Photo: congerdesign on Pixabay.
The healthiest plant-based diets are linked to a 29% lower risk of cardiovascular disease in women, and they are kinder to the planet too, a Harvard study has found. Women with the healthiest overall eating pattern had diets with 30% lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital used diet data from 90,884 women in the Nurses' Health Study II, followed from 1991 to 2017, and calculated the environmental impact of the diets of 65,625 of them. The study is published in The Lancet Planetary Health.
The top fifth on the healthful plant-based index had a 29% lower risk than the bottom fifth, and also needed less fertilizer, cropland and irrigation water and produced fewer emissions. Red and processed meat had the highest environmental impact of any food group. Not all plant-based diets were equal: those heavy in refined grains and sugary drinks were linked to higher heart risk and needed more cropland and fertilizer.
To be clear, we're not asserting that less healthy plant-based diets are worse for the environment than animal-based diets. However, our findings show that plant-based diets can have different health and environmental impacts.
That is first author Dr. Aviva Musicus in the Harvard Chan School release.
It fits with the finding that the healthiest foods are also best for the planet, and with August's study of 57,000 supermarket products.
Whole plant foods: good for your heart and good for the Earth.