Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 4:
Share of animal products in human total protein consumption of the world's
countries in 2003, plotted against their GDP (sources: FAOstat, 2012).
3.5 CHANGING THE HUMAN DIET
The present human consumption of animal products in France accounts
for 65% of the total protein intake. This rate is among the highest in the
world (Fig. 4). The trend shown in Fig. 4 suggests that the share of animal
product consumption in the human diet increases with the gross domestic
product, as if meat and milk consumption were a sign of economic wealth.
Yet the adverse public health effects of a high animal-protein diet are well
documented both in terms of cardiovascular diseases (Lloyd-Williams et
al., 2008) and colorectal cancer risks (Norat et al., 2005). A reduction of
animal protein consumption in industrialised countries is also advocated
for environmental reasons by NinE (2009) (The Barsac Declaration for
