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A 2014 Harvard study conducted over six years on fields in Japan, Australia, and the US, served up a dire warning. It found that around 150 million people in 18 different countries could face a protein deficiency, due to a 5% drop in dietary protein in staple crops like wheat and rice, by 2050.The study compared crops grown in the field to those grown in lab-like conditions, where crops were ensconced in carbon dioxide via sprayers, which kept them at between 546 and 586 parts per million. That’s where scientists think our atmosphere will be at in forty to sixty years. Wheat saw 9.3% less zinc, an essential nutrient to health. While wheat, peas, and rice saw reduced protein levels.This is the first study to evaluate the risk climate change poses to the nutritiousness of our food supply. The results were published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Samuel Myers authored the study. He’s a senior research analyst at Department of Environmental Health, part of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.Over a billion of the world’s most vulnerable will be further at risk. Getty Images.Myers and colleagues looked at UN data including demographics and income inequality measures, and combined these figures with their experiments with crops. As a result, the protein content of staples are predicted to decrease as follows: rice 7.6%, wheat 7.8%, potatoes 6.4%, and barley 14.1%. The hardest hit places would be South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, places where protein deficiency is already a substantial problem. In India authors point out, the diet might lose 5.3% of its protein, affecting 53 million people.A paper alongside this one, published last summer in the journal GeoHealth, found climate change will also likely reduce iron content in staple food crops. This could increase iron deficiency globally. Iron is expected to drop 3.8% due to global warming. Here, those in South Asia and North Africa are the most at risk of anemia, particularly children under five and women of childbearing age. 1.4 billion children ages 1-4 and women of childbearing age are thought to be at risk.

Source: Your Nutrition May Be at Risk Thanks to Climate Change | Big Think

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Nutrisattva is a protein innovation company focused on developing natural protein nutrition for individuals across age groups, nutritional needs, and lifestyles. Founded on the belief that the strains of urban living requires a natural, informed and convenience-based approach to good health, Nutrisattva develops products built on the knowledge of nutrition science, fitness and Ayurveda.