Towards healthy and sustainable food consumption: an Australian case study (original) (raw)
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Sustainability
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BMC Public Health
Background There is increasing focus on moving populations towards healthier and more environmentally sustainable dietary patterns. The Australian Dietary Guidelines provide dietary patterns that promote health and wellbeing. It is unclear how these guidelines align with the more recently published global recommendations of the EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Reference Diet, and how Australian diets compare to both sets of recommendations. Methods Data from one 24-h recall collected for the 2011–13 National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey were analysed for 5,920 adults aged 19–50 years. Subgroups of this population were identified by diet quality and lower or higher consumption of foods often considered to be environmentally intensive (higher animal meat and dairy foods) or associated with healthiness (higher vegetables and lower discretionary choices). Food group and nutrient composition of Australian diets were compared to diets modelled on the Australian Dietary Guidelines and...
Sustainability, 2019
Sustainable diets should not only respect the environment but also be healthy and affordable. However, there has been little work to assess whether real diets can encompass all three aspects. The aim of this study was to develop a framework to quantify actual diet records for health, affordability and environmental sustainability and apply this to UK food purchase survey data. We applied a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach to detailed food composition data where purchased food items were disaggregated into their components with traceable environmental impact data. This novel approach is an improvement to earlier studies in which sustainability assessments were based on a limited number of “food groups”, with a potentially high variation of actual food items within each group. Living Costs and Food Survey data for 2012, 2013 and 2014 were mapped into published figures for greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE, taking into account processing, transport and cooking) and land use, a diet qu...
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Climate change can have economic consequences, affecting the nutritional intake of populations and increasing food insecurity, as it negatively affects diet quality parameters. One way to mitigate these consequences is to change the way we produce and consume our food. A healthy and sustainable diet aims to promote and achieve the physical, mental, and social well-being of the populations at all life stages, while protecting and safeguarding the resources of the planet and preserving biodiversity. Over the past few years, several indexes have been developed to evaluate dietary sustainability, most of them based on the EAT-Lancet reference diet. The present review explains the problems that arise in human nutrition as a result of climate change and presents currently available diet sustainability indexes and their applications and limitations, in an effort to aid researchers and policy actors in identifying aspects that need improvement in the development of relevant indexes. Overall...
Trimming the excess: environmental impacts of discretionary food consumption in Australia
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Tackling the overconsumption of discretionary foods (foods and drinks not necessary to provide the nutrients the body needs) is central to aligning human and planetary health. Whilst the adverse health impacts of discretionary foods are well documented, the environmental and broader sustainability impacts of these products deserve more attention, especially since their consumption has been increasing in recent decades, particularly amongst low income groups. This paper presents a quantitative case study analysis of discretionary food consumption and the associated environmental impacts for households from different income groups in Australia. Environmentally extended input-output analysis is used to estimate the full life cycle environmental impacts of discretionary food consumption on the basis of household expenditures. On average, discretionary foods account for a significant 35%, 39%, 33% and 35% of the overall diet-related life cycle water use, energy use, carbon dioxide equivalent and land use respectively. These significant percentages provide further support for the need to incentivise diets that are both healthier and more sustainable, including 'divestment' from discretionary food products. The study highlights the challenges ahead, including the need for further research on food substitutions to minimise environmental and social impacts whilst maximising nutritional quality – especially amongst poorer socioeconomic groups.
Ecological Economics, 2015
This paper uses input-output analysis to model the environmental impacts of the weekly food consumption of Australia's households sorted by income quintile in 2003. We found that weekly food consumption of the relatively better off households caused greater environmental burden than that of the less well-off household. Meat and bakery products/flour/cereals were the categories that contributed the largest share of environmental impacts in an average household's food consumption footprint: 58% water, 26% energy, 29% CO 2 , and 31% wasted materials. Per dollar spent, fruit and vegetables generated 0.0874 m 3 of water, 0.0055 GJ of energy, 0.37 kg of CO 2 , and 0.0114 kg of wasted materials. This was lower than the per dollar impacts of bakery products (0.8482, 0.0067, 0.63, 0.0204), meat (0.3471, 0.0070, 0.65, 0.0203), dairy (0.0995, 0.0114, 0.98, 0.0192), and edible fats (0.2373, 0.0080, 0.70, 0.0165). Eating out and fast food consumption also had a low per dollar impact (0.1317, 0.0046, 0.38, 0.0141). We surmise that substituting fruit and vegetables at the expense of animal products, processed foods, and fats would decrease environmental impacts. Change at low income levels should be focused upon meat, bakery and dairy consumption, while higher incomes should be focused upon the consequences of eating food outside the home.
Nutrients
Increasing the consumption of vegetables is a public health nutrition priority in Australia. This must be achieved in the context of lowering dietary environmental impacts. In this study, a subgroup of 1700 Australian adult daily diets having a higher diet-quality score and a lower environmental impact score was isolated from Australian Health Survey data. These diets were primarily distinguished by their lower content of energy-dense/nutrient-poor discretionary foods. Among these diets, those with higher levels of vegetable intake were characterized by greater variety of vegetables eaten, lower intake of bread and cereal foods, and higher intake of red meat. These diets also had a greater likelihood of achieving recommended intakes for a range of vitamins and minerals. These findings highlighted the importance of considering the total diet in developing strategies to promote healthy and sustainable food consumption, as well as the need to understand the interrelationships between f...
Shifting modern dietary patterns towards sustainable diets: challenges and perspectives
Croatian Journal of Food Science and Technology
The current food system contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, and land use, which are negatively affecting the environment and contributing to climate change. With the anticipated population growth, these practices are expected to deplete the natural resources and undermine food security for future generations. The modern Western diet is unsustainable on many levels. First of all, being high in energy and animal SURGXFWV LW LV GHWULPHQWDO IRU WKH SODQHW ¶V ZHOO-being. Secondly, it has been linked to obesity and chronic diseases, which reduce the quality of life and generate high healthcare expenses. Another major problem is food wastage that represents a needless waste of natural resources and the pollution of the environment. Conversely, a sustainable diet is expected to have a low environmental impact, maintain health and well-being, and preserve resources for future generations. Therefore, changes in dietary habits can significantly help reduce the negative environmental impacts of the food system. The aim of this paper was to critically evaluate the current data on the sustainability of different dietary patterns and food production. Research suggests that following healthy eating guidelines, adopting a Mediterranean, vegetarian, or vegan diet, or simply reducing the intake of meat and animal products can result in a more sustainable diet in comparison to current average dietary patterns. Moreover, whether organic food represents a more sustainable alternative to conventionally grown food still remains a subject of debate: Although there is no doubt about its small pollution potential, due to its lower yields, more land is needed to produce the same amount of food. Although changes in food consumption and production may lead to a reduction in dietary environmental impact, research results are controversial, and a firm definition of a sustainable diet, which would distinguish it from a diet that is not environmentally acceptable, is still lacking.