Dietary shifts can reduce premature deaths related to particulate matter pollution in China

Shifting towards more meat-intensive diets may have indirect health consequences through environmental degradation. Here we examine how trends in dietary patterns in China over 1980–2010 have worsened fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution, thereby inducing indirect health impacts. We show that changes in dietary composition alone, mainly by driving the rising demands for meat and animal feed, have enhanced ammonia (NH3) emissions from Chinese agriculture by 63% and increased annual PM2.5 by up to ~10 µg m–3 (~20% of total PM2.5 increase) over the period. Such effects are more than double that driven by increased food production solely due to population growth. Shifting the current diet towards a less meat-intensive recommended diet can decrease NH3 emission by ~17% and PM2.5 by 2–6 µg m–3, and avoid ~75,000 Chinese annual premature deaths related to PM2.5.