The common paths of the Planetary Health Diet, by the Eat Lancet Commission, and the Mediterranean diet
by Francesco De Augustinis
A drastic reduction in animal proteins, a larger use of “healthy” fats, such as olive oil or dried fruit, the central role of vegetables, legumes and whole grains. But also the attention to short supply chains, the predilection for fresh products over processed foods from fast food or supermarkets, the reduction of sugars, the increase of physical activity, the care for the territory, the close link between those who produce and those who consume.
These are some of the main ingredients that have in common the “Planetary Health Diet”, formulated by Eat Lancet Commission, and the Mediterranean diet, according to what emerged during a conference on food systems, sustainability and climate action, which was held in april 9th in Delphi, Greece, during the Delphi Economic Forum.
“Our food choices have an important impact on our environmental footprint, including our greenhouse gas emissions and on our health,” Walter Willet, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, said at the conference. Willet is one of the best-known experts in nutrition and sustainable diets, and a leading member of the Eat Lancet Commission. The research group, related to the famous scientific journal Lancet, is made up of 35 scientists from 17 countries, who in recent years have formulated the “Planetary Health Diet”.
“If we consider that we will be 9.8 billion people by 2050, using science to create a healthy diet for the planet and for people is a race against time,” Willet said.
From a food perspective, the diet is basically a plant based diet, where 50% of foods are fruit and vegetables, grains are predominantly whole with minimal percentages of refined flours, there is a drastic reduction in animal proteins – meat, milk, cheese, eggs – in favor of a larger use of vegetable protein sources, such as legumes or soya, and foods without saturated fats, such as olive oil and some seed oils, such as rapeseed or soya oil, or dried fruit.
According to calculations by Willet’s research group, a widespread adoption of this diet globally would lead to a greater longevity (50 million fewer deaths each year), a collapse in greenhouse gas emissions (-29% in the food sector), and the halving (-50%) of land use, largely used for the cultivation of feeds. “Instead of growing crops to feed animals,” Willet said, we could use soil “to improve CO2 capture and other better purposes.”
The true Mediterranean diet
The adherence of the Planetary Health Diet with the Mediterranean diet was at the center of the conference, organized by Center for Public Health Research and Education of the Academy of Athens in collaboration with Harvard University.
“It’s about taking the example of the Mediterranean diet in other parts of the world and trying to produce and consume locally,” Dr Antonia Trichopoulou, a prominent member of the Academy of Athens, usually referred to as “the mother of the Mediterranean diet”, said. According to Trichopoulou, the authentic Mediterranean diet is a model, which follows principles that can be replicated in other parts of the world, recovering elements of other traditional diets.
“You can’t follow a Mediterranean diet in Greenland,” she said, “but you can find ways to choose plant-based ingredients” to base your diet on.
According to Trichopoulou, today the term “Mediterranean diet” is often used improperly, while the new generations, even in countries such as Greece and Italy, continue to lose ties with this lifestyle and diet.
“There is misinformation and misuse of the term Mediterranean diet, based on what some want to promote,” she said. “I remember seeing a packet of chips labeled ‘Mediterranean Diet’ because they were fried in olive oil.”
Do Italians follow the Mediterranean diet?
According to a study published in 2024 from the Italian Istituto Superiore di Sanità, in Italy only 5% of the population has an “excellent adherence” to the Mediterranean diet, more often students, women under 40, vegetarians and vegans, while the vast majority of the population (87.7%) only partially follows the diet.
“With the phenomena of urbanization and industrialization, we have witnessed a real nutritional transition, characterized by an increasingly evident deviation from this dietary model and at the same time a Westernization of eating habits,” Marco Silano, director of the Department of Cardiovascular, Dysmetabolic and Aging Diseases of the ISS, said, commenting on the results of the study.
In Delphi there was also a delegation from Pollica, a town in Cilento recognized by UNESCO as an “emblematic community” for the Mediterranean diet in Italy.
“The term Mediterranean diet is really overused,” Stefano Pisani, mayor of Pollica, told us. “It would be enough for all those who talk about it to go and see what UNESCO wrote when it recognized that intangible cultural heritage, and discover that it is much more than a simple diet.”
According to Sara Roversi, founder of the Future Food Industry, which collaborates with the Cilento municipality on education and promotion projects, “in recent years the Mediterranean diet has become somewhat the prerogative of large industries which have made it a claim of marketing.”
“We need to start bringing back into cultivation all the abandoned marginal areas of our wonderful country, which has soils and landscapes that are of inestimable value,” Roversi said. “We must have the same care for our coasts, for our marine areas, and we should have the same care in taking time, to choose what to eat, to go to a market rather than to a large supermarket, which makes us buy something boxed that has no history, does not have a path that has taken care of the ecosystem that generated it.”
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