The United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference, COP26, has discussed sustainable healthy diets (SHDs) in one of its side events. The caption of this awareness seminar was ‘We shall all meet at the table’.

Gone are the days, when fast food was preferred because of easy to get and quick to eat. According to the UN statistics, the food system generates 30 per cent of total greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions and the agriculture system uses 70pc of freshwater. The food system and dietary habits have created risks for biodiversity as well. Unnatural and unhealthy dietary habits are a source of many diseases including diabetes, blood pressure, cardiac arrest, cancer, obesity and non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

The question: what is a healthy diet? A good old French saying is man is what he eats. In our conventional wisdom, meat is for the rich people and the poor eat roti, achar, piyas and daal. The UN has defined a healthy diet as a diet with less salt, sugar and more vegetables and fruits. It protects you from obesity and malnutrition.

The rule is simple: add 400 grams or five portions of fruits and vegetables to your diet and avoid meat. A healthy diet is expensive and a challenge for food security as the world population has increased manifolds and the demand for food has grown at an increasing rate.

According to UN estimates, global food production from plants and animals need to increase by 70pc by 2050. This means expansion in the food system and food subsectors such as livestock production, crop cultivation, product processing and transportation, agriculture inputs: fertiliser and seeds, agriculture engineering and irrigation. This increased food production will also lead to more land use, deforestation, and greater emission of GHG.

The whole system of global food production produces 17.3bn tonnes of greenhouse gases in a year which is 35pc of global emissions

According to recent study (Xiaoming Xu, et al. 2021) about the impact of food production on the environment, animal-based food cause double pollution as compared to plant-based food production. The whole system of global food production produces 17.3 billion tonnes of GHG in a year which is 35 per cent of global GHG and it is more than double the emissions of the US.

Animal-based food is responsible for 57pc of all food production of which beef contributes one-fourth, 29pc comes from plant-based and rest from other uses of land such as rubber and cotton, the study finds.

Policymakers around the globe who are contemplating curtailing GHG must consider reforming the entire cycle of food production systems. The raising and using animals for food is worse for the environment than harvesting plants and trees for fruits and vegetables. This fact confirms the earlier findings of the outsized impact of meat production especially beef on the climate.

Most croplands of the world are used to feed animals rather than the people. Moreover, livestock produces methane gas: which is a powerful GHG. All this implies that we will produce more GHG to produce more animal-based food than plant-based food to get the same level of calories. This difference is very stark as 1kg production of wheat emits 2.5kg of GHG while 1kg of beef creates 70kg of GHG.

This study builds a database of emission profiles of 16 animal and 171 crop products using the data of 200 countries. It is found that South America has the largest share in animal-based food emissions followed by East and South Asia and then China. The emissions from food systems have substantially increased from India and China as economic growth has led younger people to adopt meat-based food.

Mostly when it comes to curtailing the ongoing sustainability crisis the focus tends to be on energy transition: from fossil to renewable and energy efficiency. Indeed, energy whether it is in the form of heat, electricity, industrial process, or transport accounts for almost two-thirds of global greenhouse gases. However, world food systems especially animal-based systems as mentioned above are major contributors to environmental degradation and for which we do not have viable technological solutions.

A major rethink about dietary habits and farming practices is, therefore, essential to avoid dangerous global warming. Transformational changes are the need of the day in lifestyle that is becoming addicted to animal-based food systems. It must be replaced with beans and pulses to curtail ongoing sustainability crises.

This is the biggest challenge. We have to change the production system and dietary habits. The choice is not easy, as we have to opt between a dying planet without changing our food production system or dying with hunger, malnutrition and obesity.

The win-win strategy is to work on a climate-friendly agriculture system with high-yielding varieties of fruits lentils and vegetables that promote ethical, affordable and accessible healthy diets. Do we need meat on the table? Or we shall all meet at the table.

Dr Abid Rashid Gil, Director, Green Campus Project, Islamia University Bahawalpur.

Dr Nadia Tahir, economist.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, January 14th, 2022