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Abstract:
Summary
Background Affordability limits healthy diet adoption, especially in low-income settings, yet dietary shifts are key for the transition to sustainable food systems. This study models how a diet in line with the 2025 EAT-Lancet Commission dietary transition may impact calorie availability, share of income spent on food, nutrition availability, and food prices.
Methods
We use the International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT) to estimate food price changes under three alternative shared socioeconomic pathways, and global adoption of a 2025 EAT-Lancet Commission diet by 2050. We analyze price shifts for the two cheapest commodities per food group, in each region, weighted on calories availability per dollar. Additionally, we assess gaps between nutrient availability and Reference Nutrient Intake (RNI), and changes in the share of income spent on food for the whole diet.
Findings
Adoption of the 2025 EAT-Lancet Commission diet leads to heterogeneous impacts on share of income spent on food and nutrient availability, with gains in folate, iron, and zinc, but decline in vitamin A by 2050. Combined price index for the cheapest two commodities declines by 2050 compared to 2020 in both higher and lower-income countries.
Interpretation
While dietary shifts toward 2025 EAT-Lancet Commission diet could offset some of the changes in prices seen in a business-as-usual world, we could still observe unintended effects on nutrient availability ratio, especially in lower-income countries. The decreasing price index for the cheapest two commodities reflects market adjustments to changes in demand and supply under the scenario assumptions. The observed nutrient deficiencies suggest the 2025 EAT-Lancet Commission diet limits
on animal-sourced foods may be too strict for lower-income countries. This could exacerbate issues related to nutrient availability from animal source foods (Vitamin A for example) especially if there are no possibilities for meeting these nutritional requirements with supplementation or with other sources of dietary nutrients.
