ArticleThe American journal of clinical nutrition2023
Popular diets as selected by adults in the United States show wide variation in carbon footprints and diet quality.
Article in The American journal of clinical nutrition, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed.
- Ecolabels and the Healthfulness and Carbon Footprint of Restaurant Meal Selections: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2025Trial
- Overestimating the Prevalence of Vegans, Vegetarians and Reducetarians Reflects Basic Psychological Biases in Estimating Proportions.International journal of psychology : Journal international de psychologie · 2026Article
- Dietary patterns and mortality in clinical obesity: comparative risks of meat-based, pescatarian, and vegetarian diets.Nutrition journal · 2026Article
- Translating Science to Improve Health-a Report from the "Agriculture and Diet: Value Added for Nutrition, Translation, and Adaptation in a Global Ecology" (ADVANTAGE) Project Working Group 5.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Review
- Development and Evaluation of a Planetary Health Diet Index: The Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America Study.Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics · 2026Article
- Environmental footprint of a soybean-supplemented low-fat vegan diet in postmenopausal women: a secondary analysis of a randomised clinical trial.BMJ nutrition, prevention & health · 2026Article
- Diets for Dual Cardiovascular and Planetary Health: A Scoping Review.Current atherosclerosis reports · 2025Article
- Is the Planeterranean Diet the Key Driver Towards Health and Environment Promotion? A Narrative Review.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Ultraprocessed Food Consumption and Pre-Farmgate Greenhouse Gas Emissions Among United States Adults from 2007-2010.Current developments in nutrition · 2025Article
- Vegan and omnivore diets in relation to nutrient intake and greenhouse gas emissions in Iceland.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Relationship Between Brazilian Dietary Patterns and the Global Syndemic: Data from the CUME Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- The Carbon Footprint of Diets with Different Exclusions of Animal-Derived Products: Exploratory Polish Study.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet pattern in the United States is associated with sustainability trade-offs.Nutrition journal · 2024Article
- Exploring Consumption of Ultra-Processed Foods and Diet Quality in the Context of Popular Low Carbohydrate and Plant-Based Dietary Approaches.Food science & nutrition · 2024Article
- Augmenting the National Nutrition Data System to Promote Diet Sustainability Analyses.Current developments in nutrition · 2024Article
- Dietary quality and dietary greenhouse gas emissions in the USA: a comparison of the planetary health diet index, healthy eating index-2015, and dietary approaches to stop hypertension.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2024Article
- Developing messages to encourage healthy, sustainable dietary substitutions: A qualitative study with US emerging adults.Appetite · 2024Article
- Food Compass and the challenge of sustainability on the route towards healthful diets.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Associations of Dietary Intake with Cardiovascular Risk in Long-Term "Plant-Based Eaters": A Secondary Analysis of a Cross-Sectional Study.Nutrients · 2024Article
- Body composition and COFrontiers in public health · 2024Observational
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundCarbon footprints of vegetarian, pescatarian, and other popular diets have been studied previously, but mostly as idealized versions modeled to meet dietary recommendations. Less is known about the footprints of popular diets as they are consumed by US adults, and thus the potential trade-offs with diet quality for free-living individuals.
objectivesThis study estimated the carbon footprint and diet quality of popular diets as selected by a nationally representative sample of US consumers, including the recently trending keto- and paleo-style diets.
methodsThe 2005-2010 NHANES 24-h recall data were used to categorize individual adult diets (n = 16,412) into 6 types: vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, paleo, keto, and all other diets, referred to here as omnivore diets. Average daily greenhouse gas emissions in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents per 1000 kcal (kg CO
resultsThe average carbon footprints of vegan (0.69 ± 0.05 kg CO
conclusionsOur results highlight the nuances when evaluating the nutritional quality of diets and their carbon footprints. On average, pescatarian diets may be the healthiest, but plant-based diets have lower carbon footprints than other popular diets, including keto- and paleo-style diets.
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