Indicators and Recommendations for Assessing Sustainable Healthy Diets.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Aldaya MM
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8147455 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Global food systems will face unprecedented challenges in the coming years. They will need to meet the nutritional needs of a growing population and feed an expanding demand for proteins. This is against a backdrop of increasing environmental challenges (water resources, climate change, soil health) and the need to improve farming livelihoods. Collaborative efforts by a variety of stakeholders are needed to ensure that future generations have access to healthy and sustainable diets. Food will play an increasingly important role in the global discourse on health. These topics were explored during Nestlé's second international conference on 'Planting Seeds for the Future of Food: The Agriculture, Nutrition and Sustainability Nexus', which took place in July 2017. This article discusses some of the key issues from the perspective of three major stakeholder groups, namely farming/agriculture, the food industry and consumers. © 2018 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.
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Project description:It is the position of Dietitians Australia that to promote human and planetary health, a food system transformation is needed that enables the population to adopt healthy and sustainable diet-related practices. A healthy and sustainable diet must (i) be nutritionally adequate, healthy and safe, (ii) have low environmental impact and be protective of natural resources and biodiversity, (iii) be culturally acceptable and (iv) be accessible, economically fair and affordable. Dietitians Australia acknowledges that it is critical to prioritise Indigenous knowledges in consultation, policy-making and implementation processes to achieve these recommendations. In facilitating the uptake of healthy and sustainable diets, dietitians are contributing to the transformation of our current food system that is urgently required to nourish present and future generations within planetary boundaries. In developing this position statement, opportunities for future research have been identified including those to advance the professions' capacity to improve environmental sustainability outcomes across all areas of practice. To achieve a population-level shift towards this diet, Dietitians Australia recommends: (i) the development of a National Food and Nutrition Strategy which honours Indigenous knowledges on food systems, (ii) the integration of sustainability principles in Australia's dietary guidelines, (iii) the reorientation of our food environment to prioritise access to healthy and sustainable foods, and (iv) investment in capacity building activities to equip the current and future nutrition and dietetics workforce.
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Project description:The first Swiss national dietary survey (MenuCH) was used to screen disease burdens and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) of Swiss diets (vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, slimming), with a focus on gender and education level. The Health Nutritional Index (HENI), a novel disease burden-based nutritional index built on the Global Burden of Disease studies, was used to indicate healthiness using comparable, relative disease burden scores. Low whole grain consumption and high processed meat consumption are priority risk factors. Non-processed red meat and dairy make a nearly negligible contribution to disease burden scores, yet are key drivers of diet-related GHGs. Swiss diets, including vegetarian, ranged between 1.1-2.6 tons of CO2e/person/year, above the Swiss federal recommendation 0.6 ton CO2e/person/year for all consumption categories. This suggests that only changing food consumption practices will not suffice towards achieving carbon reduction targets: Systemic changes to food provisioning processes are also necessary. Finally, men with higher education had the highest dietary GHG emissions per gram of food, and the highest disease burden scores. Win-win policies to improve health and sustainability of Swiss diets would increase whole grain consumption for all, and decrease alcohol and processed meat consumption especially for men of higher education levels.
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Project description:ObjectiveThis qualitative study aimed to explore young Australians' perspectives, motivators and current practices in achieving a sustainable and healthy diet.DesignSemi-structured online interviews were conducted with young Australians. Interviews were audio-recorded using the online Zoom platform, transcribed and analysed using a deductive analysis method by applying the Theoretical Domains Framework and inductive thematic data analysis.SettingYoung Australians recruited via social media platforms, noticeboard announcements and flyers.SubjectsTwenty-two Australians aged 18 to 25 years.ResultsThe majority of participants were aware of some aspects of a sustainable and healthy diet and indicated the need to reduce meat intake, increase intake of plant-based foods, reduce food wastage and packaging and reduce food miles. Young adults were motivated to adopt more sustainable dietary practices but reported that individual and environmental factors such as low food literacy, limited food preparation and cooking skills, lack of availability and accessibility of environmentally friendly food options and costs associated with sustainable and healthy diets hindered their ability to do so.ConclusionsGiven the barriers faced by many of our participants, there is a need for interventions aimed at improving food literacy and food preparation and cooking skills as well as those that create food environments that make it easy to select sustainable and healthy diets. Future research is needed for longitudinal larger scale quantitative studies to confirm our qualitative findings. In addition, the development and evaluation of individual and micro-environmental-based interventions promote sustainable and healthy diets more comprehensively.
| S-EPMC9991849 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Alternative cook stoves that replace solid fuels with cleaner energy sources, such as biogas, are gaining popularity in low-income settings across Asia, Africa, and South America. Published research on these technologies focuses on their potential to reduce indoor air pollution and improve respiratory health. Effects on other cooking-related aspects, such as diets and women's time management, are less understood. In this study, in southern India, we investigate if using biogas cook stoves alters household diets and women's time management. We compare treatment households who are supplied with a biogas cook stove with comparison households who do not have access to these stoves, while controlling for several socio-economic factors. We find that diets of treatment households are more diverse than diets of comparison households. In addition, women from treatment households spend on average 40 min less cooking and 70 min less collecting firewood per day than women in comparison households. This study illustrates that alongside known benefits for respiratory health, using alternative cook stoves may benefit household diets and free up women's time. To inform development investments and ensure these co-benefits, we argue that multiple dimensions of sustainability should be considered in evaluating the impact of alternative cook stoves.
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Project description:BackgroundTo keep global warming <1.5°C as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), eating patterns must change. However, future diets should be modeled at a national level and respect cultural acceptability.ObjectivesWe aimed to identify diets among Dutch adults satisfying nutritional and selected environmental requirements while deviating minimally from the baseline diet among Dutch adults.MethodsWe calculated per capita food system greenhouse gas emission (GHGE) targets derived from the IPCC 1.5-degree assessment study. Using individual adult dietary intake from the National Food Consumption Survey in the Netherlands (2007-2010) to form a baseline, we used quadratic optimization to generate diets that followed the baseline Dutch diet as closely as possible, while satisfying nutritional goals and remaining below GHGE targets. We considered 12 scenarios in which we varied GHGE targets [2050: 1.11 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (kg CO2-eq) per person per day (pppd); 2030: 2.04 kg CO2-eq pppd; less strict 2030: 2.5 kg CO2-eq pppd; no target], modeled eating patterns (food-based dietary guidelines; flexitarian; pescatarian; lacto-ovo-vegetarian; vegan), and conducted exploratory analyses (food diversity; acceptability; food chain interdependency).ResultsOptimized solutions for 2030 required major decreases (<33% of baseline values) in consumption of beef, pork, cheese, snacks, and butter and increased consumption (>150% of baseline values) of legumes, fish and shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts, vegetables, soy foods, and soy drink. Eight food groups were within 33%-150% of the baseline diet among Dutch adults. The optimized solution complying to the lowest GHGE target (2050) lacked food diversity, and the (lacto-ovo) vegetarian and vegan optimized diets were prone to nutritional inadequacies.ConclusionsWithin Dutch eating habits, satisfying optimization constraints required a shift away from beef, cheese, butter, and snacks toward plant-based foods and fish and shellfish, questioning acceptability. Satisfying 2050 food system GHGE targets will require research in consumer preferences and breakthrough innovations in food production and processing.
| S-EPMC7657328 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Few Australians consume a healthy, equitable and more sustainable diet consistent with the Australian Dietary Guidelines (ADGs). Low socioeconomic groups (SEGs) suffer particularly poor diet-related health problems. However, granular information on dietary intakes and affordability of recommended diets was lacking for low SEGs. The Healthy Diets Australian Standardised Affordability and Pricing protocol was modified for low SEGs to align with relevant dietary intakes reported in the National Nutrition Survey 2011-2012(which included less healthy and more discretionary options than the broader population), household structures, food purchasing habits, and incomes. Cost and affordability of habitual and recommended diets of low SEGs were calculated using prices of 'standard brands' and 'cheapest options'. With 'standard brands', recommended diets cost less than habitual diets, but were unaffordable for low SEGs. With 'cheapest options', both diets were more affordable, but recommended diets cost more than habitual diets for some low SEGs, potentially contributing to perceptions that healthy food is unaffordable. The study confirms the need for an equity lens to better target dietary guidelines for low SEGs. It also highlights urgent policy action is needed to help improve affordability of recommended diets.
| S-EPMC8402089 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Food choices and eating behaviours have a large impact on both human and planetary health. Recently, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations and the World Health Organisation have developed a list of 16 guiding principles to achieve sustainable healthy diets (SHDs). They proposed that development of food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) should be a core element in the implementation of these SHDs in each country. The objective of this review is to explore the degree of alignment of current FBDGs to these guiding principles. A total of 43 FBDGs, written or translated into English, were collected from the online repository developed by the FAO and were analysed for their adherence to each of the guiding principles. Results were stratified for period of publication and geographical macro-area. Overall, there were high levels of inclusion of the factors related to health outcomes, especially in the most recent FBDGs. Conversely, environmental impact and socio-cultural aspects of diet were considered less frequently, especially in the older FBDGs. These results highlight the importance of revising FBDGs, especially to include emerging topics which represent the areas with the highest scope for improvement in the future versions of FBDGs. Replication of the present study in the coming years will be worthwhile to monitor improvements in the adherence of global FBDGs to the guiding principles of SHDs. The attainment of such a goal could promote a more rapid transition towards SHDs, as well as highlighting pivotal research trajectories to increase adoption and evaluate the impact on the food system.
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Project description:Food production and consumption are essential in human existence, yet they are implicated in the high occurrences of preventable chronic diseases and environmental degradation. Although healthy food may not necessarily be sustainable and vice versa, there is an opportunity to make our food both healthy and sustainable. Attempts have been made to conceptualize how sustainable healthy food may be produced and consumed; however, available data suggest a rise in the prevalence of health-related and negative environmental consequences of our food supply. Thus, the transition from conceptual frameworks to implementing these concepts has not always been effective. This paper explores the relative environmental and health risks associated with highly consumed food groups and develops a methodological workflow for evaluating the sustainability of diet concepts in the context of different health, socio-economic and environmental indicators. In addition, we apply the multi-criteria decision-making techniques (an integrated Analytic Hierarchy Process- Technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (AHP-TOPSIS) model) to examine the health and environmental impact of selected sustainable healthy diet concepts implemented in the United States. The principal findings indicate that adopting plant-based diet patterns would benefit the environment and the population's health. However, the up-scale, broad adoption and implementation of these concepts are hindered by critical bottlenecks. Hence we propose potential modification strategies through a conceptual system thinking approach to deliver optimized sustainable diet concepts to aid in the realization of the anticipated benefits of adoption/implementation.
| S-EPMC9372557 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Introduction: Lebanon, a middle-income Eastern Mediterranean country, continues to face detrimental economic, health and socio-political challenges that are further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In parallel, the country has been experiencing a remarkable nutrition transition that has contributed to the burden of malnutrition and non-communicable diseases, all imposing serious repercussions on people's livelihoods, food security, and health. Such circumstances have prodded public demand for guidance on affordable, healthy, and sustainable dietary choices to alleviate the burden to this emerging unfortunate situation. Objective: The purpose of this study is to provide evidence-based sustainable and healthy dietary recommendations which balance the tradeoffs among the health, environmental footprint and cost dimensions of sustainability, while closely resembling the usual food consumption pattern. Methodology: Data from the latest available national food consumption survey was used as the usual food consumption pattern of Lebanese adults. Optimized dietary patterns were calculated using the optimization model Optimeal which produced patterns most similar to the usual diet and simultaneously satisfying the three main sets of constraints: health, environmental footprints, and cost. The identified healthy and sustainable dietary options were vetted by multiple key stakeholders from the government, academia, international, and national non-governmental organizations. Results: Compared to the usual intake, the optimized diet included higher intakes of whole grain bread, dark green vegetables, dairy products, and legumes, and lower intakes of refined bread, meat, poultry, added sugars, saturated fat, as compared to usual national mean consumption. The optimized dietary model resulted in a decrease in the associated environmental footprints: water use (-6%); and GHG (-22%) with no change in energy use. The cost of the optimized diet was not different from that of the usual intake. Conclusion: An evidence-based sustainable and healthy diet was developed for Lebanon providing the population and policy makers with some answers to a complex situation. Findings highlight the need for the development of sustainable food based dietary guidelines for Lebanon to promote diets that are healthy, sustainable, culturally acceptable, and affordable and that can alleviate food insecurity among the general population.
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