ArticleThe American journal of clinical nutrition2022
Single-item substitutions can substantially reduce the carbon and water scarcity footprints of US diets.
Article in The American journal of clinical nutrition, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Effect of food swap recommendations on the healthfulness and carbon footprint of grocery purchases in a naturalistic online store: A randomized parallel trial.PLoS medicine · 2026Trial
- Ecolabels and the Healthfulness and Carbon Footprint of Restaurant Meal Selections: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2025Trial
- Developing ecolabels to encourage sustainable eating in restaurants: A randomized experiment.PloS one · 2025Trial
- Protein- and nutrient-normalized environmental footprints of university canteen meals.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Augmenting the National Nutrition Data System to Promote Diet Sustainability Analyses.Current developments in nutrition · 2024Article
- The Impact of Sustainability Courses: Are They Effective in Improving Diet Quality and Anthropometric Indices?Nutrients · 2024Article
- Environmental-, Climate-, and Health-Related Dietary Motivations Are Associated With Higher Diet Quality in a National Sample of US Adults With Lower Incomes.Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics · 2024Article
- Developing messages to encourage healthy, sustainable dietary substitutions: A qualitative study with US emerging adults.Appetite · 2024Article
- Partial substitutions of animal with plant protein foods in Canadian diets have synergies and trade-offs among nutrition, health and climate outcomes.Nature food · 2024Article
- The origins and growth of the Meatless Monday movement.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Review
- Modeled sustainability impacts of increasing pork consumption among adults in the United States.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Article
- Consumption of foods with the highest nutritional quality, and the lowest greenhouse gas emissions and price, differs between socio-economic groups in the UK population.Public health nutrition · 2023Article
- Simple dietary substitutions can reduce carbon footprints and improve dietary quality across diverse segments of the US population.Nature food · 2023Article
- Impact of Health, Environmental, and Animal Welfare Messages Discouraging Red Meat Consumption: An Online Randomized Experiment.Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics · 2023Article
- Current dietary intake of the Japanese population in reference to the planetary health diet-preliminary assessment.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Article
- Food-Level Analysis to Identify Dietary Choices With the Highest Nutritional Quality and Lowest Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Price.Frontiers in nutrition · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundHuman food systems substantially affect the environment, but the impacts vary widely by food. Guidance to individuals to reduce their dietary impacts would benefit from easy advice, but little is known about the specific population impacts of simple changes on self-selected diets.
objectivesThe objective was to estimate the potential impact of a single dietary substitution on the carbon and water scarcity footprints of self-selected diets in the United States.
methodsThis cross-sectional modeling study used 24-h dietary recall data from the 2005-2010 waves of the NHANES. Greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) in the production of foods as well as irrigated water use, characterized by its relative scarcity at production locations, were matched to all foods in the recalls using previously developed databases. Impacts were summed to create carbon and water scarcity footprints for diets (n = 16,800) of adults aged >18 y. Diet quality was assessed using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI). Foods with the highest impact on GHGE and selected additional foods were substituted for calorically equivalent, less impactful items. Footprints were calculated before and after these hypothetical substitutions.
resultsThe highest impact foods were all beef items, and 19.8% of individuals consumed them (n = 3320). After substitution of these items with poultry or pork, the mean carbon and water scarcity footprints among those with substitutions significantly decreased (P < 0.001) by 48.4 ± 0.6% and 29.9 ± 0.4%, respectively. Across the entire sample, these represented mean reductions of 9.6 ± 0.3% and 5.9 ± 0.2%, respectively. The mean HEI after substitutions was 3.6 ± 0.1% higher than before (P < 0.001). None of the selected additional foods had population impacts as large as the beef substitutions.
conclusionsSimple substitutions can be made in individuals' diets to substantially reduce their carbon and water scarcity footprints without sacrificing dietary quality. Such substitutions may be easier to promote than complex dietary patterns.
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