Are Healthy Diets Better or Worse for the Environment? - Short 1/31/2026
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Why plant-forward diets benefit both your health and the planet
Are healthy diets better or worse for the environment?
As someone who grows food for a living and is always learning about health, this is one of my biggest curiosities. Can we really have both or do we need to pick and choose?
A systematic review by the US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee compiled 20-30 studies on greenhouse gas emissions, water, and land use trying to answer this exact question.
The healthiest diets like Mediterranean, Vegetarian, Plant-Based, and DASH (essentially just diets that are higher in plants) were shown to be better for the environment on average than their more meat focused counterparts.
So, you don't need to sacrifice the environment in order to eat healthier.
The Systematic Review
The 2015 US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee conducted a systematic review examining the relationship between healthy dietary patterns and environmental sustainability. The original review included 15 studies, with an additional 8 studies identified in an update, totaling 23 studies that examined greenhouse gas emissions, land use, water use, and energy consumption.
Source: Alignment of Healthy Dietary Patterns and Environmental Sustainability: A Systematic Review – PMC
Key Finding: Plant-Based Diets Are Better for Both Health and Environment
Across all studies reviewed, consistent evidence indicated that dietary patterns higher in plant-based foods (vegetables, fruits, legumes, seeds, nuts, whole grains) and lower in animal-based foods—especially red meat—are both healthier and associated with lesser environmental impact than current average consumption patterns.
Source: Alignment of Healthy Dietary Patterns and Environmental Sustainability: A Systematic Review – PMC
Diets Studied
The systematic review examined several well-characterized dietary patterns with known health benefits:
- Mediterranean Diet: Emphasizes olive oil, vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, fish, and moderate wine consumption with limited red meat
- DASH Diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension): Emphasizes vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low-fat dairy, poultry, fish, legumes, and nuts while limiting red meat and sugar
- Vegetarian Diets: Including lacto-ovo vegetarian and vegan variations
- Dietary Guidelines-Related Patterns: Diets aligned with national dietary recommendations
All of these patterns were found to be more environmentally sustainable than average consumption patterns.
Source: Alignment of Healthy Dietary Patterns and Environmental Sustainability: A Systematic Review – PMC
Environmental Impact of Meat
Meat—particularly red and processed meat from ruminants (beef and lamb)—was consistently identified as the single food with the greatest environmental impact in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and land use.
One study found that greenhouse gas emissions per gram of protein from ruminant meats were approximately 250 times higher than from legumes.
Source: Alignment of Healthy Dietary Patterns and Environmental Sustainability: A Systematic Review – PMC
Mediterranean Diet Environmental Benefits
A study examining the Mediterranean dietary pattern in Spain found that adherence to a Mediterranean diet compared to the current Spanish diet would reduce:
- Greenhouse gas emissions by 72%
- Agricultural land use by 58%
- Energy consumption by 52%
- Water consumption by 33%
Source: Alignment of Healthy Dietary Patterns and Environmental Sustainability: A Systematic Review – PMC
The Bottom Line
You don't need to choose between eating for your health and eating for the planet. The same dietary patterns that reduce your risk of chronic disease—those rich in plants and lower in red meat—also happen to be better for environmental sustainability.
That's a win-win.