Does Lancet want to hand control of our diets to the state?

Interested in a case study of all rational and proportional thought going out the window? No, I’m not talking about Brexit – I’m talking about the ‘EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health’ which – in an ironic attempt to lay out prescriptions for a better world – published a report yesterday calling for intervention, force, rationing, and the abolition of consumer choice to achieve its ends.

This latest dietary decree only allows seven grams of pork per day (equivalent to a half-rasher of bacon, or one-tenth of a sausage), twenty-nine grams of chicken each day (roughly one and a half nuggets), one quarter of a baked potato, and only one and half eggs – not per day, but per week.

In total, Brits would have to cut their meat consumption by roughly 80 per cent to comply with the ‘planetary health diet’. The report refers to its recommendations as ‘targets’, but those who might choose to opt out of plates full of bean sprouts and the occasional poached egg could be in for a rude awakening.