Below are citation and extracts from a new paper from The Lancet Planetary Health and a comment from me.
CITATION: López-Moreno M et al. Plant-based misinformation as a barrier to dietary transition. The Lancet Planetary Health, 2026; 10
The success of sustainable dietary transition is becoming increasingly dependent not only on food systems transformation but also on who controls nutrition narratives within digital ecosystems. Global strategies promote plant-rich dietary patterns to address the intersecting challenges of human and planetary health. However, foods central to these sustainable dietary frameworks might face scrutiny within digital nutrition ecosystems shaped by engagement-driven communication and fragmented interpretations of nutritional evidence.2 Yet, dietary transition depends not only on food availability, affordability, and policy support but also on public perceptions of nutritional legitimacy. In this context, the growing influence of nutrition-related misinformation across digital platforms represents a structural barrier to sustainable dietary transition.
Online nutrition discourse increasingly portrays foods central to plant-rich dietary patterns, including legumes, soy foods, seed oils, and minimally processed grains, as unhealthy, inflammatory, hormonally disruptive, or ultra-processed...
Although misinformation is often addressed through reactive debunking approaches, future dietary transition strategies will require more proactive communication models...
Addressing these challenges will require interdisciplinary collaboration extending beyond nutritional science alone. Behavioural scientists, communication researchers, digital sociologists, and platform governance experts can all contribute to understanding how dietary beliefs are shaped, amplified, and sustained within algorithm-driven environments...
Overall, addressing digital nutrition misinformation is expected to become increasingly important for narrowing the gap between sustainable dietary recommendations and real-world behavioural adoption.
COMMENT (NPW): On HIFA we have not previously considered these issues, although reliable information about nutrition is clearly part of the information we all need to protect our own health and the health of others. An issue that this paper didn't explore is the role of Big Food in creating this misinformation.
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org