Researchers have published a nutrition index this week with the aim of informing of the guidelines and helping Americans achieve healthier and more stable diets in the environment. The index ranked food according to the minutes gained or lost of healthy living per serving, with processed meats and sugary drinks among the major offenders.
The results included more than 5,000 foods in the U.S. diet classified by the burden on health and environmental impacts.
“We use the results to report marginal dietary substitutions, which are realistic and feasible,” the authors wrote. “We see that small food-targeted substitutes can achieve compelling nutritional benefits and reduce environmental impact.”
The foods studied ranged from 74 minutes lost to 80 minutes gained per serving. Sugary drinks, hot dogs, burgers and breakfast sandwiches were associated with most of the minutes of healthy living lost, while fruits, starch-free and mixed vegetables, prepared cereals and cooked grains were gone. associate with the largest gains.
More specifically, the researchers found that consuming an 85-gram serving of chicken wings resulted in 3.3 minutes of life lost due to harmful sodium and trans fatty acids, while a hot veal puppy in a bun it translated into about 36 minutes lost “largely due to the detrimental effect of the processed meat,” the study authors wrote. In addition, peanut butter and gelatin sandwiches were associated with a 33-minute increase.
Foods such as salted peanuts, baked salmon and rice with beans were also associated with gains of 10 to 15 minutes.
Researchers from the University of Michigan School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, published results in the journal Nature, detailing their newly developed Health Nutritional Index, based on the 2016 GBD study on components of dietary risk and harmful health effects related to certain foods.
“Previous studies investigating healthy or sustainable diets have often reduced their results to a discussion of plant-based versus animal-based foods, with the latter stigmatized as the least nutritious and sustainable,” the study says. “While we find that plant-based foods tend to perform better, there are considerable variations in both plant-based and animal-based foods that should be recognized before justifying these widespread inferences.”
The researchers also classified foods by nutritional and environmental impact or by short-term global warming. Environmentally sustainable healthy foods include nuts, fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and some seafood, while foods with poor nutritional value and production are associated with high environmental impacts (i.e., greenhouse gas emissions). greenhouse) include beef, processed meat, pork and lamb, cheese-based foods and certain salmon dishes. In contrast, most poultry, dairy, egg-based foods and cooked grains fell into an intermediate zone.
“According to previous studies, this suggests that nutritionally beneficial foods do not always generate the lowest environmental impacts and vice versa,” the study authors wrote.
Finally, the researchers found that switching to 10% of the daily caloric intake of beef and processed meat from fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, and certain seafood could yield significant health benefits, with the team citing a gain of about 48 minutes per person per day. Dietary carbon footprint 33% smaller.