Sustainable Diets, Food, and Nutrition Proceedings of a Workshop (2019) / Chapter Skim
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2 What Are Sustainable Diets?
2 What Are Sustainable Diets?
Pages 3-26
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Drewnowski then called attention to the 2012 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report Sustainable Diets and Biodiversity (FAO, 2012b)
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− Because of the fluctuating nature of food prices, a goal should be to focus on pursuing a sustainable-diet strategy that encompasses both abundance (low prices) and scarcity (high prices)
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Drewnowski went on to assert that the dimensions of sustainability lead to inherent tensions and contradictions. For example, he elaborated, some energy-dense foods cost less per calorie and may have a lower impact on the environment relative to other, more nutritious foods, but also have low nutrient density.
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Without going into detail, he mentioned the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) guidelines for nutrient profiling and noted a current trend toward what he termed "hybrid nutrient profiling," whereby not just nutrients but also healthy food ingredients can contribute to an overall nutrient density score (Drewnowski and Fulgoni, 2008)
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per 100 grams; the x-axis depicts nutrient-rich foods by NRF 9.3, which is a European Food Safety Authority nutrient profiling score. SOURCES: Presented by Adam Drewnowski on August 1, 2018, from Drewnowski, 2017.
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The y-axis depicts nutrient density by NRF 9.3, which is a European Food Safety Authority nutrient profiling score; the x-axis depicts energy cost as U.S. dollars per 1,000 kcal.
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; the x-axis depicts nutrient density by NRF 9.3, which is a European Food Safety Authority nutrient profiling score. SOURCE: Presented by Adam Drewnowski on August 1, 2018.
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Today, she noted, sustainable diets are being discussed in global reports, such as the 2016 report of the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, Food Systems and Diets: Facing the Challenges of the 21st Century (GLOPAN, 2016) ; the Global Nutrition Report 2017 (Development Initiatives, 2017)
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Definition of Sustainable Diets into a Feasible Reality Fanzo characterized the goal of turning the 2012 FAO definition of sustainable diets (see Box 2-2) into a feasible reality as a "real challenge," particularly for those living in low- and middle-income countries and in contexts where tremendous inequalities force policy makers to make difficult decisions about trade-offs.
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"Our choices matter." Global Transitions and Transformations: The Growing Demand for Meat Expanding on the observations summarized above, Fanzo explained that the world is undergoing rapid demographic, epidemiologic, and nutrition transitions: urbanization is expanding, with people moving from rural, subsistence-agriculture landscapes into urban centers; people have more disposable income; physical activity is changing; the food system is becoming increasingly global; and health outcomes also are changing, as seen in rising rates of obesity and diet-related noncommunicable diseases. Although approximately 1 billion people go to bed hungry every night, while another billion are purposely exercising and consuming a healthy diet, most of the world -- about 5 billion people -- is in a state of rapid transition, including rapid shifts in diet (Crino et al., 2015; Drewnowski and Popkin, 2009; Fanzo et al., 2017)
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daily animal-based protein availability per capita (i.e., based on supply chain data)
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Thus, instead of handing policy makers a suite of indicators or a dashboard and telling them to look at the data, she stressed, "we need to start thinking like policy makers and understanding what they need to make an informed, evidencebased decision." In another recent study, Fanzo and colleagues examined three different national strategies in Nepal: the Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Plan, the National
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They systematically examined whether the three strategies captured elements of sustainability across a range of themes, including environmental, sociocultural, economic, and nutritional. Their results showed that the Agriculture Development Strategy included the most sustainability elements, and the Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Plan the least (Downs et al., 2017)
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There has been a lot published on sustainable diets. We need to be thinking about ensuring that this kind of thing does not happen again, where we knew what to do 30 years ago, and policy makers just did not act on it." She ended by saying, "Be thinking policy." DECISION MAKING UNDER UNCERTAINTY: SUSTAINABLE DIETS FOR CONDITIONS OF SCARCITY OR ABUNDANCE Parke Wilde, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, began by asserting that the inherently multisectoral nature of sustainable diets requires engaging, in the same forum, people thinking about public health and nutrition, about the environment and climate change, about food consumers, about supply chains and food waste, about farmers and food producers, and about reducing poverty (FAO, 2012b; Johnston et al., 2014)
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He likened food prices to the aperture on a camera: it seems like a small hole, but in fact, a great deal of information passes through it. He asserted that food prices reveal much information about sustainable diets, such as what the demand is for different products under different conditions and what revenue farm owners and operators receive, how much farm laborers earn, how much healthy food costs for consumers, and what the big picture looks like with respect to scarcity and abundance.
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Two things then occurred as a result of changes in the agricultural economy, including increased use of food stocks for biofuels (in the early 2000s) , which essentially removed those stocks from the human food supply.
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After such price spikes, he continued, when prices fall again, as they did in the mid-2010s, people again start worrying about overproduction, excessive abundance, low prices, and how difficult it is for farmers to earn adequate livelihoods. Wilde cautioned, "We need to be worried about both types of conditions: high prices and low prices." Thoughts on the Future of Food Prices Wilde went on to note that USDA produces official projections of the future of food prices and other agricultural variables under certain assumptions.
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Food Prices and Resilience People need to focus not just on wishing for low prices, Wilde concluded, but also on the fundamental goals one hopes to achieve through low prices -- namely environmental quality, healthy eating, a thriving economy, and low hunger and poverty. "Let prices be prices," he urged.
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This technology raises "huge sustainability issues," Fanzo argued, including employment issues and issues around waste from prepackaged foods. Drewnowski also agreed with Wilde that technology plays major roles in production, either by increasing yields or through fortification, but cautioned that more production does not necessarily lead to greater food security and public health.
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He encouraged USDA to update and revise the National Food Prices Database, noting that its last revision was in 2004. Having an updated database would be extremely helpful, in his opinion, as it would allow researchers to examine what it costs to have a healthy diet.
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" On the other hand, Schneeman pointed out that not all policy makers are elected officials; many are career staff. Food Waste If one believes that 40 percent of food is being wasted, Food Forum member Erik Olson, Natural Resources Defense Council, asked, "How is that issue being addressed in discussions on sustainable diets?
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The Effect of Greenhouse Gases on Nutrient Density Maha Tahiri, former food industry executive, asked whether the effect of the current environment, specifically GHG emissions, on the nutrient
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. He agreed with Tahiri that the current environment will have an impact on the future nutrient density of foods.
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