Global nutrition problems and novel foods

Abstract

The world's demand for food is becoming greater than ever. The current world population of 6 billion will exceed 8 billion in 2025 and new innovations are needed to meet the growing challenges of the poor and hungry world. Novel foods produced through biotechnology may help alleviate the problems of poverty and food insecurity, but only if steered by continual policy development and actions at the regional, national and international levels. The great progress made with iodized salt in combatting iodine deficiency disorders, through global partnership, provides inspiration for future applications of nutritional science and food technology to public health problems in the developing world. The attributes of biotechnology‐produced novel foods are complex. As outlined in the present paper, they may also provide the diets of people in developing countries with more energy, protein and micronutrients. This could thereby reduce the extent of suffering associated with public health problems such as vitamin A deficiency and iron deficiency and anaemia, which affect millions. However, more research and resources need to be focused on the problems and opportunities that face small farmers and poor consumers in developing countries. In particular, attention should be focused on the foods that feature most predominately in their diets such as bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes, rice, maize, wheat, millet and yams, and unless this exciting science is given a chance to prove itself in the developing world we will never know if it is in fact the so‐called ‘biosolution’. Paradoxically, overnutrition, obesity, and related diseases characteristic of the developed world, are becoming serious public health problems in countries with widespread food insecurity. Children suffering from undernutrition today could well be afflicted with chronic diseases of development as adults. The economic development that has led to improved food security and better health in some countries needs to be harnessed, while at the same time incentives to avert the adverse health effects of the nutrition transition need to be taken. The potential of novel foods to alleviate undernutrition is becoming more apparent. But they are unlikely to have a role in the prevention of diseases associated with overnutrition in developing countries, who use growing incomes to replace their traditional diets high in complex carbohydrates and fibre, with diets that include a greater proportion of fats (especially saturated) and sugars. More aggressive public health policies are needed to steer populations in nutrition transition towards a healthy lifestyle and diet rather than investing in particular novel foods. In developed countries the wide variety of macronutrient‐modified foods available to consumers has enabled people to eat a more healthy diet, along the lines of the recommendations issued by many governments, and so reduce the risk of diseases such as obesity, cardiovas­cular disease and cancer. Novel foods containing macronutrient substitutes can be a useful adjunc...

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