Nuts have a key role in healthy, sustainable diets and food systems. We outline some local and international published research papers in the emerging area of nuts and sustainability.

Food in the Anthropocene: The EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. (2019).
The EAT-Lancet Commission report provides the first full scientific review of what constitutes a healthy diet from a sustainable food system. It outlines that transforming to healthy diets by 2050 requires substantial global shifts – including more than doubling consumption of healthy foods like nuts, fruit and vegetables, and legumes. The ‘Planetary Health Diet’ sets the scientific target for nuts as 50g/day (with a range of 0-70g), consisting of 25g each of peanuts and tree nuts.

Towards healthier and more sustainable diets in the Australian context: Comparison of current diets with the Australian Dietary Guidelines and the EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet. (Hendrie et al, 2022).
This research compared food group and nutrient composition of Australian adults diet (based on the 2011–13 National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey), to diets modelled on the Australian Dietary Guidelines (ADGs) and the Planetary Health Reference Diet (PHD). Among the findings, the average Australian diet contained two to almost four times the ADGs and PHD maximum recommended intake of discretionary choices. And red meat and poultry contributed 73% to the total servings from within the ‘meat and alternatives’ food group (compared to 33% and 10% for the ADGs and PHD, respectively), while plant-rich alternatives (nuts and legumes) contributed just 13%. The environmental impact scores of the PHD and the ADGs were 31% and 46% lower than the average Australian diet.

Reducing climate change impacts from the global food system through diet shifts. (Li et al, 2024).
This research evaluates the distribution of dietary emissions from 140 food products, in 139 countries or areas. And it models potential changes in emissions with global diet shifts. Among the findings, it suggests global annual dietary emissions would fall by 17% with the worldwide adoption of the EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet. And this is primarily attributed to shifts from red meat to legumes and nuts as principal protein sources. In addition, more than half of the global population is presently overconsuming, and shifting this would potentially save 32.4% of global emissions.

Planetary Health Diet Index and risk of total and cause-specific mortality in three prospective cohorts. (Bui et al, 2024).
This large cohort study investigated associations between adherence to the EAT-Lancet reference diet, and total and cause-specific mortality – using health data from more than 200,000 US adults. Among the findings, those in the highest quintile of adherence to the diet had a 23% lower risk of total mortality, 14% lower risk of cardiovascular mortality, and 10% lower risk of cancer mortality, compared with the lowest. Higher adherence was also associated with 29% lower greenhouse gas emissions and 51% less land use.

Emerging EAT-Lancet planetary health diet is associated with major cardiovascular diseases and all-cause mortality: A global systematic review and meta-analysis. (Liu et al, 2024).
This review included 28 publications (with a combined total of more than 2.2 million participants), of case-control and cohorts which looked at the link between the EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet and health outcomes. It found adhering to the EAT-Lancet diet was significantly associated with reduced odds of diabetes, CVD (mortality), cancer (mortality) and all-cause mortality. The researchers say their findings are clinically important, and highlight the beneficial effects of the EAT-Lancet diet on various health outcomes.

Partial substitutions of animal with plant protein foods in Canadian diets have synergies and trade-offs among nutrition, health, and climate outcomes. (Auclair et al, 2024).
This research used a combination of data to assess the impact (on nutrition, health and climate outcomes) of partially substituting red and processed meat or dairy with plant protein foods in Canadian diets. The substitutions resulted in minor changes to the percentage of the population below requirements for nutrients of concern, but increased calcium inadequacy (by up to 14% when dairy was replaced). Replacing red and processed meat or dairy increased life expectancy by up to 8.7 months or 7.6 months, respectively. Diet-related greenhouse gas emissions decreased by up to 25% for red and processed meat, and by up to 5% for dairy replacements.

The nature of protein intake as a discriminating factor of diet sustainability: A multi-criteria approach. (Toujgani et al, 2023).
This paper reasons that dietary protein sources are an important factor in the sustainability of diets. It used data from a cohort of 29,210 French adults to identify five clusters, based on food-group contribution to protein intake: milk-based, meat-based, fast-food-based, healthy-fish-based, and healthy-plant-based. Among the findings, the healthy-plant-based and the healthy-fish-based clusters had the highest nutritional scores, lowest health risks, and lowest environmental impacts. The researchers say the nature of protein intake is a good discriminating factor of diet sustainability.

Vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters, and meat-eaters in the UK show discrepant environmental impacts. (Scarborough et al, 2023).
This in-depth study links dietary data, from a sample of 55,504 vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters, and meat-eaters, with a range of environmental indicators, from a review of 570 life-cycle assessments.  It found a strong positive link between the amount of animal-based foods in a diet and its environmental impact. Dietary impacts of vegans were 25.1% of the high meat-eaters (≥100g total meat consumed per day) for greenhouse gas emissions, 25.1% for land use, 46.4% for water use, 27% for eutrophication, and 34.3% for biodiversity. In other words, dietary shifts away from animal-based foods could make a substantial contribution to reduction of the UK environmental footprint.

Small targeted dietary changes can yield substantial gains for human and environmental health. (Stylianou et al, 2021)
US-based researchers evaluated 5,853 foods to identify environmentally sustainable foods that promote health. They quantified whether the foods either added or took minutes away from a ‘healthy life’. Results suggested that substituting just 10% of daily calorie intake from beef or processed meat in favour of fruit, vegetables, nuts, legumes and ‘selected seafood’ adds 48 minutes of healthy life every day and cuts our carbon footprint by a third (33%). Eating a 30g serve of nuts and seeds provides a gain of 25 minutes of healthy life per day.

Modeling the effect of environmentally sustainable food swaps on nutrient intake in pregnant women. (Wang et al, 2021).
This research looked at the impact on nutrient intakes of replacing commonly-consumed foods in pregnancy with environmentally-sustainable alternatives. With the highest gashouse gas emissions (GHG), beef was selected as the reference food. The most pronounced reductions in CO₂ emissions were from replacing beef with tofu, legumes, and nuts. For instance, replacing 1 serve/week of beef with an isocaloric serve of nuts (18g) during pregnancy could reduce GHG emissions by 383kg CO₂ equivalents, and increase folate (+10.2µg/serve) and fiber (+1.1g/serve) – with a small decrease in iron intake (-1.1mg/serve). The researchers say simple dietary swaps can noticeably reduce environmental impact, without compromising nutrient intake in pregnancy.