "plant-based" and "plant-only".[14]

A "plant-based diet" may be defined as "consisting largely or solely of vegetables, grains, pulses, or other foods derived from plants, rather than animal products"[15] or as the practice of consuming plant-sourced foods that are minimally processed.[16]

In various sources, "plant-based diet" has been used to refer to:

  • Veganism: diet of vegetables, legumes, fruit, grains, nuts, and seeds, but no food from animal sources.[12]
  • Vegetarianism: diet of vegetables, legumes, fruit, nuts, and grains, that may include eggs and dairy, but no meat.[2]
    • Ovo-lacto vegetarianism: includes dairy and eggs.[14]
    • Ovo vegetarianism: includes eggs but no dairy.[17]
    • Lacto vegetarianism: includes dairy but no eggs.[17]
  • Semi-vegetarianism: mostly vegetarian diet with occasional inclusion of meat or poultry.[17][14]
    • Pescetarianism: mostly vegetarian diet with the incorporation of seafood.[18] Moderate amounts of dairy and/or eggs may or may not be included.[4]

Prevalence

As of the early 21st century, it was estimated that 4 billion people live primarily on a plant-based diet, some by choice and some because of limits caused by shortages of crops, fresh water, and energy resources.[19][20]

In Europe, consumption of plant-based meat substitutes made up 40% of the world market in 2019 and was forecast to grow by 60% through 2025, due mainly to concerns for health, food security, and animal welfare.[21]

In the U.S. during 2019, the retail market for plant-based foods grew eight times faster than the general retail food market.[22]

Sustainability

Biomass of mammals on Earth[23]

  Livestock, mostly cattle and pigs (60%)
  Humans (36%)
  Wild mammals (4%)

The Food and Agriculture Organization defined a sustainable diet as one with "low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security, and to healthy life for present and future generations" and one that is affordable for all while optimizing both natural and human resources.[24] A sustainable diet can be measured by its level of nutritional adequacy, environmental sustainability, cultural acceptability and affordability.[25] Environmental sustainability can be measured by indicators of efficiency and environmental protection. Efficiency measures the ratio of inputs and outputs required to produce a given level of foods.[26] Input energy refers to processing, transporting, storing and serving food, compared with the output of physical human energy. Conversely, environmental protection refers to the level of preservation of ecological systems.[26]

Plant-based diets can contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of land, water, and fertilizers used for agriculture.[27] As a significant percentage of crops around the world are used to feed livestock rather than humans, evidence shows that increasing the practice of a plant-based diet may contribute toward minimizing climate change and biodiversity loss.[28] While soy cultivation is a "major driver of deforestation in the Amazon basin",[29] the vast majority of soy crops are used for livestock consumption rather than human consumption.[30]

Research from 2019 on various diet patterns found that plant-based diet adherence yielded greater environmental benefit when compared to diet patterns higher in animal-sourced foods. Of the six mutually-exclusive diets; individuals adhering to vegan, vegetarian and pescetarian diets had reduced dietary-carbon footprints when compared to typical omnivorous diets, while those who were adhering to paleolithic and ketogenic diets had elevated dietary-carbon emissions due to their heavy incorporation of various animal sourced foods.[31]

A 2020 study found that the climate change mitigation effects of shifting worldwide food production and consumption to plant-based diets, which are mainly composed of foods that require only a small fraction of the land and CO2 emissions required for meat and dairy, could offset CO2 emissions equal to those of past 9 to 16 years of fossil fuel emissions in nations that they grouped into 4 types. The researchers also provided a map of approximate regional opportunities.[32][33]

According to a 2021 Chatham House report, supported by the United Nations Environment Programme, a shift to "predominantly plant-based diets" will be needed to reduce biodiversity loss and human impact on the environment. The report said that livestock has the largest environmental impact, with some 80% of all global farmland used to rear cattle, sheep and other animals used by humans for food. Moving towards plant-based diets would free up the land to allow for the restoration of ecosystems and the flourishing of biodiversity.[23]

A 2022 study published in Nature Food found that if high-income nations switched to a plant-based diet, vast swaths of land used for animal agriculture could be allowed to return to their natural state, which in turn has the potential to pull 100 billion tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere by the end of the century. Around 35% of all habitable land around the world is used to rear animals used by humans in food production.[34][35]

Health research

Plant-based diets are under preliminary research to assess whether they may improve metabolic measures in health and disease,[36] and if there are long-term effects on diabetes.[37] Cognitive and mental effects of a plant-based diet are inconclusive.[36]

When the focus was whole foods, an improvement of diabetes biomarkers occurred, including reduced obesity.[37][38][39] In diabetic people, plant-based diets were also associated with improved emotional and physical well-being, relief of depression, higher quality of life, and better general health.[38]

Commerce of plant-based foods

In 2019, Europeans consumed 40% of the world total of plant-based meat alternatives out of concern for health, food security, and animal welfare.[21] During 2019, the total retail market for plant-based foods in the U.S. was $4.5 billion, growing at 31% over the previous two years, compared to 4% for the entire retail food market.[22] Growth of plant-based food consumption in the U.S. occurred among flexitarian consumers seeking alternative protein sources to meat, fortification with micronutrients, whole grains, and dietary fiber ingredients, meat flavor and comfort food innovations, and "clean" food product labels.[22] In 2019, the European Union launched a program called "Smart Protein" to reuse large-scale, plant-based residues such as pasta, bread, and yeast byproducts together with whole grains, as new high protein, flavorful substitutes for meat, seafood, and dairy products.[40]

Politics

Some public health organisations advocate a plant-based diet due to its low ecological footprint. These include the Swedish Food Agency in its dietary guideline[41] and a group of Lancet researchers who propose a planetary health diet.[42] Vegan climate activist Greta Thunberg also called for more plant-based food production and consumption worldwide.[43]

As of 2019, six countries in Europe apply higher value-added tax (VAT) rates to plant milk than to cows' milk, which plant-based advocates have called discrimination.[44]

Limitations on labeling plant-based food

The European Parliament Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development proposed prohibiting meat and dairy names for plant-based alternatives (such as 'vegetarian sausage' and 'soy schnitzel'), as these were allegedly 'confusing'[45] in May 2019. On 8 October 2020, a group of NGOs alongside IKEA co-signed a letter to Members of the European Parliament asking to vote down the proposal.[46] One of the NGOs, ProVeg International, launched a petition against the ban[47] which attracted over 150,000 signatures by 15 October 2020.[48] On 23 October 2020, the European Parliament voted against the 'veggie burger ban' for meat replacement names, but did pass a restriction on plant-based dairy alternative names, so that 'yogurt-style' or 'cheese-alternative' could be prohibited in the future, in addition to the already-banned names including 'almond milk' and 'vegan cheese'.[49]

Several states in the United States, including Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and South Dakota have either attempted to ban or outright banned the use of terms such as "meat", "sausage", "beef", and "milk" on the labels of plant-based alternatives to meat products.[50]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Ostfeld, Robert (May 2017). "Definition of a plant-based diet and overview of this special issue". Journal of Geriatric Cardiology. 14 (5): 315. PMC 5466934. PMID 28630607. A plant-based diet consists of all minimally processed fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, herbs, and spices and excludes all animal products, including red meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy products.
  2. 1 2 Taylor Wolfram (1 October 2018). "Vegetarianism: The basic facts". Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
  3. ↑ "Plant-based diet". British Dietetic Association. September 2017.
  4. 1 2 Hemler, Elena C.; Hu, Frank B. (1 November 2019). "Plant-Based Diets for Personal, Population, and Planetary Health". Advances in Nutrition. 10 (Supplement_4): S275–S283. doi:10.1093/advances/nmy117. ISSN 2161-8313. PMC 6855934. PMID 31728495. The term “plant-based diets” encompasses a wide range of dietary patterns that contain lower amounts of animal products and higher amounts of plant products such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds...
  5. ↑ "PLANT-BASED English Definition and Meaning | Lexico.com". Lexico Dictionaries | English. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  6. ↑ Hemler, Elena C.; Hu, Frank B. (20 March 2019). "Plant-Based Diets for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention: All Plant Foods Are Not Created Equal". Current Atherosclerosis Reports. 21 (5): 18. doi:10.1007/s11883-019-0779-5. ISSN 1534-6242. Contrary to popular belief, plant-based diets do not have to be vegan or vegetarian.
  7. ↑ LDN, Katherine D. McManus, MS, RD (26 September 2018). "What is a plant-based diet and why should you try it?". Harvard Health. Retrieved 11 February 2022. Plant-based or plant-forward eating patterns focus on foods primarily from plants. This includes not only fruits and vegetables, but also nuts, seeds, oils, whole grains, legumes, and beans. It doesn’t mean that you are vegetarian or vegan and never eat meat or dairy.
  8. ↑ Satija, Ambika; Hu, Frank B. (October 2018). "Plant-based diets and cardiovascular health". Trends in Cardiovascular Medicine. 28 (7): 437–441. doi:10.1016/j.tcm.2018.02.004. ISSN 1873-2615. PMC 6089671. PMID 29496410. Plant-based diets, defined in terms of low frequency of animal food consumption, have been increasingly recommended for their health benefits.
  9. ↑ Hemler, Elena C.; Hu, Frank B. (20 March 2019). "Plant-Based Diets for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention: All Plant Foods Are Not Created Equal". Current Atherosclerosis Reports. 21 (5): 18. doi:10.1007/s11883-019-0779-5. ISSN 1534-6242. Many previous studies have defined plant-based diets by the complete exclusion of meat or animal products, while others have accounted for plant-based diets including moderate amounts of animal-source foods.
  10. ↑ "It's Called 'Plant-Based,' Look It Up". The New York Times.
  11. ↑ "What's the Difference Between a Plant-Based and Vegan Diet?". 10 March 2020.
  12. 1 2 Stark, Michelle (25 May 2015). "Wellness experts weigh in on the vegan diet". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  13. ↑ See American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada, "Position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada: Vegetarian diets" (16 February 2014): " ... plant-based diets, defined as diets that include generous amounts of plant foods and limited amounts of animal foods", and listing the views of other groups.
  14. 1 2 3 Dwyer, J (2003). "Vegetarian Diets". In Caballero, Benjamin; Trugo, Luiz C.; Finglas., Paul M. (eds.). Encyclopedia of Food Sciences and Nutrition (Second ed.). Academic Press/Elsevier. pp. 5974–5979. ISBN 978-0-12-227055-0.
  15. ↑ "Plant-based: English Definition and Meaning". Lexico Dictionaries. Retrieved 17 September 2021.
  16. ↑ "Definition of plant-based". dictionary.com. Retrieved 17 September 2021.
  17. 1 2 3 Summerfield, Liane M. (8 August 2012). Nutrition, Exercise, and Behavior: An Integrated Approach to Weight Management (2nd ed.). Cengage Learning. pp. 181–182. ISBN 9780840069245. A plant-based diet is not necessarily a vegetarian diet. Many people on plant-based diets continue to use meat products and/or fish but in smaller quantities.
  18. ↑ "Plant Based". Vegetarian Journal. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
  19. ↑ Pimentel, David; Pimentel, Marcia (1 September 2003). "Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment". The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 78 (3): 660S–663S. doi:10.1093/ajcn/78.3.660S. PMID 12936963. Worldwide, an estimated 2 billion people live primarily on a meat-based diet, while an estimated 4 billion live primarily on a plant-based diet. The shortages of cropland, fresh water, and energy resources require most of the 4 billion people to live on a plant-based diet
  20. ↑ Gorissen, Stefan H. M.; Witard, Oliver C. (29 August 2017). "Characterising the muscle anabolic potential of dairy, meat and plant-based protein sources in older adults". Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. 77 (1): 20–31. doi:10.1017/S002966511700194X. PMID 28847314.
  21. 1 2 Flora Southey (25 October 2019). "'Plant-based', 'vegan', or 'vegetarian'? Consumers reveal attitudes to diet descriptions". FoodNavigator.com, William Reed Business Media Ltd. Retrieved 23 January 2020.
  22. 1 2 3 Mary Ellen Shoup (23 January 2020). "Where next for plant-based in 2020? ADM shares top trend predictions for the category". FoodNavigator.com-USA, William Reed Business Media Ltd. Retrieved 23 January 2020.
  23. 1 2 Carrington, Damian (3 February 2021). "Plant-based diets crucial to saving global wildlife, says report". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  24. ↑ Burlingame, B; Dernini, S (2012). Sustainable diets and biodiversity: directions and solutions for policy, research and action. Proceedings of the International Scientific Symposium. Biodiversity and sustainable diets united against hunger (PDF). Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  25. ↑ Fanzo, J; Cogill, B; Mattei, F (2012). Technical brief: metrics of sustainable diets and food systems. Maccarese, Italy: Bioversity International. pp. 1–8.
  26. 1 2 Sabate, J; Soret, S (4 June 2014). "Sustainability of plant-based diets: back to the future". American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 10 (1): 476S–482S. doi:10.3945/ajcn.113.071522. PMID 24898222.
  27. ↑ Nemecek, T.; Poore, J. (1 June 2018). "Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers". Science. 360 (6392): 987–992. Bibcode:2018Sci...360..987P. doi:10.1126/science.aaq0216. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 29853680.
  28. ↑ "Sustainability pathways: Livestock and landscapes" (PDF). Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations. 2012. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
  29. ↑ "Soy agriculture in the Amazon Basin". Yale University. 2019. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
  30. ↑ Rowland, Michael Pellman. "The most effective way to save the planet". Forbes. Retrieved 5 June 2019. meat and dairy provide only 18% of our calories and 37% of our protein, yet use up 83% of our farmland.
  31. ↑ O'Malley, Keelia; Willits-Smith, Amelia; Aranda, Rodrigo; Heller, Martin; Rose, Diego (1 June 2019). "Vegan vs Paleo: Carbon Footprints and Diet Quality of 5 Popular Eating Patterns as Reported by US Consumers (P03-007-19)". Current Developments in Nutrition. 3 (Suppl 1): nzz047.P03–007–19. doi:10.1093/cdn/nzz047.P03-007-19. ISSN 2475-2991. PMC 6574879.
  32. ↑ "Changing what we eat could offset years of climate-warming emissions, new analysis finds". phys.org. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  33. ↑ Hayek, Matthew N.; Harwatt, Helen; Ripple, William J.; Mueller, Nathaniel D. (7 September 2020). "The carbon opportunity cost of animal-sourced food production on land". Nature Sustainability. 4: 21–24. doi:10.1038/s41893-020-00603-4. ISSN 2398-9629. S2CID 221522148. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  34. ↑ "How plant-based diets not only reduce our carbon footprint, but also increase carbon capture". Leiden University. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  35. ↑ Sun, Zhongxiao; Scherer, Laura; Tukker, Arnold; Spawn-Lee, Seth A.; Bruckner, Martin; Gibbs, Holly K.; Behrens, Paul (January 2022). "Dietary change in high-income nations alone can lead to substantial double climate dividend". Nature Food. 3 (1): 29–37. doi:10.1038/s43016-021-00431-5. ISSN 2662-1355.
  36. 1 2 Medawar, Evelyn; Huhn, Sebastian; Villringer, Arno; Veronica Witte, A. (12 September 2019). "The effects of plant-based diets on the body and the brain: a systematic review". Translational Psychiatry. 9 (1): 226. doi:10.1038/s41398-019-0552-0. ISSN 2158-3188. PMC 6742661. PMID 31515473.
  37. 1 2 Qian, Frank; Liu, Gang; Hu, Frank B.; Bhupathiraju, Shilpa N.; Sun, Qi (1 September 2019). "Association between plant-based dietary patterns and risk of type 2 diabetes". JAMA Internal Medicine. 179 (10): 1335–1344. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.2195. ISSN 2168-6106. PMC 6646993. PMID 31329220.
  38. 1 2 Toumpanakis, Anastasios; Turnbull, Triece; Alba-Barba, Isaura (2018). "Effectiveness of plant-based diets in promoting well-being in the management of type 2 diabetes: a systematic review". BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care. 6 (1): e000534. doi:10.1136/bmjdrc-2018-000534. ISSN 2052-4897. PMC 6235058. PMID 30487971.
  39. ↑ Dinu, M; Abbate, R; Gensini, GF; Casini, A; Sofi, F (2017). "Vegetarian, vegan diets and multiple health outcomes: a systematic review with meta-analysis of observational studies". Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition. 57 (3): 3640–3649. doi:10.1080/10408398.2016.1138447. hdl:2158/1079985. PMID 26853923. S2CID 10073754.
  40. ↑ Flora Southey (8 October 2019). "Smart Protein: Barilla, AB InBev, Thai Union et al. collaborate on EU-funded novel protein project". FoodNavigator.com, William Reed Business Media Ltd. Retrieved 23 January 2020.
  41. ↑ "Livsmedelsverket". livsmedelsverket.se. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  42. ↑ "Planetary Health Diet: Speiseplan für eine gesunde und nachhaltige Ernährung". bzfe.de (in German). Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  43. ↑ "Climate activist Greta Thunberg takes on food industry | DW | 23 May 2021". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
  44. ↑ foodnavigator.com. "Member States urged to amend milk VAT 'discrimination': 'The tax rate for plant milks should at least be the same for cow's milk – or even lower'". foodnavigator.com. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
  45. ↑ "REPORT on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulations (EU) No 1308/2013 establishing a common organisation of the markets in agricultural products, (EU) No 1151/2012 on quality schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs, (EU) No 251/2014 on the definition, description, presentation, labelling and the protection of geographical indications of aromatised wine products, (EU) No 228/2013 laying down specific measures for agriculture in the outermost regions of the Union and (EU) No 229/2013 laying down specific measures for agriculture in favour of the smaller Aegean islands". europarl.europa.eu. Retrieved 25 October 2020. Amendment 165 (unpaginated, search in text for "steak")
  46. ↑ "Voting recommendation". European Plant-based Foods Association (ENSA). pp. 6–7. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
  47. ↑ Jon Stone (13 May 2019). "Campaigners rally against EU 'veggie burger' name ban". The Independent. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
  48. ↑ Flora Southey (15 October 2020). "Debate heats up ahead of EU veggie 'burger' vote: 'Oatly doesn't need to put 'milk' on their carton, the consumer understands what it is'". Food Navigator. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
  49. ↑ Maria Chiorando (23 October 2020). "EU Parliament Rejects 'Veggie Burger Ban' But Supports 'Dairy Ban' Against Vegan Producers". Plant Based News. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
  50. ↑ O'Neil, Luke (23 July 2019). "US state set to outlaw calling a veggie burger a veggie burger". The Guardian.
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