• MFA Food sec MOC
• Malnutrition
• Health risks of veggie veganism
• Solutions to micronutrient deficiencies in LMICs

Arguments for

• A review revealed that animal products, particularly eggs, improve weight and size of infants under 1000 days (the key period where malnutrition causes stunting) ^[1]
• About 88% of households worldwide consume iodised salt, but iodine deficiency remains. ASFs, particularly fish and dairy are some of the strongest sources of iodine^[2] see also ^[3]

Arguments against

Animal products are "Nutrient-dense", but this may not be relevant to food security

One argument that is commonly made is that animal foods are better because they are some of the most “nutrient dense” foods we have (for example). This is in fact true. Micronutrient density can be defined as the amount of micronutrients that are found in 100 calories of a food, or 100 grams of a food. By this metric, nearly all animal products score favourably. But upon closer inspection, these metrics are often irrelevant to food security in developing countries. The finding that "per 100 calories, beef has higher levels of vitamin A than potatoes" is only useful to someone trying to maximize their vitamin A intake while keeping calories as low as possible. Similarly, the finding that "per 100 grams, fish contains more iodine than 100 grams of spinach" is only useful to someone trying to maximize their iodine intake in as little quantity of food as possible.

Neither of these metrics are relevant to food insecure people. While they are looking to maximize micronutrients, they are not looking to minimize calories or weight of food. For those that are hungry as well as nutrient deficient, they may actually be looking to also increase calories and grams of food (higher weight of food will decrease feelings of hunger). Food insecure people care far more about how easy a food is to produce, or how cheap it is to buy. 200g of beef might meet one's daily iron needs, compared to 500g of spinach. But if 200g of beef is 5 times the price of 500g of spinach, or 500g of spinach can be easily grown and a cow cannot, then spinach provides better food access than beef does. This is regardless of beef's superior nutrient density. More relevant food security metrics might be "Zinc content per hour of labour" or "calcium content per Rupee at the local market". It is not clear that animal products are favourable on either of these metrics.

There is one extreme scenario where nutrient density matters: when someone eats a diet mostly consisting of foods with very low micronutrient-density foods. Foods with low levels of micronutrient density might be called "nutrient-sparse" foods. In this case, it is possible for someone to eat enough calories and feel full whilst suffering from micronutrient deficiency. An intuitive example might be an unrealistic diet consisting entirely of cake, but this scenario is not uncommon in low income countries. However, this is not necessarily an argument for animal products. It simply shows that there is a minimum micronutrient density that we need to exceed. It doesn't logically follow that we need to maximise nutrient density. If animal products are expensive or difficult to produce, it may be more tractable to solve micronutrient deficiencies using plant sources, even if they are less nutrient dense per gram or calorie.

Anemia rates among women are not 0 even in the US (10%) and Europe (17%).

Whilst Zinc deficiency is extremely low in high income countries (5-10%) there are plenty of poor countries with lower animal product consumption where zinc deficiency is as low as Europe, such as Chile and Mongolia .

However, Berners-Lee, Watson and Hewitt 2018 find that we could meet all requirements for protein, calories, Vit A, iron and zinc by eating crops we already produce. They find that in 2013 all world regions over consumed protein and globally average fruit and vegetable consumption was 38% below the healthy minimum level defined by the FAO and WHO.

Blackmore et al 2018 and Masset et al., 2015 both point out that there is only weak evidence that providing the global poor with livestock effectively reduces poverty and tackles malnutriton

However, even assuming pregnant women and <1000 day infants would benefit from animal products, the amount needed to meet their needs is trivial compared to what we currently eat, so we could easily meet this need whilst reducing ADF consumption everywhere else.

Rates of Anaemia in women, mothers and kids are no better in Europe than LatAm and East Asia despite all the animal products they eat^[4]

Iodine deficiency results from diets low in iodine, which is more common in places where soils have low iodine content, which reduces iodine concentrations in crops generally. Iodine deficiency is therefore hard to address simply through dietary diversification. While fish, eggs and dairy can be good sources of iodine, if these are produce from animals whose feed contains low levels of iodine then they won't be a good source. Thus the areas where people are most likely to be iodine deficient are the places where asfs are poorest sources.

References