If the world were a dinner table of 100 people, only one of us could sit down knowing our food system truly serves both people and the planet by meeting nutritional needs, respecting human rights, and staying within planetary boundaries. Just one.
That is one of the key findings from the 2025 EAT-Lancet Report launched this month. The landmark scientific assessment captures how our global food system shapes human health, communities, and the stability of our planet.
Today, one in three people can’t afford or access a healthy diet. Over half suffer from diet-related disease. Meanwhile, the way we produce, consume, and transport food is a leading driver of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, undermining the very ecosystems that feed us. One third of food workers earn below a living wage.
Stark figures have already made headlines across the globe. Yet, amid these dramatic facts, one message easily gets lost—hope.
Science shows we have the tools to feed a growing population without destroying the planet. The new EAT-Lancet Report is our clearest scientific compass for how to get there, showing that healthy diets and sustainable and fair production could save 40,000 lives daily, while cutting emissions and pollution and restoring land and water systems.
The Report is not a lofty vision. It’s a call to choose a new path.
Scientists are not here to dictate what anyone should eat. The report advocates the freedom to choose, and freedom from hunger and from crushing medical bills. It shows how better food represents the freedom to drink clean water, make a decent living, or grow a business, in safe and resilient communities. It calls for equal opportunity for every parent to feed their children what they need to grow and thrive.
These freedoms, now enjoyed by only a lucky 1 percent, are within reach. A just food system is not just the goal, but a prerequisite to get there.
Science alone doesn’t create change. People do—farmers, policymakers, investors, chefs, entrepreneurs, and consumers. The world is not a dinner table, but in the global food system, we are all stakeholders, with much at stake, much to gain, and much to say. Lasting change doesn’t come from someone being told, but from everyone being heard.
Change is uncomfortable, especially when livelihoods and traditions are at risk. We can’t avoid tension, but we can move from statements to brave and honest conversation. Progress means listening across divides to find common ground, exploring new paths forward together.
In a world of complexities and divides, we need longer tables, not higher walls. Since 2019, I’ve met smallholder farmers, indigenous peoples, policymakers and corporate leaders worldwide. They unite, not through ideology, but through a shared hunger for better solutions.
The United Kingdom’s National Farmers Union (UNF) once fiercely criticized the first report. Now President Tom Bradshaw calls for a “greater collaboration” on X, guided by the updated EAT-Lancet findings, to build “resilience, profitability, and productivity”.
C40 cities like Paris, Tokyo, Lima, and Los Angeles are already committed, as are corporations like Lidl and Sodexo, and chefs and food influencers across all continents. Together they form a diverse choir of voices embracing a pragmatic transition and broader coalitions for a better food future.
Change takes time, but food habits evolve fast. Within a generation, global diets have shifted dramatically. You probably eat quite differently today than your parents did twenty years ago. Gen Z already craves healthier, fairer, more sustainable choices when they’re affordable and tasty.
Change is hard, yet we’ve made big strides before: doubling life expectancy in a century and halving child mortality in two decades. We feed more people with fewer resources. We can feed everyone better—if we choose to.
It will require up to US$500 billion a year, but deliver a tenfold return through reduced healthcare costs, higher productivity, and restored ecosystems. The cost of inaction is almost unimaginable.
Hope isn’t naïve. It is a proven strategy. Smiles are contagious. In a world too often paralyzed by doom, hope is a powerful, renewable resource. It is the fuel that brings more people to the table. And community builds resilience.
If the world were a dinner table, we have the time and the means to change the menu. The EAT-Lancet Commission concludes that we have the solutions. A growing number of change makers are leading the way. The question is no longer whether we can build a just and sustainable food future, but whether we’ll choose to come together to make it happen.
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Photo courtesy of Fakhar Uddin, Unsplash
