Irish diets are making us and our environment ‘sick’ and need to radically change, a stark new report has found.
‘Fixing Food Together’ is a damning indictment of the health and environmental consequences of how our food is produced and consumed.
Its commissioners, The Climate and Health Alliance, says the system is fuelling premature death and disability because of diet-related chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes and obesity, as well as destroying nature.
Read more: 'We would need three planets if everyone lived like Irish folks'
The alliance, which includes expert groups like the Royal College of Physicians, universities, hospitals and health NGOs, is now calling for a special Cabinet sub-committee to oversee a food revolution - with farming playing a key part in the solution.
Spokesman and Irish Heart Foundation chief executive, Tim Collins, said: “This is like a slow-motion disaster unfolding before our eyes.
“The global food system we have created can feed the world but has also made us heavier and sicker, it destroys wildlife, pollutes our rivers and air and produces a third of our greenhouse gas emissions.
“In Ireland, we now have a disturbing overconsumption-undernutrition paradox.”
The 138 page report, led by Irish Heart Foundation dietitian Orna O’Brien, warns the lack of policies to shape a healthy food environment in Ireland has allowed ultra-processed foods, excessive red meat and processed meats to dominate our plates at the expense of fruit, vegetables, plant proteins, wholegrains and sustainable seafood.
It was launched at a Climate and Health Alliance conference attended by Minister of State Pippa Hackett and experts from the UK and Ireland in Dublin on Tuesday.
It calls for six key changes:
- Ending the junk food cycle
- Moving away from overconsuming processed foods
- Promoting more plant based diets
- Reducing food waste
- Improving agricultural practices and land use
- A policy approach to spark behaviour change
Ms O’Brien said: “We need to more than halve the carbon footprint of what we eat, and to achieve such a huge reduction we need to focus on policy level changes and structural systems changes.”
The report coincides with new Ipsos research commissioned by the Irish Heart Foundation, showing just one in five of us understand how large an impact reducing our intake of red and processed meat or ultra-processed foods will have on lowering greenhouse gases.
Around 40%, however, said public information campaigns should be developed to reduce excessive consumption of such foods and promote healthier, more sustainable foods.
Almost a third (32%) would favour higher taxes being levied on unhealthy and unsustainable foods.
And nearly two-thirds (64%), believe the Government is not providing enough funding or support to farmers to encourage climate-change practices.
“These findings relate to what the Climate and Health Alliance paper is saying: our current food system is harming human and planetary health and we need to transition to a healthy food system in Ireland in partnership with the agriculture industry,” added Mr Collins.
“Poor diet kills one in five people globally.
“We need to realise if we eat to maintain a healthy weight and not overeat, this reduces food waste and means we are not contributing to extra greenhouse gas emissions.
“It is no longer acceptable to chase economic gain at the expense of the environment.”
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