Skip to main content

A reference for the planetary diet

The Planetary Health Diet

Every day, the world's kitchens make about 14 billion meals. Together, they are the single largest driver of climate change, biodiversity loss, and the pollution of rivers and soils — and, through what they leave out, they are also responsible for about 15 million avoidable deaths a year. In October 2025, fifty scientists led by the EAT Foundation and The Lancet published an updated answer to the question: what would humanity have to eat for the food system to stop breaking planetary limits and stop causing preventable disease at the same time?

  • 15 million avoidable deaths each year are linked to what people are eating, or not eating, today (2025 §Exec. Summary)
  • 7 / 9 planetary limits have already been crossed. Food is the dominant cause of five of them (2025 §Sec. 2)
  • 14 food groups, with daily amounts loose enough to be filled by almost any cuisine on Earth (2025 Table 1)

The Commission tells us what to eat in grams. It does not — and could not — tell us which ingredients, across the world's cuisines, fill each role. That second question is what this page joins on: using a recently published mathematical map of how humanity actually cooks, built from 4.14 million recipes in seven languages, we ask, for each of the fourteen groups, here is what this category looks like in the kitchen of every cuisine on Earth.

Start with the fourteen groups

A The fourteen food groups, by the gram

A reference value is not a meal plan. It is the daily average — a kind of dietary north star — that the Commission's evidence base says will keep a healthy adult body well-nourished while keeping the food system inside planetary limits. Within these numbers a vegan can eat one way, a flexitarian another, a coastal fisher a third, a South Asian vegetarian a fourth. The grams below are calibrated to 2400 kilocalories a day, which is the modelled global average; people who burn more scale the whole table up, and people who burn less scale it down.

The 2025 revision keeps most of the 2019 numbers but strengthens the evidence behind each one and reframes the whole table as a framework, not a prescription. Diverse cuisines, religious traditions, and life stages all fit — provided the totals stay close to these reference points. (2025 §Overall dietary patterns, p 12; Table 1.)

Energy distribution at the 2400 kcal/day reference intake. (2025 p 13; appendix 1 p 29.)
Group g / day Range Mass kcal Examples
Whole grains 210 0–280 811 Rice, wheat, maize, oats, barley, rye, millet, sorghum — dry weight, whole, not refined.
Tubers & starchy vegetables 50 0–100 39 Potato, sweet potato, cassava, yam, taro.
Vegetables 300 200–600 78 Dark green leafy, red and orange vegetables, cruciferous, alliums, gourds, mushrooms.
Fruits 200 100–300 126 Berries, citrus, stone fruit, pome fruit, tropical fruit, melons.
Legumes 75 0–100 284 Dry beans, lentils, peas, chickpeas.
Soy foods 25 0–50 112 Tofu, tempeh, edamame, soy milk, soy sauce, miso.
Nuts & seeds 25 0–75 149 Tree nuts, peanuts, seeds; at least one serving of nuts.
Dairy 250 0–500 153 Milk and equivalents (yoghurt, cheese, kefir).
Fish & shellfish 28 0–100 40 Wild and farmed finfish, shellfish, small pelagic species, bivalves, algae.
Poultry 29 0–58 62 Chicken, turkey, duck.
Eggs 13 0–25 19 Whole eggs.
Red meat 14 0–28 30 Beef, lamb, pork.
Added unsaturated plant oils 40 20–80 354 Olive, soybean, rapeseed, sunflower, peanut oils.
Added sugars 31 0–31 120 Sugar, syrups, honey, fruit-juice concentrates added to foods or beverages.
Total reference intake ≈ 1 200 — — 2 400 + ≤ 2000 mg sodium / day; ≤ 5 % energy from added sugars.

Click any group to see how the world actually cooks it across cuisines. Grams refer to dry weight for grains and pulses, fresh weight otherwise. Ranges include zero where the Commission's evidence permits a plant-based substitution. (2025 Table 1; prose pp 10–13.)

B The footprint — food and the planetary boundaries

The planet has nine vital signs. These are the planetary boundaries, defined twenty years ago at the Stockholm Resilience Centre as the safe operating space within which human civilisation has evolved. Six of the nine have already been crossed. The 2025 Commission, for the first time, quantifies the food system's share of each.

The result is unequivocal: food production is the single largest cause of the planet's vital-sign crisis, driving the transgression of five of the six already-breached boundaries and exerting notable pressure on a sixth (ocean acidification). What and how we eat is not one variable among many in the planetary picture — it is the variable that touches the most. (2025 §Sec. 2 & Table 2, p 15–16.)

  • Climate change

    boundary crossed

    The atmosphere is now hotter than at any point in the last 100 000 years. Food production is responsible for roughly a third of the greenhouse gases driving the warming — mostly methane from cattle, nitrous oxide from fertilised fields, and CO₂ from the forests we clear to make room for farms.

    The numbers
    Current state
    419 ppm CO₂ · 2.91 W/m²
    Planetary boundary
    350 ppm CO₂ · 1.2 W/m²
    Food-system share
    16–17.7 Gt CO₂e per year
    Proposed food-system boundary
    5 Gt CO₂e per year

    30% from the food system

  • Land system change

    boundary crossed

    Half of the world's habitable land is now farmland or grazing land — a transformation of the planet's surface as large as anything in geological history. Most forest loss in the tropics is still driven by the expansion of pasture, soy, oil palm and cocoa.

    The numbers
    Current state
    50 % intactness · 48 M km² agriculture
    Planetary boundary
    50–60 % intactness
    Food-system share
    33 % of ecoregions below the intactness threshold due to agriculture
    Proposed food-system boundary
    < 48 M km² agricultural land

    33% from the food system

  • Biosphere integrity

    boundary crossed

    Life on Earth has a pulse, measured by how much plant growth the biosphere produces every year and how much is left untouched by humans. We are now taking three to five times what the planet can spare. Most of what we take, we eat, or feed to animals we eat.

    The numbers
    Current state
    13–16.8 Gt C/yr HANPP · 25–30 % of Holocene NPP
    Planetary boundary
    5.5 Gt C/yr
    Food-system share
    88 % of agricultural lands below the ecosystem-functional-integrity boundary
    Proposed food-system boundary
    100 % of food-producing lands within the boundary

    88% from the food system

  • Stratospheric ozone

    still within boundary

    The thin layer of ozone high above us that filters out the sun's most dangerous ultraviolet rays. Largely rescued by the Montreal Protocol — but nitrous oxide from over-fertilised fields is now the single largest remaining threat to its recovery.

    The numbers
    Current state
    284 Dobson units (global average)
    Planetary boundary
    ≈ 276 DU (within 5 % of preindustrial)
    Food-system share
    3.9–4.2 Tg N₂O per year (54–69 % of total N₂O emissions)
    Proposed food-system boundary
    1.8 Tg N₂O-N per year

    62% from the food system

  • Ocean acidification

    boundary crossed

    About a quarter of the CO₂ we have ever emitted has dissolved into the oceans, where it turns into a weak acid that eats away at the shells and skeletons of corals, oysters, plankton and crabs. The food share here is the indirect one — what livestock and clearing emit ends up in the sea.

    The numbers
    Current state
    Ω_arag = 2.8
    Planetary boundary
    Ω_arag ≥ 80 % of pre-industrial 3.44
    Food-system share
    25 % of CO₂ emissions driving the change
    Proposed food-system boundary
    Zero CO₂ emissions from land-use change and fossil energy in the food chain

    25% from the food system

  • Nitrogen and phosphorus flows

    boundary crossed

    The fertilisers we spread on fields don't all stay there. They run off into rivers and groundwater, where they feed algal blooms that suffocate fish and create coastal dead zones. Most of the world's nitrogen pollution and most of its phosphorus loss come from the food system.

    The numbers
    Current state
    119 Tg N · 9.7 Tg P per year (surface water)
    Planetary boundary
    57 Tg N · 6.1 Tg P per year
    Food-system share
    ≈ 75 % of phosphorus delivery and ≈ 70 % of nitrogen losses
    Proposed food-system boundary
    < 57 Tg N · 4.6 Tg P per year

    75% from the food system

  • Freshwater change

    boundary crossed

    How much of the planet's rivers and groundwater humans pump, divert, and store. Agriculture takes about 70 % of all the freshwater humanity uses — and we have now disturbed both the blue water (rivers, lakes, aquifers) and the green water (soil moisture) cycles past their safe envelopes.

    The numbers
    Current state
    1800–2600 km³/yr blue water · 15.8 % land beyond local envelope
    Planetary boundary
    2800 km³/yr · 11.1 % land
    Food-system share
    > 1200–1800 km³/yr blue · 16.8 % of agricultural lands beyond envelope
    Proposed food-system boundary
    2000 km³/yr · pre-industrial envelopes on all agricultural land

    60% from the food system

  • Atmospheric aerosol loading

    still within boundary

    Tiny particles in the air — soot from burning, dust, and ammonia rising from livestock manure that turns into the fine particulate matter that kills millions of people a year. The food system's share comes mostly from the latter: industrial-scale animal agriculture.

    The numbers
    Current state
    0.076 AOD (interhemispheric)
    Planetary boundary
    0.1 AOD
    Food-system share
    > 80 % of NH₃-forming PM₂.₅ in the northern hemisphere · > 50 % in the southern
    Proposed food-system boundary
    < 20 kt NH₃ in the north · halt biomass-burning emissions from land conversion in the south

    65% from the food system

  • Novel entities

    boundary crossed

    Synthetic substances of human invention — pesticides, plastics, pharmaceuticals — that the planet has no evolved capacity to break down. We now release them faster than nature, or our own safety testing, can keep up. The food system is the single largest source of pesticide and antimicrobial release.

    The numbers
    Current state
    Transgressed (pesticides, antimicrobials, plastics)
    Planetary boundary
    0 % synthetics without adequate safety testing
    Food-system share
    3.3–3.7 Tg pesticide active substances per year · 73–130 kt antimicrobials in animals
    Proposed food-system boundary
    ≤ 1 Tg PAS · halt prophylactic antimicrobial use

Numbers from Rockström et al. (2025), Table 2, p 16, with food-system shares synthesised from current Earth-system pressures and boundary control variables. Population-weighted shares draw on te Wierik et al. (2025), cited in the Table 2 footnotes. Spatial detail behind the per-boundary shares: Halpern, Frazier, Verstaen et al. (2022), the cumulative-footprint supplement reproduced under References/41893_2022_965_MOESM1_ESM.pdf.

C The bridge — how the world actually cooks each group

Here is a question a chef in Mumbai might ask. She has a Mediterranean recipe that calls for farro. She has no farro. She does have rice, millet, jowar, and barley. Which is the right substitution? Whole grain is the role; farro is a Western European answer; she is looking for South Asian ones.

To answer that question well, you need a map of how ingredients relate to one another in the world's cuisines. In May 2026, Jakub Radzikowski and Josef Chen at KAIKAKU.AI published one. They took 4.14 million recipes in seven languages — English, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese, Spanish, Turkish, Indonesian — and trained a machine-learning model on which ingredients tend to appear together, which share chemistry, and which fill the same culinary role across cultures. The result is a kind of GPS for the world's pantry: a 300-dimensional space where about 1 790 canonical ingredients each have a fixed position, and where closeness means substitutable in cooking.

For each of the Commission's fourteen food groups, we ask that map a single question: which ingredients across the world's cuisines actually fill this role? The answers — clustered into neighbourhoods the model discovered on its own — are below. The bridge is cultural and culinary, not nutritional: the embedding learned co-occurrence and chemistry, not health. (Radzikowski & Chen, 2026, arXiv:2605.22391.)

01 / 14

Whole grains

210 g/day range 0–280 g 811 kcal

In a market in Addis Ababa, a sack of teff. In Bologna, a bin of farro. In Kyoto, polished and unpolished short-grain rice. In a Bangladeshi rural home, brown rice and millets. The Commission's reference value is 210 grams a day — a number that hides all of this richness. Below, the first cluster picks out the whole ancient grains and cereals on which civilisations have built themselves; the second pulls out their fibre-rich neighbours across cuisines.

What Epicure shows (the recipe-corpus clusters that fill this role)

Whole ancient grains and cereals cluster of 42 ingredients
  1. quinoa
  2. millet
  3. black rice
  4. red rice
  5. brown rice
  6. sorghum
  7. glutinous rice
  8. glutinous rice flour
  9. whole wheat flour
  10. coix seed
  11. mixed grains
  12. wheat
  13. wheat germ
  14. barley
  15. amaranth
  16. jobs tears
  17. fermented glutinous rice
  18. tapioca
Breads, pastas and grain products cluster of 72 ingredients
  1. bread crumbs
  2. pasta
  3. crouton
  4. farro
  5. pita bread
  6. bread
  7. polenta
  8. tortellini
  9. english muffin
  10. egg noodle
  11. pizza crust
  12. bagel
  13. muffin
  14. naan
  15. gnocchi
  16. wild rice
  17. croissant
  18. ravioli

Cross-cutting view (by flavour, nutrient profile, or processing level)

Fiber-rich nuts seeds and whole grains cluster of 65 ingredients
  1. chia seed
  2. hazelnut
  3. whole wheat flour
  4. pumpkin seed
  5. carob
  6. hemp seed
  7. chocolate
  8. walnut
  9. flaxseed
  10. milk chocolate
  11. almond butter
  12. almond
  13. cocoa powder
  14. pistachio
  15. wheat germ
  16. nut butter
  17. bran
  18. oat
East-Asian whole grains and fiber-rich seeds cluster of 59 ingredients
  1. wood ear mushroom
  2. mung bean
  3. taro
  4. hyacinth bean
  5. garland chrysanthemum
  6. millet
  7. quinoa
  8. cashew
  9. sorghum
  10. date
  11. burdock root
  12. sesame seed
  13. black rice
  14. goji berry
  15. star anise
  16. brown rice
  17. water chestnut
  18. wheat

The Commission says: Bran, germ, and endosperm intact. ~20–50 % of total energy; whole displaces refined.

2019 → 2025: unchanged in grams; commission re-emphasised whole over refined more strongly.

02 / 14

Tubers & starchy vegetables

50 g/day range 0–100 g 39 kcal

For around a billion people, a tuber is what the day starts and ends with — boiled cassava in West Africa, sweet potato in Polynesia, potato in the Andes, taro in Hawai‘i. Tubers do not form a clean cluster in the world's recipe corpus the way grains do; instead they sit at the edges of vegetable, grain, and stew neighbourhoods. Listed below are the canonical exemplars present in the Epicure vocabulary.

Canonical exemplars in the world's pantry

  1. potato
  2. sweet potato
  3. cassava
  4. yam
  5. taro
  6. plantain

These ingredients don't form a clean cluster in Epicure — they scatter across adjacent food neighbourhoods depending on cuisine.

The Commission says: Per Commission, kept low because white potatoes show associations with weight gain and type-2 diabetes; whole grains preferred as the major energy source.

2019 → 2025: unchanged (50 g/day, range 0–100).

03 / 14

Vegetables

300 g/day range 200–600 g 78 kcal

Vegetables are where Epicure's cross-cuisine geometry comes alive. The three neighbourhoods below capture the same Commission category — vegetables — split into three culturally coherent clusters: the fresh salad-and-garden bowl of Mediterranean and Western cuisines, the stir-fry universe of East Asia, and the wider mushroom-and-leaf vocabulary that defines Asian cooking traditions. They are not interchangeable as recipes, but they are interchangeable in role.

What Epicure shows (the recipe-corpus clusters that fill this role)

Fresh salad and garden vegetables cluster of 90 ingredients
  1. red onion
  2. portobello mushroom
  3. bell pepper
  4. frisee
  5. salad greens
  6. swiss chard
  7. radicchio
  8. kale
  9. sugar snap pea
  10. artichoke
  11. butternut squash
  12. shallot
  13. serrano pepper
  14. jicama
  15. microgreen
  16. banana pepper
  17. fennel
  18. black olive
East-Asian stir-fry vegetables cluster of 57 ingredients
  1. scallion
  2. wood ear mushroom
  3. enoki mushroom
  4. shiitake mushroom
  5. bok choy
  6. bamboo shoot
  7. oyster mushroom
  8. garland chrysanthemum
  9. yard long bean
  10. water spinach
  11. chayote
  12. garlic
  13. leek
  14. luffa
  15. arrowhead
  16. radish
  17. burdock root
  18. maitake mushroom
East Asian vegetables and mushrooms cluster of 71 ingredients
  1. napa cabbage
  2. crab mushroom
  3. king oyster mushroom
  4. celtuce
  5. lotus root
  6. yu choy
  7. garlic scape
  8. bean sprout
  9. konjac
  10. daikon
  11. chili pepper
  12. dried lily bud
  13. zha cai
  14. water bamboo
  15. pickled mustard green
  16. straw mushroom
  17. pickled radish
  18. tea tree mushroom

The Commission says: Five servings per day, no specified upper limit. The Commission flags green leafy and dark orange varieties for nutrient density.

2019 → 2025: unchanged (300 g/day baseline, 200–600 g range).

04 / 14

Fruits

200 g/day range 100–300 g 126 kcal

Two fruit worlds. The first, surfaced below, is the temperate one most readers picture — apples, pears, berries, citrus. The second is the tropical one most readers have never seen on a tree — longan, lychee, durian, mangosteen, jujube. The split in Epicure's atlas is essentially geographic. The Commission's 200 g a day is met equally well from either basket.

What Epicure shows (the recipe-corpus clusters that fill this role)

Fresh and preserved whole fruits cluster of 71 ingredients
  1. nectarine
  2. orange
  3. cherry
  4. fruit
  5. prune
  6. pomegranate
  7. kiwi
  8. blueberry
  9. candied fruit
  10. watermelon
  11. peach
  12. cape gooseberry
  13. black currant
  14. raspberry
  15. blackberry
  16. strawberry
  17. apple
  18. maraschino cherry
Asian tropical and medicinal fruits cluster of 53 ingredients
  1. red date
  2. longan
  3. goji berry
  4. coconut milk
  5. hawthorn
  6. monk fruit
  7. date
  8. sea coconut
  9. lychee
  10. dragon fruit
  11. mulberry
  12. kumquat
  13. tamarind
  14. jackfruit
  15. starfruit
  16. pomelo
  17. rambutan
  18. lime

The Commission says: Whole fruit preferred over juice. Variety encouraged across the colour spectrum.

2019 → 2025: unchanged (200 g/day, 100–300 g range).

05 / 14

Legumes

75 g/day range 0–100 g 284 kcal

The 2025 Commission's most consequential ask. Across legumes, soy, and nuts, the diet wants around 225 grams a day of plant protein — roughly five times what wealthy diets contain. Below, the first cluster shows the protein-dense legume-and-spice neighbourhood that defines Indian, Middle Eastern, and Mexican cooking; the second surfaces the Latin American beans-and-tortilla pattern. The same role, two cuisines apart.

What Epicure shows (the recipe-corpus clusters that fill this role)

Protein-dense legumes meats and spices cluster of 60 ingredients
  1. paprika
  2. chili powder
  3. chickpea
  4. fennel seed
  5. kidney bean
  6. lentil
  7. monterey jack cheese
  8. cumin
  9. chorizo
  10. colby cheese
  11. mustard seed
  12. textured soy protein
  13. white bean
  14. cotija cheese
  15. curry powder
  16. curry
  17. queso fresco
  18. black eyed pea
Latin spices beans and tortillas cluster of 27 ingredients
  1. chili powder
  2. cayenne pepper
  3. serrano pepper
  4. corn tortilla
  5. cumin
  6. black bean
  7. ancho chile
  8. flour tortilla
  9. pinto bean
  10. mustard seed
  11. chickpea
  12. tortilla
  13. paprika
  14. kidney bean
  15. fenugreek seed
  16. lentil
  17. guajillo chile
  18. turmeric

The Commission says: The 125 g/day plant-protein cluster (legumes + soy + nuts) is the single most consequential PHD finding versus current diets. Encourage variety.

2019 → 2025: explicit subdivision strengthened in 2025; 2019 reported "dry beans/lentils/peas 50 g" and "soy 25 g". 2025 keeps the same total but treats them as a continuum.

06 / 14

Soy foods

25 g/day range 0–50 g 112 kcal

Soy lives a double life in the world's kitchens. As a whole food — tofu, tempeh, edamame — it is a protein source the Commission specifically encourages. As a fermented condiment — soy sauce, miso, doubanjiang — it is a flavour foundation across East Asia. Epicure separates these two roles into different neighbourhoods, exactly as a chef would.

What Epicure shows (the recipe-corpus clusters that fill this role)

East Asian soy and spice staples cluster of 22 ingredients
  1. sichuan peppercorn
  2. soybean paste
  3. dried tofu
  4. lotus root
  5. five spice powder
  6. fried tofu puff
  7. pickled mustard green
  8. green sichuan peppercorn
  9. udon noodle
  10. sesame paste
  11. snow vegetable
  12. mustard green
  13. miso
  14. edamame
  15. doenjang
  16. lions mane mushroom
  17. sweet preserved mustard green
  18. somen noodle

Cross-cutting view (by flavour, nutrient profile, or processing level)

East Asian savory sauces and condiments cluster of 95 ingredients
  1. oyster sauce
  2. light soy sauce
  3. doubanjiang
  4. hot pot base
  5. mala sauce
  6. dark soy sauce
  7. black bean paste
  8. chili sauce
  9. seasoning sauce
  10. rice vinegar
  11. msg
  12. shacha sauce
  13. chili garlic sauce
  14. fish sauce
  15. sweet chili sauce
  16. sweet bean sauce
  17. gochujang
  18. hoisin sauce

The Commission says: Uniquely high in phytoestrogens; both omega-3 and omega-6 in soybean oil. Associated with reduced cardiovascular disease and breast cancer.

2019 → 2025: unchanged (25 g/day).

07 / 14

Nuts & seeds

25 g/day range 0–75 g 149 kcal

Almonds, walnuts, peanuts, cashews, sesame, sunflower, pumpkin, pistachio. Across the world's cuisines, nuts and seeds are the densest protein and fat source you can keep on a shelf. Epicure clusters them together cleanly: the protein-dense nut-and-seed neighbourhood is the largest-z cluster in the entire atlas, meaning the model is unusually confident that these ingredients belong together.

What Epicure shows (the recipe-corpus clusters that fill this role)

Protein-dense seeds and nuts cluster of 47 ingredients
  1. chia seed
  2. cashew
  3. pumpkin seed
  4. quinoa
  5. hemp seed
  6. flaxseed
  7. soy protein isolate
  8. spirulina
  9. almond butter
  10. sunflower seed
  11. hazelnut
  12. mung bean
  13. wheat germ
  14. black sesame seed
  15. lotus seed
  16. goji berry
  17. spelt
  18. amaranth

Cross-cutting view (by flavour, nutrient profile, or processing level)

Rich nuts, fats, and spirits cluster of 81 ingredients
  1. white chocolate
  2. hazelnut
  3. egg yolk
  4. milk chocolate
  5. coconut oil
  6. pistachio
  7. pumpkin seed
  8. almond
  9. cream
  10. egg
  11. walnut
  12. macadamia nut
  13. irish cream
  14. almond paste
  15. hemp seed
  16. praline
  17. vanilla
  18. rum

The Commission says: Reduced type-2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and total mortality. Encourage variety.

2019 → 2025: unchanged (25 g/day; ranges widened slightly to 0–75 g).

08 / 14

Dairy

250 g/day range 0–500 g 153 kcal

Milk and its descendants — yoghurt, cheese, kefir, paneer, labneh — feed a billion people. They are also the single highest-emission food per gram in the diet that the Commission tolerates at scale. The reference value (250 g/day) is therefore a compromise, with an explicit lower bound of zero. The yoghurt and fermented forms now have the strongest health evidence; the cheese cluster sits at much higher caloric density, which is why the Commission's reference is for fluid-milk equivalents.

What Epicure shows (the recipe-corpus clusters that fill this role)

Eggs cream and cultured dairy cluster of 37 ingredients
  1. cream
  2. egg yolk
  3. egg
  4. egg white
  5. condensed milk
  6. mascarpone cheese
  7. salted duck egg
  8. quail egg
  9. creme anglaise
  10. ice cream
  11. duck egg
  12. curd
  13. century egg
  14. goose egg
  15. whipped topping
  16. egg substitute
  17. pigeon egg
  18. eggnog
Semi-firm artisan cheeses cluster of 48 ingredients
  1. fontina cheese
  2. asiago cheese
  3. monterey jack cheese
  4. colby cheese
  5. havarti cheese
  6. manchego cheese
  7. ricotta salata
  8. creme fraiche
  9. gorgonzola cheese
  10. cotija cheese
  11. caciocavallo
  12. queso fresco
  13. grana padano
  14. jarlsberg cheese
  15. taleggio cheese
  16. american cheese
  17. oaxaca cheese
  18. robiola cheese

The Commission says: Range includes zero — many populations consume little dairy and still have low fracture risk. 2025 commission cites yoghurt and fermented dairy as the most favourable forms.

2019 → 2025: unchanged (250 g/day, 0–500 g range).

09 / 14

Fish & shellfish

28 g/day range 0–100 g 40 kcal

Two 100-gram servings of fish a week — about a fillet at each — gives the diet what it cannot easily get elsewhere: long-chain omega-3 fats. The Commission specifically flags small pelagic fish, bivalves, and seaweed as under-recognised options. Epicure's lean-fish-and-seafood neighbourhood, below, is the cleanest fish cluster in the atlas, ranked by protein density.

What Epicure shows (the recipe-corpus clusters that fill this role)

Lean fish and seafood proteins cluster of 86 ingredients
  1. tofu
  2. carp
  3. fried tofu puff
  4. octopus
  5. cod
  6. dried tofu
  7. sea snail
  8. frog leg
  9. snail
  10. grouper
  11. red snapper
  12. dried shrimp
  13. catfish
  14. trout
  15. monkfish
  16. sea bass
  17. luncheon meat
  18. halibut

The Commission says: About two 100-g servings per week. Particularly important as omega-3 source. The Commission flags small fish, bivalves, and seaweed as under-recognised options.

2019 → 2025: unchanged (28 g/day, 0–100 g range).

10 / 14

Poultry

29 g/day range 0–58 g 62 kcal

About two servings a week. Chicken, turkey, and duck sit between red meat and plant protein on almost every nutritional and environmental axis. Epicure doesn't separate poultry into a discrete neighbourhood — these ingredients scatter across protein-dense clusters depending on what they are cooked with. Listed below are the canonical exemplars in the Epicure vocabulary.

Canonical exemplars in the world's pantry

  1. chicken
  2. turkey
  3. duck

These ingredients don't form a clean cluster in Epicure — they scatter across adjacent food neighbourhoods depending on cuisine.

The Commission says: About two servings per week. Polyunsaturated fat profile sits between red meat and plant protein.

2019 → 2025: unchanged (29 g/day, 0–58 g range).

11 / 14

Eggs

13 g/day range 0–25 g 19 kcal

Two eggs a week, with a range as wide as the Commission's evidence will allow. Most striking: Epicure does not cluster eggs into their own neighbourhood — they co-cluster with cream and cultured dairy, because of how they appear together in baked goods, breakfast dishes, and emulsified sauces across the world's recipes. The culinary geometry follows the kitchen, not the supermarket aisle.

Canonical exemplars in the world's pantry

  1. egg
  2. egg white
  3. egg yolk
  4. quail egg
  5. duck egg

These ingredients don't form a clean cluster in Epicure — they scatter across adjacent food neighbourhoods depending on cuisine.

The Commission says: About two eggs per week. Particularly important in childhood diets.

2019 → 2025: unchanged (13 g/day ≈ 1.5 eggs/week, 0–25 g range).

12 / 14

Red meat

14 g/day range 0–28 g 30 kcal

About one serving a week, with a range that begins at zero. This is the diet's single most-discussed reference value, the gap between current diets and the recommendation, and the one for which the Commission has called for a 33 % global production reduction. Red meat does not form its own clean Epicure cluster — beef, pork, and lamb scatter across protein-dense neighbourhoods alongside cured-meat preparations. Listed below are the canonical exemplars.

Canonical exemplars in the world's pantry

  1. beef
  2. lamb
  3. pork
  4. veal
  5. mutton
  6. venison
  7. bacon

These ingredients don't form a clean cluster in Epicure — they scatter across adjacent food neighbourhoods depending on cuisine.

The Commission says: About one serving per week. Range includes zero. 2025 commission calls for a 33 % global reduction in ruminant meat from 2020 levels.

2019 → 2025: 2019 = 14 g/day. 2025 affirms the same value with stronger evidence base; explicit 33 % production-side target added.

13 / 14

Added unsaturated plant oils

40 g/day range 20–80 g 354 kcal

About 17 % of total energy. Plant oils — olive, canola, sunflower, soybean, sesame — are how the Mediterranean diet, the closest real-world cuisine to the planetary diet, fills its energy gap. Palm oil and tropical oils are excluded from this share. Oils don't form a clean Epicure mode — they appear as functional pantry items across many neighbourhoods. Below are the canonical exemplars.

Canonical exemplars in the world's pantry

  1. olive oil
  2. canola oil
  3. sunflower oil
  4. soybean oil
  5. peanut oil
  6. sesame oil
  7. avocado oil
  8. walnut oil

These ingredients don't form a clean cluster in Epicure — they scatter across adjacent food neighbourhoods depending on cuisine.

The Commission says: About 17 % of total energy. Palm oil and tropical oils are excluded from this share. Non-hydrogenated only.

2019 → 2025: unchanged (40 g/day at 2400 kcal; 17 % of energy).

14 / 14

Added sugars

31 g/day range 0–31 g 120 kcal

The diet's cap, not its target. At most 5 % of daily energy — about 31 grams a day — should come from added sugars (table sugar, syrups, honey, fruit-juice concentrates added to food). The Commission flags this not as a vitamin or mineral story but as a cardiometabolic risk. Epicure's sugar neighbourhood, below, surfaces the ultra-processed confection cluster the diet is trying to constrain, presented here as a cautionary view, not a recommendation.

What Epicure shows (the recipe-corpus clusters that fill this role)

Sweet confections and sugary fruits cluster of 140 ingredients
  1. white chocolate
  2. liqueur
  3. chocolate
  4. cookie
  5. milk chocolate
  6. coffee liqueur
  7. candied fruit
  8. maple syrup
  9. frosting
  10. sponge cake
  11. graham cracker
  12. brown sugar
  13. maraschino cherry
  14. whipped topping
  15. cherry
  16. ice cream
  17. cherry liqueur
  18. toffee

Cross-cutting view (by flavour, nutrient profile, or processing level)

Processed sweet confections and desserts cluster of 85 ingredients
  1. chocolate
  2. frosting
  3. white chocolate
  4. sprinkles
  5. cookie
  6. ganache
  7. meringue
  8. milk chocolate
  9. toffee
  10. pudding
  11. buttercream
  12. candy
  13. sponge cake
  14. fudge
  15. waffle
  16. marzipan
  17. condensed milk
  18. graham cracker

The Commission says: Maximum 5 % of total energy. Provides no nutritional value; flagged as a cardiometabolic risk.

2019 → 2025: unchanged (≤5 % energy, ~31 g/day at 2400 kcal).

D Sources & a methodological note

The reference values, planetary-boundary shares, and health framing on this page are drawn entirely from three peer-reviewed sources. The bridge section is original to GLOBAÏA: it joins the Commission's prescriptive grams to a published descriptive embedding of recipe co-occurrence and chemistry.

  1. Rockström J, Thilsted SH, Willett WC, et al. The EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy, sustainable, and just food systems. The Lancet Commissions, 2 October 2025. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01201-2

    The spine of this page. Table 1 supplies the 14-group reference values; Table 2 the food-system shares of the planetary boundaries.

  2. Willett W, Rockström J, Loken B, et al. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The Lancet 393(10170):447–492, 2019. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4

    The 2019 predecessor, retained here as the historical baseline against which 2025's revisions are read.

  3. Halpern BS, Frazier M, Verstaen J, et al. The cumulative environmental footprint of global food production. Nature Sustainability, 2022. doi:10.1038/s41893-022-00965-x

    Spatially explicit measurement of food production's cumulative environmental pressures, supplying the detail behind the planetary-boundary shares in Zone B.

  4. Radzikowski J, Chen J. Epicure: Navigating the Emergent Geometry of Food Ingredient Embeddings. arXiv:2605.22391v1 (KAIKAKU.AI), 21 May 2026.

    The bridge artifact. The Core 300-D embedding, supervised fg_* directions, and GMM mode atlas used in Zone C.

A methodological note

Epicure is a model of how ingredients co-occur and share chemistry in recipes. It is not a nutrition oracle. The cross-cuisine neighbourhoods surfaced above are claims about culinary substitutability, not about health, ethics, or environmental impact. The Planetary Health Diet's numbers come from the Commission, with all the strengths and limits of dietary epidemiology; the embedding's neighbourhoods come from co-occurrence and chemistry, with the strengths and limits of representation learning. We have joined them because they answer two different questions about the same object — the global food system — and we think the answers are more useful together than apart.

For canonical visual and editorial material on the Planetary Health Diet, see the EAT Forum reference page at eatforum.org.

Published · GLOBAÏA