This text was written by Irene Cresci
The Summer School offers vegetarian meals by default, with the possibility to adjust to vegan and gluten-free options. This choice stems from both health and environmental reasons.
The World Health Organisation recommends a “largely plant based” diet, with most energy coming from legumes and wholegrain cereals. For instance, taking the Mediterannean diet, which is considered a healthy and sustainable diet, meat and fish are not recommended for daily consumption, but have limited weekly portions.
Current food systems are responsible for 21–37% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions according to IPCC. Moreover, IPCC recognises a shift to healthy and sustainable diets as a key solutions and finds that vegan and vegetarian diets have a higher mitigation potential than other diets. A famous study by the EAT-Lancet Commission identifies win-win solutions (that is, diets which are both healthy and environmentally sustainable) in diets which are mostly plant-based and with few animal products.
As the Summer School only provides lunches, this will have a limited impact on your usual diet, but we encourage you to deepen your knowledge on the topic and make choices for other meals according to what is best for your health and planetary health.
References
World Health Organization: WHO. (2019, November 15). Healthy diet. https://www.who.int/health-topics/healthy-diet#tab=tab_2
Andreia. (2017, November 14). DIETS IN TRANSITION IN a GLOBALIZED WORLD: THE MED DIET AS a MODEL OF SUSTAINABLE DIET ACKNOWLEDGED IN THE 2017 REPORT ON NUTRITION AND FOOD SYSTEMS OF HIGH-LEVEL PANEL OF EXPERTS OF THE COMMITTEE ON WORLD FOOD SECURITY – IFMED. IFMeD. https://www.ifmed.org/diets-transition-globalized-world-med-diet-model-sustainable-diet-acknowledged-2017-report-nutrition-food-systems-high-level-panel-experts-committee/
https://www.ifmed.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/CS_CONFERENZA_MONDIALE_IFMED_def.pdf
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