Environmental impacts of the nutrition transition and potential hunger eradication in emerging countries

The shift from traditional diets to a diet characterised by higher consumption of sugars, fats, processed foods and animal-source foods is often termed the nutrition transition. Although research has focused on the health outcomes of this transition, there is an increasing interest in environmental impacts. Here we investigated the potential changes in impacts driven by the nutrition transition in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey between 2011 and 2030. We combined a multi-regional input-output database (EXIOBASE) with food demand projections (OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2018). In a business-as-usual scenario, we assessed the impacts of the projected dietary changes on climate change, marine and freshwater eutrophication, land stress and water scarcity. Then, we built a second, zero-hunger scenario to investigate the impacts due to the eradication of hunger by 2030, a target of Sustainable Development Goal 2. The results show that total growth in environmental impacts through food consumption is the highest for Indonesia (44-54%), India (35-43%) and Mexico (31-48%). The total impacts stay highest in Brazil (land stress), China (eutrophication) and India (climate change and water scarcity), mainly driven by meat, fish and dairy consumption, respectively. The zero-hunger scenario results in similar health improvements across all countries: 0.08 to 0.12 prevented disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) per undernourished person. It would achieve the highest health improvements in India and China with around 375,000 human life equivalents of prevented DALYs combined. There are only slight trade-offs between hunger eradication and environmental goals.

Automated summary

The shift towards diets characterized by higher consumption of sugars, fats, processed foods, and animal-source foods, known as the nutrition transition, has significant environmental impacts in countries like Indonesia, India, and Mexico. Implementing a zero-hunger scenario could lead to similar health improvements globally by preventing disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) per undernourished person.