Recommended reading
My top choice of articles relating to individual and planetary health
No formal news review this week, but I have put together some recommended reading. These are all open access articles.
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WHICH DIET IS BEST FOR THE PLANET?
There is little doubt that a 100% plant-based or vegan diet is best for planetary health and has co-benefits for individual health too. It is great to see the ethics of animal consumption addressed in this article
‘One of the issues that seems to be lacking in many food discussions is the ethical dimension. Every year we slaughter 69 billion chickens, 1.5 billion pigs, 0.65 billion turkeys, 0.57 billion sheep, 0.45 billion goats, and 0.3 billion cattle. That is over nine animals killed for every person on the planet per year — all for nutrition and protein which we know can come from a plant-based diet’
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ORGANIC, PASTURE FED COWS AND LAMB ARE NOT THE SOLUTION
Grateful to George Monbiot for setting the record straight.
‘Pasture-fed meat production, in other words, is the major cause of agricultural sprawl. People rail against urban sprawl: the profligate use of land for housing and infrastructure. But the world’s urban areas occupy just 1% of the planet’s land surface, in comparison with the 26% used for grazing. Agricultural sprawl inflicts a very high ecological opportunity cost: the missing ecosystems that would otherwise exist’.
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IS THERE AN OPTIMAL DIET FOR PREVENTION OF ATHEROSCLEROSIS?
The answer is yes and it involves a diet that is predominantly or exclusively centred around healthy plant-based foods
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UP TO 50% OF CANCER COULD BE PREVENTED
Almost 50% of cancers could be prevented according to a new study from the Global Burden of Disease study group. The main behavioural risks include tobacco smoking, overweight/obesity, alcohol and unhealthy diets. In low-income countries, preventable infection remains a major cause.
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