Not time yet for Indians to lose sleep on meat diet
New Delhi: An international panel has released the first scientific targets for healthy diets worldwide through sustainable food production that will require Indians to increase their protein consumption and curtail their intake of potatoes.
The panel, the EAT-Lancet Commission, has determined that daily healthy diets should contain at least 35 per cent calories from whole grains and tubers, protein sources mainly from plants but including up to 14 grams meat per day, and 500 grams of vegetables and fruits.
A global shift from present-day diets towards the proposed target diets could likely avert about 11 million premature deaths a year, the panel has said in a report published in The Lancet on Wednesday.
This shift to healthy diets will require a 50 per cent reduction in global consumption of unhealthy foods, including red meat and sugar, and a doubling of healthy foods such as fruits, nuts, vegetables and legumes.
But the changes needed would have to vary from region to region. For instance, North Americans on average consume 6.5 times the recommended amount of meat, while people in South Asian countries eat only half the recommended amount.
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