EAT Lancet report

EAT Lancet Commission report calls for healthy, sustainable and just food systems

On 3rd October, the 2025 EAT-Lancet Commission report was published and findings were presented at a 2-day conference in Stockholm. The report, compiled by 70 leading experts from 35 countries across the world, builds on the previous publication in 2019, and is a scientific update on what defines a healthy, sustainable, just food system.  

Delegates at the Stokholm conference heard evidence from the report which focusses on these three foundational elements - Healthy Diet (Planetary Health Diet), Food Systems, and Justice - and includes eight domain-specific solutions, with 23 associated actions, designed to advance health, environment and justice goals.  The solutions suggested are:

•        Protect and promote traditional healthy diets
•        Create accessible and affordable food environments that increase demand for healthy diets
•        Implement sustainable production practices that store carbon, create habitat, and improve water quality and availability
•        Halt agricultural conversion of intact ecosystems
•        Reduce food loss and waste
•        Secure decent working conditions across the food system
•        Ensure meaningful voice and representation for food systems workers
•        Recognise and protect marginalised groups

Members of the British Nutrition Foundation’s team were present at the conference and reflected that:

• 2.8 billion people can’t afford a healthy diet — the challenge is not about making food “cheap” but ensuring access to affordable food without compromising nutrition or sustainability.
• There are exciting models of public procurement that take a holistic approach — connecting local farmers, supply chains and school meals to create value across the food system.
• Science provides the framework to mobilise systems change — but it is collaboration and connection that turn that science into impact.
• The growing consumer interest in ultra-processed foods is an opportunity: there was a call to action to deepen understanding of the diet–health link, while investing in mechanistic research that helps the food industry innovate responsibly for public good.
• Storytelling matters. Strong narratives can shift behaviour, but real transformation requires policy change, not just individual action.
• We must continue to build partnerships across science, education, policy and industry to turn insights into action — harnessing the growing convergence and alignment at this critical time, when people recognise the need for meaningful and urgent change, and ensuring that healthy and sustainable diets are within everyone’s reach.

The report includes an updated Planetary Health Diet. It is stated that this represents a dietary pattern that supports optimal health outcomes and can be applied globally for different populations and different contexts, while also supporting cultural and regional variation. The diet is rich in plants: whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes comprise a large proportion of foods consumed, with moderate or small amounts of fish, dairy, poultry, eggs and meat recommended for daily consumption. The Planetary Health Diet is based entirely on the direct effects of different diets on human health, rather than environmental criteria. However, evidence suggests that adopting this eating pattern would reduce the environmental impacts of most current diets. The Commission estimates that a shift to this dietary pattern could avert approximately 15 million deaths per year (27% of total deaths worldwide). The recommendations (with ranges) of the Planetary Health Diet are set out in the table below.

The balance of foods in the Planetary Health Diet is substantially different from current dietary intakes in the UK, suggesting for example approximately 3-4 portions of wholegrain foods a day, one portion a day of nuts and of legumes and limiting red meat to around one portion a week. This compares with estimated average intakes of wholegrains around 28g/d[1] for adults (vs 735g/d), around 32g[2] of legumes (e.g. beans, lentils pulses and peas) (vs 75g), 17g/d of fish[3] (vs 30g/d) and 52g³ on average per day of red and processed meat (vs 15g/d).

We welcome the focus on healthy and sustainable diets brought by the publication of the 2025 EAT Lancet Commission report. There is an urgency to act to transform the food system, but we must ensure that the transition does not exacerbate existing dietary inequalities. As well as thinking about environmental sustainability we must take this opportunity to improve the population’s diet on our journey to Net Zero. 

Practically this means encouraging consumption of a plant-rich diet, as shown in the UK Eat Well Guide. A plant-rich diet is one that includes a plenty of vegetables, fruits, wholegrains, lentils, beans and other pulses as well as nuts and seeds. 

From a UK perspective, shifting our population towards a more plant-rich diet is key to meeting dietary recommendations for fruit and vegetables, increasing fibre intakes, and improving dietary quality. Currently only 4% of adults and young people aged 11-18 years meet fibre recommendations and only 9% of 11- to 18-year-olds and 17% of adults meet the 5-A-Day recommendation. We also need to address high intakes of fat, sugars and salt.

A plant-rich diet does not necessarily mean excluding animal foods. Foods from animal sources can be important sources of essential nutrients such as iron, zinc, calcium, iodine and vitamin B12, all of which can be inadequate in UK diets especially in nutritionally vulnerable groups such as such as children, adolescents, pregnant women, and older adults. Evidence suggests that encouraging increased consumption of a wide range of plant foods as part of a healthy balanced diet as highlighted by the EAT Lancet report and previous research on the Eatwell Guide as well as other plant-rich dietary patters, e.g. the Mediterranean diet, will have significant benefits for both public and planetary health.

We need to work together across the food system to make it easier for people across our society to access a healthy, balanced, plant-rich diet. Through our work, we provide a bridge between nutrition science, government, industry, education and people, and a conduit to a healthier, more sustainable food environment for all.

EAT Lancet Planetary Health diet: Dietary targets for a healthy reference diet for adults, with possible ranges, for a population-level energy intake of approximately 2400 kcal/day (Rockstrom et al 2025)