Healthy diets with reduced environmental impact? – The greenhouse gas emissions of various diets adhering to the Dutch food based dietary guidelines

Abstract

Diets adhering to food based dietary guidelines did not substantially reduce GHG emissions compared to the current Dutch diet, when these diets stayed as close to the current diet as possible. Omitting meat from these healthy diets or consuming only foods with relatively low associated GHG emissions both resulted in GHG emission reductions of around a third. These findings may be used to expand food based dietary guidelines with information on how to reduce the environmental impact of healthy diets.