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Frédéric Leroy

@fleroy1974

Feb 24

EAT-Lancet and the World Economic Forum
"The Great Food Transformation"

What is it, and what could it mean for global diets?

Part 1. A Davos for Food

The EAT foundation, launched by a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, is modelled on Davos. Its aim is to catalyse a Great Food Transformation. To do so, the EAT-Lancet Commission has designed a semi-vegetarian Planetary Health Diet. This diet has gained substantial influence and is actively discussed at both national and global policy levels. EAT's influence is amplified by collaborations with the United Nations and partnerships with agri-food corporations, facilitated through entities like the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, highlighting the convergence of business interests with dietary reform efforts. Moreover, EAT garners support from investors in vegan-tech industries, who advocate for alternatives to end livestock agriculture.

The EAT initiative, founded in Scandinavia in 2013 by Gunhild Stordalen and Johan Rockström, aims to revolutionize global diets by reducing reliance on animal source foods and partially filling the resulting food gap with 'alternative proteins'. At that time, Stordalen was married to the Norwegian billionaire Petter Stordalen, whereas Rockström was the executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre. The EAT initiative gained momentum with its inaugural Food Forum in Stockholm in 2014, where the Prince of Wales and Bill Clinton voiced support. The Forum's mission was to unite 'experts and decision makers who can come together to change the way we eat'. Financial backing from the Wellcome Trust and the Stordalen Foundation in 2016 propelled the initiative forward, leading to the establishment of the EAT-Lancet Commission. Spearheaded by Harvard's Walter Willett, the Commission then proposed a semi-vegetarian Planetary Health Diet, which rapidly became influential, being backed by the World Economic Forum, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and United Nations, among others.

The hand of Davos

To revolutionize global diets, EAT operates trough various public-private partnerships, drawing inspiration from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. Being a self-declared 'Davos for food', EAT aims to 'add value to business and industry' and 'set the political agenda'. This connection to Davos is no coincidence. Gunhild Stordalen was appointed as WEF Young Global Leader in 2015, and maintains close ties with WEF's Børge Brende, a former Norwegian Minister, ex-chairman of the UN Commission of Sustainable Development, and member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg group. He joined the WEF in 2008 and became WEF's managing director in 2011, after he failed to get the position of executive director at UN Environment Programme (UNEP). In 2017, Brende was appointed as WEF's President. Unsurprisingly, Davos has shown strong support of EAT. During the 2018 WEF conference in Davos, the EAT Foundation co-organized an event with, among others, Rabobank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, and the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition. Following the launch of the EAT-Lancet report in 2019, the WEF stated on its website that 'we all need to go on the planetary health diet to save the world'. A few days later, the report was also discussed at the 2019 WEF meeting in Davos, after which it was presented at the UN Headquarters in New York.

WEF's interest in food systems

The WEF's support for EAT's Great Food Transformation extends beyond mere sympathy. Food system overhaul is a component of the Davos strategy, highlighted in its Great Reset agenda. This includes an interest in the 'Future of Food', closely aligned with WEF's core activity of 'Developing Sustainable Business Models'. Convergence with the EAT agenda is unmistakable, both in concept and in practice. José María Olsen Figueres, the former CEO of WEF, is intricately linked to EAT as an 'EAT alumnus'. His sister, Christiana Figueres, who is also UNFCCC’s ex-Executive Secretary and has declared to be in favour of expelling meat eaters from restaurants, has ties to entities within the broader EAT network, such as the World Resources Institute, Unilever, the vegan-tech company Impossible Foods, and business fronts such as Nature4Climate and We Mean Business. Taken together, EAT appears to function as the dietary arm of WEF, aiming to effect dietary change within a 'Transition Decade' (2020-2030). To do do, the EAT/WEF network refers to a 'portfolio of solutions', including mock meat, lab meat, mycoprotein, and insects. In 2018, the WEF published 'Innovation with a Purpose: The role of technology innovation in accelerating food systems transformation' in collaboration with McKinsey & Co. Among other high-tech 'Fourth Industrial Revolution' interventions, also involving nutrigenetics, block chain, and virtual reality, the report made a case for 'alternative proteins'. Impossible Foods was cited as an example. A year later, WEF released a white paper on 'Alternative Proteins', prepared by the Oxford Martin School, as part of its 'Meat: the Future' series.

EAT as public-private partnership

Given EAT's roots in the WEF, it is anticipated that its strategy will mirror the principles of the Davos philosophy. In tandem with WEF's Great Reset agenda, EAT's aim is to catalyse a profound global overhaul of the food system, coined as the Great Food Transformation. The process is facilitated through high-level public-private partnerships, with support from WEF and close collaboration with NGOs, transnational policy organisations, and multinational corporations. References to EAT's Planetary Health Diet are already being integrated in policy frameworks worldwide to justify a transition to 'plant-based' eating, as evidenced in the EU's Green Deal and Farm-to-Fork strategy . EAT's dietary proposal, therefore, transcends mere theoretical discourse; it should be understood a top-down policy blueprint grounded in the stakeholder capitalism model advocated by Davos. Below, some of EAT's major allies will be listed, including factions within the United Nations, major agri-food corporations, and the vegan-tech industry. It will also be discussed how all these players emerged as a single constellation during the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit.

Alliance with the United Nations

To achieve its objectives, EAT frequently collaborates with factions within the United Nations, exemplified by the inclusion of WHO director Francesco Branca in its EAT-Lancet Commission. Additionally, EAT receives support from UNEP, which has gone so far as to label meat as 'the world's most urgent problem' while bestowing the highest environmental award of the UN upon vegan-tech companies Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. This close interaction with the UN is likely facilitated under the patronage of WEF. In bolstering its transnational influence, WEF has established an official partnership with the UN to accelerate the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This 'strategic alliance' has faced criticism for what some view as a 'disturbing corporate capture of the UN', resulting in a 'public-private UN' where the decisions of governments could be made 'secondary to multistakeholder led initiatives in which corporations would play a defining role'. Urgent global challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and the COVID-19 pandemic are leveraged to create a sense of urgency, with EAT's emphasis on a broken food system seamlessly aligning with this strategy.

Alliance with agri-food corporations

Some major agri-food corporations have openly embraced the WEF/EAT vision of dietary reform, seeing the radical restriction of animal source foods and their replacement by 'alternative proteins' (aka, 'food from factories') as an opportunity to tap into new market segments and further consolidate their already significant control over the food system. In 2017, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) formalized a partnership with EAT, known as Food Reform for Sustainability and Health (FReSH). This collaboration was announced during the Third Stockholm Food Forum, which aimed to 'bring science, policy and business together'. WBCSD participation in the Forum was focused on sharing progress on FReSH and exploring further collaboration among 'stakeholders across science and academia, policy-makers, business and consumer groups'. The WBCSD serves as an industry lobbying platform, representing various global agri-food corporations. FReSH has been characterized as a 'business-led initiative designed to accelerate transformational change in global food systems', bringing together 30+ companies, including leading food multinationals such as Nestlé, Danone, Unilever, Kellogg Company, and PepsiCo. These affiliated multinationals been actively promoting a transition to 'plant-based' eating, sometimes with strong anti-meat overtones. Unilever, for instance, aims to achieve €1bn sales from vegan products by 2027, collaborating with the World Wide Fund for Nature and academia. Also during the 2017 Forum, another multi-million dollar effort linked to EAT was announced: the 'Food and Land Use' Coalition (FOLU). Described as an effort that 'brings together science, business solutions and country implementation plans', FOLU acknowledges 'the invaluable contribution of Unilever, Yara International and the Business and Sustainable Development Commission in nurturing [its] initial development'.

Alliance with the vegan-tech industry

Because of its generally unsympathetic attitude towards livestock agriculture, EAT also attracted support from investors in vegan-tech who have an interest in animal rights agendas. Examples of vegan investors include Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return (FAIRR) and KBW's founder, prince Khaled bin Alwaleed, the son of a Saudi top investor (prince Alwaleed bin Talal, chairman of Kingdom Holding). FAIRR is an investor company of which the membership and wider supporting network comprises institutional investors managing many trillions in combined assets. It was founded in 2015 by Jeremy Coller, a vegan who wishes to 'end factory farming', with the goal to put pressure on food companies to serve more imitation animal source foods. Coller has a seat on the advisory board of the Good Food Institute, the leading lobby group for vegan-tech industries. FAIRR often interacts with EAT, as during the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit and the linked 'Rethinking Protein: Accelerating law and policy in the global food system' conference to 'concentrate on legal mechanisms to transition the food system'. As a vegan, bin Alwaleed refers to dairy as the 'root of environmental evil' and like Coller is a member of the advisory board of the GFI. He is also influential within the EAT network. Together with several 'vegan leaders' with ties to GFI as well as with EAT's founder Stordalen, bin Alwaleed attended the Nexus Global Summit at the UN Headquarters in 2018 to discuss 'Next Generation Solutions for a World in Transition'.

The UN Food Systems Summit

The strategic alignment between the UN and EAT/WEF became particularly notable during the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit. EAT's Gunhild Stordalen was appointed as chair of the Summit's Action Track 2, focusing on 'sustainable diets'. Her stated aim was 'to take full advantage of the Summit' and 'to force the kind of far-reaching changes that the world now desperately needs'. The WHO functioned as the Track's 'anchoring agency'. Francesco Branca, an EAT-Lancet Commissioner and WHO director, had already made it clear that, within the food system, 'everything has to be reset [...] we have to have much smaller amounts of meat on our tables. We need to reset, and we need to adjust. We need the policies, the investments, on the supply side and the consumer side. The WHO will be working on the consumer side' (emphasis added). Action Track 2 was characterized by an outspoken anti-livestock sentiment, involving a vegan advocate and leader of the youth climate organization Zero Hour International as Youth Vice-Chair, the CEO of 50by40, an umbrella organization incorporating vegetarian pressure groups, vegan-tech industries, and animal rights activists, as Civil Society Leader, a vegan activist of the Chinese Good Food Fund as one of the workstream leaders, the founder of Brighter Green, an organization with an animal rights agenda (Mia MacDonald), and an academic from Chatham House and Harvard's Animal Law Department, previously affiliated with the Seventh-Day Adventist University of Loma Linda (Helen Harwatt). Moreover, the Good Food Institute (GFI) had been invited to 'lead the innovation pillar' of Action Track 2 and provide 'influence on the innovation thinking across all five action tracks'. Criticism was not only related to the clear anti-livestock bias, but to the Summit setup in general. Farmers, rights groups, and 'special rapporteurs on the right to food' from the UN lambasted the Summit as an opaque takeover by transnational corporations (including producers of ultra-processed foods), philanthrocapitalists, and the WEF. How leaders of the Action Tracks were recruited has raised specific concerns because of the lack of transparency, absence of key expertise, and doubts about the origins of the funding..

[to be continued]

EAT-Lancet and the World Economic Forum
"The Great Food Transformation"

What is it, and what could it mean for global diets?

Part 2. The Planetary Health Diet

The Planetary Health Diet heavily restricts animal source foods, calling red meat an ‘unhealthy’ food like sugar, and advocates for alternative proteins. In contrast to what is commonly assumed, its semi-vegetarian composition (with a vegan option) is primarily rooted in assumptions about human health, as to minimize chronic disease, rather than environmental considerations.

EAT's 'Planetary Health Diet' (or EAT-Lancet diet) is a semi-vegetarian or 'flexitarian' diet. It sets a target for red meat at 5 kg/p/y (within a window of 0-10 kg/p/y) and suggests a total meat intake of 16 kg/p/y (within a window of 0-31 kg/p/y, both red meat and poultry). The suggested caloric contribution by all animal source foods is a mere 14%. It prescribes small daily rations of beef or pork (each at 7 g) and eggs (13 g), in addition to some poultry (29 g), fish (28 g, but limited at 40 kcal), and dairy (250 g, limited at 153 kcal). For comparison, the limit for sugar was set at 31 g (120 kcal). The authors also endorse a meat-less vegetarian or vitamin B12-supplemented vegan approach as valid options.

Design rationale

It is important to take into account that the dietary calculations were 'not set due to environmental considerations, but were solely in light of health recommendations'. This his is in contrast to what is commonly assumed about the Planetary Health Diet, and how it is usually promoted. Even if there has also been an assessment of how the diet aligns with planetary boundaries, the actual composition is based on health theory, as designed by Walter Willett from Harvard University.

[To be continued]

EAT-Lancet and the World Economic Forum
"The Great Food Transformation"

What is it, and what could it mean for global diets?

Part 3. The Great Food Transformation

Conceptually, EAT’s Great Food Transformation traces back to earlier initiatives for great transition schemes proposed by EAT’s strategic partners. Examples include the 'Great Transformation' suggested by the German Advisory Council on Global Change, the Tellus Institute’s 'Great Transition', and the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ and ‘Great Transformation’.

The idea of a global shift to a Harvard/Willett-designed low-meat diet pre-dates EAT and was already suggested a decade earlier as a 'Healthy Diet' transformation that should be implemented between 2010-2030. The 'Planetary Health' concept goes back to New Nutrition Science project conceptualized around 2000 and ending up in the Giessen Declaration of 2005 (already involving EAT's Tim Lang). The concept of a Great Food Transformation towards the Planetary Health Diet generally fits within a mindset of grand transition schemes. Its content and wording not only echo the agendas and vocabulary of the WEF's 'Great Reset' and 'Great Transformation', they are also reminiscent of earlier 'Great Transformation' and 'Great Transition' projects.

The German connection: WBGU and PIK

A first example is provided by the 'Great Transformation' proposed by the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), founded in the run-up to Maurice Strong's UN Earth Summit of 1992, and involving meat-free days, less livestock, and promotion of insect consumption. WBGU is influential within certain fractions of the EU, the Vatican, and the UN. Its former chair - Hans Schellnhuber - embraces the idea of global governance through a UN-led Global Council and Planetary Court. He is also founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), where he was replaced in 2018 by the former director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, who co-founded EAT.

Tellus and SEI

A second example is provided by the 'Great Transition' called for by the Tellus Institute to 'advance a planetary civilization rooted in justice, well-being, and sustainability'. Its founding president is a member of the Club of Rome and an ecotopian futurist. He is also in charge of the US centre of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). The latter was named after Strong's UN 1972 Stockholm Conference and joined the Boston-based Tellus Institute in setting up the Global Scenario Group (GSG) in 1995, arguing for a 'Great Transition' to a 'planetary phase of civilization'. Together with Stockholm University and the Beijer Institute, SEI is at the basis of the Stockholm Resilience Centre. One of Tellus' fellows [Gus Speth] is the founder of the World Resources Institute (WRI), now controlled by the WEF network and a close ally of EAT. Tellus/SEI's GSG fed the Global Environment Outlook series from UNEP. Its work has been continued by Tellus' Great Transition Initiative (GTI), of which the website often reads as an esoteric Gaian manifest.

The Planetary Health Alliance

A 'Great Transition' of society to 'Planetary Health' has also been called for in the 'São Paulo Declaration on Planetary Health', published in the Lancet, supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and organized by the Planetary Health Alliance (PHA). The PHA was launched with support of the Rockefeller Foundation in 2016, is co-housed by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (home of Walter Willett), and wishes to 'achieve a Great Transition'. The Lancet, THI (with Willett on the Board of Directors), the United Nations Foundation, Project Drawdown, WWF, the International Futures Forum, Plant-based Health Professionals UK, and SEI are members of the Alliance. Some of the signatories of the São Paulo Declaration have an outspoken anti-livestock agenda, such as 50by40, Beyond Meat, and The Good Food Institute. Other signatories include WWF, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and the True Health Initiative (THI, with Willett on its Board of Directors). The document itself is a New Age-ish pamphlet asking 'spiritual leaders of all faiths' to 'expand the mindset of humanity to embrace ancient teachings and wisdom' and 'to utilize religious and spiritually affiliated institutions for Planetary Health education'. Unsurprisingly, 'plant-based' diets are part of the intention.

[To be continued]

Read 7 tweets

Frédéric Leroy

@fleroy1974

Dec 17, 2023

Animal rights activists typically rely on appeal to authority by citing an Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics position paper as a basis for asserting the safety of introducing infants and children to a vegan lifestyle. Beware: the source is biased, the message is dangerous.
🧵1/n

Infants born to macrobiotic or vegan mothers risk low birth weight, nutrient deficiencies & worse: failure to thrive, rickets, hyperparathyroidism, anaemia, neuropathy, psychosis, lethargy, spinal cord degeneration, cerebral atrophy, optic, ...
2/n
aleph-2020.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-ve…

Numerous clinical case reports have documented that avoiding animal source foods can lead to harm in young populations; while such reports are considered lower on the hierarchy of evidence, they raise serious concerns because of the devastating effects such diets can have.
3/n

Read 47 tweets

Frédéric Leroy

@fleroy1974

Dec 2, 2023

With #COP28 going on, animal rights activists seize the occasion to vilify meat and livestock (beef & cows in particular) as major culprits for climate change. Don't be fooled by their hyperbole, here's context:
🧵1/n
aleph-2020.blogspot.com/2019/06/greenh…

Situating the problem:
Yes, livestock generate emissions. But...
2/n
aleph-2020.blogspot.com/2019/06/greenh…

Argument 1: global data should not be used to evaluate local contexts
3/n
aleph-2020.blogspot.com/2019/06/greenh…

Read 13 tweets

Frédéric Leroy

@fleroy1974

Jul 7, 2023

PURE publishes its healthy diet score.
Average per day: 563g fruit/veg, 48g legumes, 28g nuts, 26g fish, 186g dairy (mostly whole-fat), 55g red meat, 22g poultry. 17% kcal from protein.
"Least healthy": higher carb, lower fat/protein. https://t.co/Muoh95nvWaacademic.oup.com/eurheartj/adva…

"Our findings suggest that globally the key to a healthy diet is probably one that includes diverse natural foods in moderation, rather than restricting intake to a small number of food categories."

"an inadequate level of consumption of key healthy foods is a larger problem than over-consumption of some nutrients or foods (e.g. sat. fats or whole-fat dairy & meats—all of which are consumed in lower amounts with a lower diet score) for mortality & CVD risk around the world"

Read 9 tweets

Frédéric Leroy

@fleroy1974

Jun 11, 2023

Something's rotten in the West.
Lots of doom and gloom. Many people are depressed or neurotic. Why is that?
Time to revisit #Maslow's work from the 1940s.
It starts here:
"Man is a perpetually wanting animal"
🧵1/n

But different "wants" are not interchangeable.
The human psyche needs a healthy foundation.
2/n

Everything starts with proper nourishment (real food; not junk from factories). Sufficient sleep. Sunlight.
Basic physiology.
3/n

Read 12 tweets

Frédéric Leroy

@fleroy1974

Jun 10, 2023

This hasn't been sufficiently discussed:
Why does the association between red meat & mortality in the US pop up at a lower dose than in most other regions, especially when compared to global data (PURE study) where it is even non-existent? academic.oup.com/af/article/13/…

Could it be because it isn't about red meat as such, but -for instance- about how people prepare meat, or how they insert it in dietary patterns? Or could it be that a "healthy user bias" disfavours meat in the US (where eating meat comes with moral overtones), but not globally?

People tend to forget that risk is a complicated thing.
Not only how much meat, but also: when and how frequent, how was it heated (e.g. overly charred meat), what's in the background diet (e.g. mitigating compounds), ...? But also: individual vulnerability!

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