Amid the shift toward plant-based foods for health and environmental sustainability, research from the UK University of Oxford reveals that replacing meat and dairy with plant-based food alternatives would reduce nutritional imbalances, mortality and disease risks, environmental resource use and pollution. Consumers can minimize diet costs by prioritizing unprocessed foods like peas, soybeans and beans. The author, Dr. Marco Springmann, senior researcher on Environment and Health, says previous studies on plant-based meat and dairy alternatives “rarely consistently” combine nutritional, environmental and cost assessments. He notes this limits the ability to identify co-benefits and trade-offs across domains.
