Most hill farms in Ireland are already carbon neutral, they just need to be measured accurately, Devenish director of human health Prof Alice Stanton has said.
She told the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association (INHFA) AGM on Friday that hill farms are sequestering more carbon than they are producing.
In a wide-ranging presentation, Prof Stanton said that when it comes to nutrition, we need to look at how food affects health.
She said the EAT-Lancet report recommended a doubling of intake of fruit and vegetables, a 90% reduction in red meat and a reduction in dairy consumption.
“Diets that are high in red meat are really causing a tiny amount of deaths, less than 0.2% of all deaths due to nutritional risk factors.
“Diets that are low in milk and their containing micronutrients – so calcium, vitamin D, zinc – they actually cause deaths and disease burden.
“So if we half [our intake] of dairy products we’ll have even more problems,” she said.
Prof Stanton said the rise in obesity has run parallel to the rise of intake of ultra-processed food.
“If we look at the trolleys coming out of supermarkets, 50% of those trolleys on average are filled with processed and ultra-processed foods – biscuits, sweets, cakes, pasta sauces, pizzas. They are not natural whole foods,” she said.
In a slide, Prof Stanton highlighted the nutritional quality of steak versus plant-based burgers, the Beyond Meat burger and Impossible burger.
Clear winner
It showed that while beef steak and plant-based burgers contain a similar amount of calories, when it came to ingredients and salt content, steak was the clear winner nutritionally.
The plant-based burgers had four to five times more salt compared to the steak and she said plant-based burgers are ultra-processed foods, given the amount of ingredients in them.
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Most hill farms in Ireland are already carbon neutral, they just need to be measured accurately, Devenish director of human health Prof Alice Stanton has said.
She told the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association (INHFA) AGM on Friday that hill farms are sequestering more carbon than they are producing.
In a wide-ranging presentation, Prof Stanton said that when it comes to nutrition, we need to look at how food affects health.
She said the EAT-Lancet report recommended a doubling of intake of fruit and vegetables, a 90% reduction in red meat and a reduction in dairy consumption.
“Diets that are high in red meat are really causing a tiny amount of deaths, less than 0.2% of all deaths due to nutritional risk factors.
“Diets that are low in milk and their containing micronutrients – so calcium, vitamin D, zinc – they actually cause deaths and disease burden.
“So if we half [our intake] of dairy products we’ll have even more problems,” she said.
Prof Stanton said the rise in obesity has run parallel to the rise of intake of ultra-processed food.
“If we look at the trolleys coming out of supermarkets, 50% of those trolleys on average are filled with processed and ultra-processed foods – biscuits, sweets, cakes, pasta sauces, pizzas. They are not natural whole foods,” she said.
In a slide, Prof Stanton highlighted the nutritional quality of steak versus plant-based burgers, the Beyond Meat burger and Impossible burger.
Clear winner
It showed that while beef steak and plant-based burgers contain a similar amount of calories, when it came to ingredients and salt content, steak was the clear winner nutritionally.
The plant-based burgers had four to five times more salt compared to the steak and she said plant-based burgers are ultra-processed foods, given the amount of ingredients in them.
Read more
DG Sante to address Farm to Fork's vision of sustainable diets
Omega-3 enriched chicken and eggs shown to lower blood pressure
INHFA proposes planting 10m native Irish trees
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