ReviewNature food2023
Vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters and meat-eaters in the UK show discrepant environmental impacts.
Review in Nature food, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 94 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
94 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Carbon footprint of food production: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Scientific reports · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- The effect of increasing availability of vegetarian meals on their sales in worksite cafeterias: a stepped-wedge cluster randomised controlled trial.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2026Trial
- Effect of roasted purple laver (nori) on vitamin BEuropean journal of nutrition · 2024Trial
- How Does the Australian Media Report on the Health and Environmental Impacts of Meat Consumption and Production? A Media Analysis.Health promotion journal of Australia : official journal of Australian Association of Health Promotion Professionals · 2026Article
- Large nutritional and environmental improvements can be achieved across the product portfolios of major UK food and beverage manufacturers.Nature food · 2026Article
- Dietary patterns and mortality in clinical obesity: comparative risks of meat-based, pescatarian, and vegetarian diets.Nutrition journal · 2026Article
- Trends in Planetary Health Diet Index for the United States (PHDI-US) Scores and Associations With Mortality Risk in the United States Between 1999 and 2020.Food science & nutrition · 2026Article
- Environmental and economic impact of a vegan versus traditional mediterranean diet: OMNIVEG study.European journal of nutrition · 2026Article
- Environmental impact of food consumption: determinants of carbon and water footprints in an Italian population.European journal of public health · 2026Article
- The rise of plant-based milk alternatives: exploring nutritional, health, and sustainability impacts.Food chemistry: X · 2026Review
- The Role of Plant-Based Diets for Cancer Survivors and Planetary Health.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2026Review
- Policy mix for a low-carbon food system.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- A path to sustainable and healthy diets: modeling ovo-lacto-vegetarian food-based dietary guidelines.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Measuring carbon capability beyond the carbon footprint.Communications sustainability · 2026Article
- Let Them Eat Plants! Two Arguments for Raising Children on a (Predominantly) Plant-Based Diet.Res publica (Liverpool, England) · 2026Article
- Reducing disease burden through sustainable diets: a modeling approach for national food-based dietary guidelines.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Diets for Dual Cardiovascular and Planetary Health: A Scoping Review.Current atherosclerosis reports · 2025Article
- Exploring eight-year trajectories of diet-related environmental pressures in the NutriNet-Santé cohort.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Health impacts of climate change and role of the health sector in mitigating carbon emissions.Urologie (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2025Review
34 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Modelled dietary scenarios often fail to reflect true dietary practice and do not account for variation in the environmental burden of food due to sourcing and production methods. Here we link dietary data from a sample of 55,504 vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters and meat-eaters with food-level data on greenhouse gas emissions, land use, water use, eutrophication risk and potential biodiversity loss from a review of 570 life-cycle assessments covering more than 38,000 farms in 119 countries. Our results include the variation in food production and sourcing that is observed in the review of life-cycle assessments. All environmental indicators showed a positive association with amounts of animal-based food consumed. Dietary impacts of vegans were 25.1% (95% uncertainty interval, 15.1-37.0%) of high meat-eaters (≥100 g total meat consumed per day) for greenhouse gas emissions, 25.1% (7.1-44.5%) for land use, 46.4% (21.0-81.0%) for water use, 27.0% (19.4-40.4%) for eutrophication and 34.3% (12.0-65.3%) for biodiversity. At least 30% differences were found between low and high meat-eaters for most indicators. Despite substantial variation due to where and how food is produced, the relationship between environmental impact and animal-based food consumption is clear and should prompt the reduction of the latter.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.