The EAT-Lancet report was published in 2019 and features the views of 37 leading scientists from 16 countries in various disciplines, including human health, agriculture, political sciences and environmental sustainability. The report outlines a diet designed to improve both human and planetary health.
The diet is predominantly plant-based, with a third of the estimated 2,500 calories a day provided by wholegrains.
The report recommends more than a 50% cutback in the global consumption of what it describes as “less healthy foods such as added sugars and red meat”.
Since its launch it has seen major attention, with more than 600 policy citations. Whilst it received positive responses from some, it also sparked criticism.
Research from The Lancet in response to backlash shows a digital countermovement ensued in the form of #yes2meat. Although this hashtag was used to promote meat-based diets independently of the report, The Lancet data suggests it became a term used against the Commission, with activity of the hashtag taking place right before as well as during the report’s launch.
The Lancet states that the number of daily posts on Twitter (now known as X) with #yes2meat was high for several weeks after the Commission was released, surpassing the total number of tweets mentioning EAT–Lancet by the end of its observation period (8,586 tweets vs 7,281 tweets).
According to a recent article from the Guardian published last week, in the year following the report’s release, scientists involved in it were ‘targeted online’. One of the authors, Dr Marco Springmann, told the Guardian that he was unable to lead on any study during that year due to the media storm.
Another author, Dr Line Gordon, told the news outlet she was “overwhelmed” with “really nasty” comments in the immediate aftermath.
The 2019 GBD study
Criticism of other reports published by The Lancet have emerged over the years, including the 2019 Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study.
In 2021, international scientists, led by professor Alice Stanton of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, raised doubts over the reliability of the data linking meat consumption to a rise in deaths.
The study, published in October 2020 and supported by a Lancet publication in 2021, claimed global human deaths from eating red meat have seen a 36-fold increase between 2017-2019.
Representatives queried whether the 2019 update had been scrutinised by peers and conducted in line with appropriate procedures to ensure its accuracy.
Open letters from industry bodies followed, including from AHDB, the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers, and the British Meat Processors Association, calling for it to retract its GBD 2019 study.
What was of significant concern, as highlighted by the AHDB, was that the authors of this study published a separate body of work, independent of The Lancet, in late 2022 that contradicted the GBD 2019.
In this research the authors said they found: “Weak evidence of association between unprocessed red meat consumption and colorectal cancer, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes and ischemic heart disease. Moreover … no evidence of an association between unprocessed red meat and ischemic stroke or haemorrhagic stroke.”
A collection of the open letters from representatives were published in The Lancet in 2023, with the journal sharing a separate response to the complaints, in which the authors denied the data was incorrect.
“The surge of activity challenging the first Eat-Lancet report back in 2019 might have been fierce, but it was certainly not without cause,” Luca Daglish, sustainability manager at BMPA told Food Manufacture.
“The dietary recommendations in the initial report – which was backed by some of the world’s largest conglomerates and foundations with both commercial and ideological vested interests – have been proved to have serious flaws and adverse implications for human health if implemented around the world.
“Since then, we’ve seen a significant body of robust scientific evidence, including the collective Dublin Declaration from a group of eminent scientists from around the world, that refutes much of what is claimed in the Eat-Lancet Planetary Health Diet. Furthermore, the ambition of the EAT-Lancet Commission to function as an independent ‘IPCC for food systems’ is misplaced unless underpinned by scientific evidence from actors spanning all interests.
“While those on the Eat-Lancet side of the debate may not like being challenged so rigorously, they must concede that there is a genuine science-led debate still to be had. And they may also concede that their own PR and promotional activities closely resemble those from the opposite side as well as appearing substantially better funded.”
The Lancet Group confirmed with Food Manufacture that the EAT-Lancet Commission does not rely on the data from the 2019 GBD study.
“The EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems was published February 2019 and references GBD 2017 (reference no. 132), it does not reference GBD 2019 which [was] published in 2020,” a spokesperson from the Group said.
Commenting on the 2019 GBD criticism, the spokesperson added: “Scientific discussion and debate are an important part of the scientific process, and the Lancet journals welcome responses from readers and the wider scientific community to content published in the journals.
“You can read a Correspondence from the GBD Risk Factor Collaborators in response to three letters (one, two and three) about estimates of deaths due to red meat intake in GBD 2019 published in March 2023.”
They also pointed to the Group’s editorial policies for further reading.
EAT-Lancet 2.0
The launch of the EAT-Lancet Commission 2.0 is expected in October this year.
Offering further thoughts ahead of its arrival, Daglish said: “Given the commitment to a science-based approach and the publication of a revised planetary health diet, we will hold EAT to their vision of ‘a fair and sustainable global food system for healthy people and planet — leaving no one behind’ and expect that in support of this a balanced, transparent, and science-based debate is conducted.”
Meanwhile, Dr Springmann told climate website DeSmog that he hoped the new research could spark a “more constructive conversation”.
