Diet as a Healthy and Cost-Effective Instrument in Environmental Protection

This article shows that the choice of an officially recommended, healthy diet can be an effective tool in environmental protection. At the same time, it contributes in resolving the increasing problems of lifestyle diseases. A vegetarian diet is even more effective. Ultimately, the alternative diets can relieve the global problem of famine affecting approximately 800 million people, and possibly even the looming energy crisis. With Denmark as an example, it is shown that the recommended healthy food is 20% cheaper for the consumer than the current dietary practice. Choosing the healthy diet instead of the present one contributes more to protecting the environment and simultaneously saving 10% gasoline and 10% on domestic electricity and heating. Recent studies demonstrate that a diet shift from the usual Danish Diet to the New Nordic Diet is highly cost-effective when the price, health benefits and environmental benefits of both diets are calculated. The New Nordic Diet is simultaneously palatable, healthy, and environmentally sustainable. Politicians are found to be mainly responsible for motivating the individual’s choice of diet, and a recent Danish study showed that the public wants them to act. Among the multitude of available instruments, for example, legislation, required labeling, campaigns, education, advertisements, regulating availability, and various tax instruments, it is argued, by means of analogy, that lowering sales taxes on healthy, environmentally friendly foods and beverages while increasing taxes on unhealthy, environmentally harmful foods and beverages is a reasonable and effective way forward. But for maximum effectiveness, a combination of strategies will be necessary.