Jan 06, 2026 The EAT-Lancet Commission’s 2025 Report

Approximately fifteen years ago, The Lancet, a British medical journal, launched a series of Commissions to produce expert reports on health issues and related policy questions. The Lancet website now lists ninety-seven such commissions ranging from reports on specific health issues – e.g., Covid-19 – to broad social issues such as climate change and its impact on human health. One of the 97 Commissions (the EAT Commission) aims “to develop and promote a global scientific framework for health, sustainable and just food systems, defining targets for diets that nourish people and protect the planet.” The EAT Commission’s first report, published in 2019, proposed the Planetary Health Diet (PHD). This primarily plant-based diet would sustainably feed 10 billion people while reducing major health and environmental risks. The proposed diet calls for halving meat and sugar intake while increasing consumption of whole grains, nuts, fruits, and vegetables.

The Lancet EAT Commission published a follow-up report in 2025, arguing that the Planetary Health Diet (PHD) could prevent up to 15 million premature deaths annually and halve food-related greenhouse gas emissions by reducing waste and adopting sustainable agricultural practices. The report estimated that a shift to the PHD could lead to lower food prices. At the launch of the report in October 2025, Professor Walter Willett of Harvard University commented that he was surprised at the breadth of the health benefits of the Planetary Health Diet for human well-being. He noted that, while it is well-known that what we eat affects cardiovascular health, the evidence reviewed by the EAT Commission also indicated that a switch to a plant-based diet has beneficial effects on both respiratory and neurological health.

Philip Lymbery, CEO of Compassion in World Farming, welcomed the latest EAT Commission Report and its call for a shift to diets that are not only better for human health but also for planetary sustainability. He noted that transforming food systems “is not a niche concern – it’s a global imperative that touches every plate, every policy and every future.” He also noted that, despite all the talk about reducing food waste, people often overlook the most significant factor contributing to food waste: feeding human-edible crops to animals to produce animal products. Typically, feeding animals to produce human food results in the loss of more than two-thirds of the calories and protein that could sustain human consumers if they were to consume the edible crops fed to animals.

Finally, Lymbery draws on his experience during the EU President’s Strategic Dialogue on the Future of Agriculture, where he engaged with leaders from farming, food science and civil society to produce a shared vision for change for EU agriculture. While the Strategic Dialogue produced a positive report, the European Commission has not yet followed up on its promise (driven by a European Citizens’ Initiative signed by 1.4 million EU citizens but opposed by the European farm lobby) to introduce legislation that would end the keeping of farmed animals in cages in the European Union member states.