Overview
- University of Granada researchers modeled omnivorous Mediterranean, pescatarian, ovo‑lacto vegetarian, and vegan menu sets and published the results in Frontiers in Nutrition.
- Cradle‑to‑home greenhouse gases fell from 3.8 to 3.2 to 2.6 to 2.1 kg CO2e per day across those diets, marking a 46% drop for the vegan menu versus the omnivorous baseline.
- The vegan menus used about 33% less agricultural land and roughly 7% less water during production compared with the omnivorous plan.
- All plant‑based menus met overall nutritional targets, though the authors flag vitamin D, iodine, and vitamin B12 as nutrients that may require careful planning or supplementation.
- The study underscores that incremental substitutions toward plant‑based foods also yield meaningful environmental reductions without requiring a fully vegan switch.