Take the minutes
We then multiplied this number by the corresponding food profiles that we previously developed. Taking into account more than 6,000 risk estimates specific to each age, gender, disease and risk, and the fact that there are about a half-million minutes in a year, we calculated the health burden that comes with consuming one gram’s worth of food for each of the dietary risk factors.įor example, we found that, on average, 0.45 minutes are lost per gram of any processed meat that a person eats in the U.S. Our team took that population-level epidemiological data and adapted it down to the level of individual foods. The Global Burden of Disease determines the risks and benefits associated with multiple environmental, metabolic and behavioral factors – including 15 dietary risk factors. We based our Health Nutritional Index on a large epidemiological study called the Global Burden of Disease, a comprehensive global study and database that was developed with the help of more than 7,000 researchers around the world. Austin Thomason/Michigan Photography and University of Michigan, CC BY-ND How did we crunch the numbers? Foods scoring well, shown in green, have beneficial effects on human health and a low environmental footprint. Relative positions of select foods, from apples to hot dogs, are shown on a carbon footprint versus nutritional health map. This is a substantial improvement for such a limited dietary change. consumer by one-third and add 48 healthy minutes of life per day. Our study also showed that substituting only 10% of daily caloric intake of beef and processed meats for a diverse mix of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and select seafood could reduce, on average, the dietary carbon footprint of a U.S. In comparison, we found that eating a serving size of 30 grams of nuts and seeds provides a gain of 25 minutes of healthy life – that is, an increase in good-quality and disease-free life expectancy.
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For instance, we found that eating one hot dog costs a person 36 minutes of “healthy” life. The Health Nutritional Index that we developed turns this information into minutes of life lost or gained per serving size of each food item consumed. We analyzed the individual foods based on their composition to calculate each food item’s net benefits or impacts. In our new study in the research journal Nature Food, we provide some of the first concrete numbers for the health burden of various food choices. Ultimately, we wanted to know: Are drastic dietary changes required to improve our individual health and reduce environmental impacts? And does the entire population need to become vegan to make a meaningful difference for human health and that of the planet? Putting hard numbers on food choices We are working to gain a deeper understanding beyond the often overly simplistic animal-versus-plant diet debate and to identify environmentally sustainable foods that also promote human health.īuilding on this multi-disciplinary expertise, we combined 15 nutritional health-based dietary risk factors with 18 environmental indicators to evaluate, classify and prioritize more than 5,800 individual foods. We are part of a team of researchers with expertise in food sustainability and environmental life cycle assessment, epidemiology and environmental health and nutrition. That’s the gap we hope to fill with our research.
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And many people know that the food choices they make affect their own health as well as that of the planet.īut on a daily basis, it’s hard to know how much individual choices, such as buying mixed greens at the grocery store or ordering chicken wings at a sports bar, might translate to overall personal and environmental health. Vegetarian and vegan options have become standard fare in the American diet, from upscale restaurants to fast-food chains. University of Michigan provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation US. This research was funded by an unrestricted grant from the National Dairy Council and the University of Michigan Dow Sustainability Fellowship. The funding organizations did not have a role in the manuscript development. has received funding on unrelated projects from US EPA, USDA, American Chemistry Council Long-Range Research Initiative, and Unilever, and became part, after submission of the present manuscript of the Sustainable Nutrition Scientific Board created with the unrestricted support from Nutella. Research Associate in Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan