Prescription for a Better World

What do you call a global emergency that’s actively ignored by the very people tasked with preventing disease and saving lives? Normal. At least in the world of modern medicine, where it’s still somehow controversial to say that what we eat might have something to do with how sick we are.

Doctors Dr Shireen Kassam and Dr Laura Jane Smith are done whispering about it. In a recent journal entry in Future Healthcare, they call out the healthcare profession’s ongoing silence around diet - specifically the benefits of a plant-based one. According to them, the evidence is already overwhelming: the food system is fuelling four interconnected disasters - chronic illness, biodiversity loss, social injustice, and ecological collapse. And the solution is on the end of our forks.

The Cure Nobody Prescribes

The science is not ambiguous. Diets centred around whole plant foods are known antidote to skyrocketing rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers. It's not just health - it's a systems solution. It slashes greenhouse gas emissions, restores ecosystems, and uses fewer resources. It is, in every sense, a win-win. So why aren’t hospitals, doctors, and policymakers leading the charge?

Because the problem isn’t a lack of evidence. It’s a lack of courage. A lack of will. And let’s be honest - a surplus of meat and dairy industry influence.

Meat Industry PR Playbook

Remember the 2019 EAT-Lancet report? It was a landmark piece of science recommending the world transition to a “Planetary Health Diet” - mostly plant-based, designed to improve health and prevent ecological disaster. It should’ve been front-page news. It was. But not for the reasons it deserved.

The backlash was fast, furious, and - according to a leaked document - manufactured. A PR firm called Red Flag, working with the Animal Agriculture Alliance (a meat industry lobbying front), ran a disinformation campaign to make the report sound “radical,” “elitist,” and “unrealistic.” They didn’t refute the science. They reframed it as a culture war. And just like that, saving the planet became a political opinion.

Red Flag has worked with tobacco giants and chemical companies before. So it’s no surprise they applied the same tired strategy: when the science is inconvenient, don’t debate it - just discredit the people behind it.

Meanwhile, People Are Dying of Preventable Diseases

The hypocrisy is hard to stomach. In hospitals across the UK and US, the standard meal for recovering cardiac patients still includes the very foods that contributed to their heart disease. It’s the equivalent of giving lung cancer patients complimentary cigarettes - except even cigarettes don’t get government subsidies and public school contracts.

But cracks are forming. Some NHS Trusts have started analysing their catering against sustainability targets. The results? Grim. Less than half even plan to increase plant-based options. And in the US, where change is often market-driven, momentum is growing. Over 400 hospitals will soon be serving plant-based meals by default, thanks to the work of nonprofit Greener by Default and food service giant Sodexo. Early data shows emissions dropped by over a third at participating hospitals. More than half of patients willingly chose the plant-based meal - no lectures, no finger-pointing, just good food. Satisfaction rates? Over 90%.

The Public Wants Change. It’s the Leaders Holding It Back.

A 2025 poll by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine found 46% of Americans would consider going plant-based to help fight climate change. And 60% think federal nutrition guidelines should mention the environmental impact of food. Yet our leaders continue to pander to powerful lobbies, protecting the very industries driving us into an early grave.

40% of people even support taxing meat and dairy for their environmental destruction - mirroring Denmark’s proposed legislation. Over half back policies that help farmers shift from animal agriculture to growing plants. The appetite for change is real. But it’s being starved.

The Ethical Imperative

Kassam and Smith don’t just make a medical case for plant-based diets. They make a moral one. When our food choices perpetuate chronic illness, ecological destruction, global hunger, and the commodification of sentient beings, continuing with business as usual isn’t just irresponsible - it’s indefensible.

They call on healthcare leaders to walk the talk: normalise plant-based meals, make them the default, teach doctors the truth about nutrition, sign the Plant-Based Treaty, and divest from companies profiting off animal exploitation.

Because pretending there’s nothing wrong with the status quo is no longer an option. Embracing plant-based diets isn’t a fringe trend or a lifestyle quirk. It’s an ethical imperative - grounded in evidence, rooted in justice, and desperately overdue.

Final Thought

The meat and dairy industries aren’t just fuelling climate breakdown and disease. They’re fuelling disinformation campaigns, silencing science, and warping public discourse. The healthcare profession’s refusal to confront this head-on is not neutrality - it’s complicity.

So the question isn’t “Why plant-based?” It’s “Why are we still supporting a system that’s killing us, our planet, and billions of others - when we don’t have to?”

Change is coming. But the longer we delay, the more lives are lost - human and non-human alike.