This month, the Changing Markets Foundation released its Meat vs EAT-Lancet report, which frames academics, doctors, and health advocates who questioned the EAT-Lancet Commission’s dietary recommendations as “mis-influencers.” Among those named is Professor Tim Noakes, whose work through The Noakes Foundation has challenged conventional nutrition dogma and reshaped how we think about health.
The report suggests that questioning the EAT-Lancet Commission is to align with the meat industry propaganda. Yet this framing risks silencing precisely what science most urgently requires: open debate, rigorous scrutiny, and the humility to change course when the evidence demands it.
Science thrives on questioning
Science is not a fixed set of truths; it is a process of continuous inquiry. Every landmark shift in medicine, from handwashing to randomized controlled clinical trials, began with someone daring to challenge accepted wisdom. To dismiss those who raise valid critiques of the EAT-Lancet diet as part of an orchestrated “backlash” is to confuse skepticism with misinformation.
Professor Noakes himself exemplifies this. Once a staunch supporter of high-carbohydrate diets for athletes, he transformed his views when confronted with new evidence on insulin resistance and metabolic health. That willingness to admit error, to evolve in light of fresh data, is what true science looks like.
The Noakes Foundation carries this ethos forward: we never stop learning, and we never stop asking difficult questions.
The science is far from settled
The EAT-Lancet diet, a largely plant-based “planetary health diet”, has been hailed as the blueprint for feeding 10 billion people sustainably. But it has also been heavily criticized by scientists across disciplines. Concerns range from nutritional adequacy (particularly for women, children, and people in low-income settings) to cultural appropriateness, to the feasibility of enforcing a “one-size-fits-all” diet on diverse populations.
In South Africa and across the Global South, the proposed diet ignores deeply rooted food traditions and the reality of food insecurity. Protein-rich animal foods remain essential for many vulnerable groups. To suggest otherwise risks worsening malnutrition under the banner of sustainability.
Critiquing these gaps is not industry propaganda. It is precisely what responsible academics and public health practitioners should be doing: testing whether global dietary prescriptions truly work for everyone, or whether they privilege certain agendas while marginalising others.
Never stop learning
The Noakes Foundation has built its mission on intellectual humility and relentless inquiry. Our work has challenged entrenched guidelines that, for decades, promoted high-carbohydrate, low-fat diets, even as rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease surged.
We are not “anti-plant” or “pro-meat.” We are pro-health. We are anti-diabetes. And we are committed to learning from both successes and failures in nutrition science. That means holding every major dietary framework, from high-carb to plant-based, to the same rigorous standard.
To label this as “misinformation” is to shut down the very spirit of inquiry that advances public health.
Our role: bridging research, practice, and policy
At The Noakes Foundation, we see ourselves as chronic disease prevention specialists, creating the critical link between rigorous research, real-world community practice, and evidence-based policy.
Through our Eat Better South Africa programme, we have demonstrated that culturally tailored, low-carbohydrate dietary interventions can transform metabolic health in underserved communities. Our Nutrition Network training partners equip healthcare professionals worldwide with tools to address diet-related disease using the latest evidence. And our research arm continues to investigate the most pressing questions in nutrition science.
Why questioning matters now more than ever
The Meat vs EAT-Lancet report warns of an industry-coordinated backlash ahead of the upcoming EAT-Lancet 2.0 launch. But in painting all critics with the same brush, it risks undermining genuine scientific discourse. Not everyone who questions EAT-Lancet is acting on behalf of industry. Some of us are acting on behalf of patients, communities, and future generations.
We cannot afford to conflate questioning with misinformation. When science becomes immune to challenge, it ceases to be science and becomes ideology.
A call to keep science open
As EAT-Lancet 2.0 approaches, we urge the global health community to welcome critique, not silence it. The future of food systems is too important to be shaped by consensus politics or PR campaigns. What we need is robust debate, transparent evidence, and policies that reflect the realities of diverse cultures and metabolic needs.
The Noakes Foundation will continue to play its part by asking the difficult questions, generating new evidence, and working with communities to build healthier lives. That is not misinformation; it is the very heart of science.
