Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food and WHO Collaborating Centre on Population Approaches for Non-Communicable Disease Prevention, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food and WHO Collaborating Centre on Population Approaches for Non-Communicable Disease Prevention, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Lancet Planet Health. 2021 Nov;5(11):e797-e807. doi: 10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00251-5. Epub 2021 Oct 27.
Adoption of healthy and sustainable diets could be essential for safe-guarding the Earth's natural resources and reducing diet-related mortality, but their adoption could be hampered if such diets proved to be more expensive and unaffordable for some populations. Therefore, we aimed to estimate the costs of healthy and sustainable diets around the world.
In this modelling study, we used regionally comparable food prices from the International Comparison Program for 150 countries. We paired those prices with estimates of food demand for different dietary patterns that, in modelling studies, have been associated with reductions in premature mortality and environmental resource demand, including nutritionally balanced flexitarian, pescatarian, vegetarian, and vegan diets. We used estimates of food waste and projections of food demand and prices to specify food system and socioeconomic change scenarios up to 2050. In the full cost accounting, we estimated diet-related health-care costs by pairing a comparative risk assessment of dietary risks with cost-of-illness estimates, and we estimated climate change costs by pairing the diet scenarios with greenhouse gas emission footprints and estimates of the social cost of carbon.
Compared with the cost of current diets, the healthy and sustainable dietary patterns were, depending on the pattern, up to 22-34% lower in cost in upper-middle-income to high-income countries on average (when considering statistical means), but at least 18-29% more expensive in lower-middle-income to low-income countries. Reductions in food waste, a favourable socioeconomic development scenario, and a fuller cost accounting that included the diet-related costs of climate change and health care in the cost of diets increased the affordability of the dietary patterns in our future projections. When these measures were combined, the healthy and sustainable dietary patterns were up to 25-29% lower in cost in low-income to lower-middle-income countries, and up to 37% lower in cost on average, for the year 2050. Variants of vegetarian and vegan dietary patterns were generally most affordable, and pescatarian diets were least affordable.
In high-income and upper-middle-income countries, dietary change interventions that incentivise adoption of healthy and sustainable diets can help consumers in those countries reduce costs while, at the same time, contribute to fulfilling national climate change commitments and reduce public health spending. In low-income and lower-middle-income countries, healthy and sustainable diets are substantially less costly than western diets and can also be cost-competitive in the medium-to-long term, subject to beneficial socioeconomic development and reductions in food waste. A fuller accounting of the costs of diets would make healthy and sustainable diets the least costly option in most countries in the future.
Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition and Wellcome Trust.
采用健康且可持续的饮食可能对保障地球自然资源和减少与饮食相关的死亡率至关重要，但如果这些饮食对某些人群来说更昂贵和负担不起，那么它们的采用可能会受到阻碍。因此，我们旨在估算全球健康且可持续饮食的成本。
在这项建模研究中，我们使用了国际比较计划中 150 个国家的区域可比食品价格。我们将这些价格与不同饮食模式的食品需求估计值进行了配对，在建模研究中，这些饮食模式与降低过早死亡率和环境资源需求有关，包括营养均衡的杂食、鱼素、素食和纯素饮食。我们使用了食品浪费的估计值以及对 2050 年前食品需求和价格的预测，以指定食品系统和社会经济变化情景。在全面成本核算中，我们通过将饮食风险的比较风险评估与疾病成本估计值进行配对，来估计与饮食相关的医疗保健成本，并且我们通过将饮食情景与温室气体排放足迹以及碳的社会成本估计值进行配对，来估计气候变化成本。
与当前饮食的成本相比，在中上收入到高收入国家，健康且可持续的饮食模式的成本平均降低了 22-34%（考虑到统计平均值），但在中低收入到低收入国家，成本至少增加了 18-29%。减少食物浪费、有利的社会经济发展情景以及更全面的成本核算，包括饮食相关的气候变化和医疗保健成本在内的饮食成本，增加了我们未来预测中这些饮食模式的可负担性。当这些措施结合使用时，在 2050 年，低收入和中低收入国家的健康且可持续饮食模式的成本降低了 25-29%，平均成本降低了 37%。素食和纯素饮食模式通常是最实惠的，而鱼素饮食模式则是最不实惠的。
在高收入和中上收入国家，鼓励采用健康且可持续饮食的饮食干预措施可以帮助这些国家的消费者降低成本，同时有助于履行国家的气候变化承诺并减少公共卫生支出。在低收入和中低收入国家，健康且可持续的饮食成本大大低于西方饮食，并且在中长期内也具有成本竞争力，前提是社会经济发展有利，减少食物浪费。更全面的饮食成本核算将使健康且可持续的饮食在未来成为大多数国家成本最低的选择。
全球农业和粮食系统营养问题小组以及惠康信托基金会。
