8 October 2025

The EAT-Lancet headlines (for anyone who still needs to catch up)...

Building on the landmark 2019 report, the EAT-Lancet Commission last week published a scientific update on what constitutes a healthy, sustainable and just food system for everyone on the planet.

The Commission this time has gone further and deeper into understanding the food system. With 70 leading global scientists and a much bigger modelling exercise than before, the report’s conclusions further support the need for food system transformation, and in particular for a transition to plant-rich diets, less meat, less waste, and more sustainable production methods.

JUSTICE: 

• Justice must be at the heart of food system transformation – justice could put food systems at the centre of a post-2030, post-SDG global agenda.
• 50% of the world’s population are not having their food-related human rights met: including rights to adequate and nutritious food, healthy environment and decent work.
• Just 1% of the world’s population is eating within planetary boundaries and is above social foundations; such as access to healthy food, living wages, living in a non-toxic environment free from agricultural pollution, is free from corporate control.
• Women must be at the centre of food system transformation: Women play critical roles in production, harvesting, and feeding their families. They are key.

DIETS & HEALTH:

• Changing diets is about giving people ‘more freedom and choice’, making the most of our diverse foods, so that people can choose health if they want.
• The updated Planetary Health Diet (PHD) is flexible and adaptable to many cultures, dietary needs, and practices: Going back to traditional diets in many cultures would take people towards a PHD, e.g. Mediterranean diet.
• The PHD includes roughly the same amount of dairy consumption (globally) as currently, plus ‘moderate’ amounts of other animal foods; equivalent to 2 chicken breasts/ 2 eggs/ one beef burger per week. Most regions are overconsuming meat, while others, such as South Asia, are not accessing enough. Europe and North America are overconsuming dairy. The diets of the richest 30% contribute 70% of global environmental pressures.
• The PHD could prevent 15 million premature deaths a year, if everyone in the world was able to consume this diet. In general, the PHD emphasises a ‘generous amount’ of fruit and vegetables, whole grains over refined grains and potatoes, plant proteins (legumes, pulses, nuts) over red meat, unsaturated plant oils over saturated fats, and moderate amounts of dairy, fish, eggs and poultry, and limited added sugar and salt.

PLANET & LAND:

• A just, sustainable, healthy food system will require significant restructuring about what is produced and where: Some sectors would need to contract (e.g. ruminant meat down 33%) while others would need to expand (e.g. fruit, veg, nuts up 63%) compared with 2020 levels.
• Food systems are responsible for breaching 5 of the 9 planetary boundaries, including land use change, biosphere/ecosystem function, freshwater change, phosphorus/nitrogen, emissions, and pesticide/antimicrobial use.
• Even with a global energy shift away from fossil fuels, the food system will cause the world to breach 1.5C, if nothing changes.

POLITICS & ACTION:

• All three transformations – diet, agricultural production, waste – must happen simultaneously: Doing one but not the others will be insufficient, for example shifting diets will reduce emission but not as much as if all three were tackled together.
• Commercial and political forces continue to create barriers to change, including by challenging scientific integrity.
• Unprecedented levels of action, including building coalitions and coordination, are needed: This includes building coalitions with actors inside and outside the food system, identifying ‘bundles’ of action for local conditions (e.g. wage increases, financial incentives, school meals, public procurement, farming subsidies), developing national and regional roadmaps for implementation, unlocking finance, and rapidly putting joint plans into action.
• Everyone has a part to play and we have collective responsibility to act. 

For more detail on the report itself, read this from our policy champion, Ali Morpeth.