According to a new report in The Lancet meat and dairy should be treated like tobacco

Scientific journal The Lancet has published a report from 43 interdisciplinary experts from 14 different countries advising that meat and dairy should be treated like tobacco and that subsidies should be scrapped and redirected to ‘sustainable farming for healthful food’.

The report, following a 3 year project focusing on public health, calls for ‘Big Food’ to be treated like ‘Big Tobacco’ and advises that industry leaders be barred from lobbying governments.  The commission states that ‘Malnutrition in all its forms, including obesity, undernutrition and other dietary risks is the leading cause of poor health globally.’  The report also recommends following a mainly plant-based diet.  Professor Tim Lang one of the authors from City, University of London said, “We are currently getting this seriously wrong.  We need a significant overhaul, changing the global food system on a scale not seen before in ways appropriate to each country’s circumstances.”

The Lancet report was published in the same week as the United Nations published the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) report advising people and governments around the world to adopt a more plant-based diet to protect the environment.  The report written by more than 250 scientists and experts from over 70 countries suggests that governments should tax meat to help reduce greenhouse gases and the loss of wildlife habitation concluding that ‘damage to the planet is so dire that people’s health will be increasingly threatened unless urgent action is taken.’