Is a diet low in greenhouse gas emissions a nutritious diet? - Analyses of self-selected diets in the LifeGene study.

Background: Climate change is an urgent global issue and the food sector is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE). Here we study if a diet low in GHGE could be a nutritious diet compared to the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations (NNR).

Methods: The environmental impact of foods from Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data was linked to a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) filled out by 5,364 participants in the Swedish LifeGene study. Thereafter, we calculated the daily emission of CO equivalents (COe) as well as the intake of selected nutrients associated with vegetables, fruits, meat and dairy products. The COe was divided into quartiles were quartile 1 corresponds to a diet generating the lowest COe, and quartile 4 corresponds to a diet with the highest COe.

Results: The overall diet-related emission was 4.7 kg COe/day and person, corresponding to 1.7 ton COe/year. In general, there were only small differences in nutrient intake between groups of varying levels of COe, regardless if the intake was analyzed as absolute intake, energy percent or as nutrient density. Moreover, adherence to NNR was high for the group with the lowest COe, except for saturated fat where the intake was higher than recommended for all COe groups. On the other hand, only the group with the lowest COe fulfilled recommended intake of fiber. However, none of the COe groups reached the recommended intake of folate and vitamin D.

Conclusions: Here we show that a self-selected diet low in COe provides comparable intake of nutrients as a diet high in in COe.