How Substituting Red Meat with Soybean Can Help China to Achieve Healthy and Environmental Goals?

In the current Chinese diets, merely 14% of residents adhere to the recent dietary guidelines. The excessive consumption of red meat presents significant health and environmental challenges, leading to increased pressure on protein feed imports. This study proposes a pragmatic solution wherein the entire population partially replaces red meat with soybeans in China, and evaluates the impacts. Employing meta-analysis and counterfactual analysis, we investigate the correlations between food intake and disease risk, calculating avoidable mortality and the associated disease burden. Consuming 50g/day of soybeans may prevent 1.2 million deaths annually, saving $250.74 million indirect costs and $3.52 billion in direct medical expenses. Through substituting, completely eliminating the population exceeding 100g daily red meat intake in China could preventing 0.28 million deaths, and saving $247.66 million indirect and $2.06 billion direct medical costs. Furthermore, utilizing a partial equilibrium model, we projected the regional impacts and costs of following the recommended soybean consumption on water use, land use, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus emissions. Through dynamic data validation, estimating a 19.6% reduction in carbon emissions, 5.4% less water use, 26.2% lower nitrogen footprint, and 24.6% less phosphorus footprint. These findings offer valuable evidence for improving agricultural economic policies and strategies in China.