Increasing urbanization in the Brazilian Amazon is associated with a significant change in food habits with processed and industrialized products playing an increasingly important role in the diet and contributing to the nutrition transition in the region.
Aiming to investigate the effect of diet and food consumption with regard to health, environment, and economy in light of nutrition ecology, we studied the dimensions of nutrition and food security in urban and rural settings in the region of Chapada dos Veadeiros, Central Brazil. We tracked diet and food consumption through carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios in fingernails of these inhabitants together with food intake data as a proxy for their diet patterns. We estimated household food insecurity by using the Brazilian Food Insecurity Scale. Nutrition and food insecurity was observed in both urban and rural areas, but was accentuated in rural settings. The diet pattern had high δ(13)C values in fingernails and low δ(15)N. Both urban and rural areas have diets with low diversity and relying on low-quality processed food staples at the same time that nutrition and food insecurity is quite high in the region.
The combination of household purchase surveys and stable isotopic composition in modern humans is found to be a valuable tool, especially with respect to determining the role of C3 and C4 plants through the complex modern food chain.
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