The Diet That Was Supposed to Feed the World Forgot to Factor in the Poor

More than 1.5 billion people on the planet can’t afford EAT-Lancet’s celebrated diet

Photo: Stas_V/Getty Images

In January, 37 of the foremost experts in nutrition science recommended a diet meant to improve the health of the planet and the humans living on it. The EAT-Lancet diet, named after the commission that created it, recommended that people everywhere eat more vegetables and that most — except those in developing countries — eat less red meat.

The commission, which published its suggestions in the medical journal The Lancet, claimed its diet was designed to sustainably and nutritiously feed the estimated 10 billion people that will be alive in 2050. It framed the diet as the first major attempt to universally address the global issues of malnutrition and climate change.

But there’s just one big problem with the diet — more than 1.5 billion people can’t afford it today.

When researchers not involved with the EAT-Lancet Commission analyzed the diet for affordability, they found that up to half the population of Sub-Saharan Africa and more than a third of the population of South Asia can’t pay for it, given their income level and the food systems in their region, according to a report published in Lancet Global Health this month.

Will Masters, a food economist at Tufts University and senior author on the study, tells OneZero that the EAT-Lancet commission overlooked the economics of their diet “because they’re not interested in economics.” (The EAT-Lancet study was funded by the Wellcome Trust and Stordalen Foundation, a private organization led by Norwegian billionaire Petter Stordalen.)

“They’re interested in guiding opinion about the health and environmental impact of diet choices,” Masters says.

New research finds the EAT-Lancet diet for human and planetary health is unaffordable for 1.58 billion people, mostly in the developing world. Pictured: the proportion of people in each region whose daily income is less than the local cost of the EAT-Lancet diet. Credit: International Food Policy Research Institute

The economic analysis, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, showed that the highest costs of the EAT-Lancet came primarily from fruits and vegetables, followed by legumes and nuts. Meat, eggs, and fish together with dairy made up a smaller…