Indicators and Recommendations for Assessing Sustainable Healthy Diets

Abstract

Research coupling human nutrition and sustainability concerns is a rapidly developing field, which is essential to guide governments’ policies. This critical and comprehensive review analyzes indicators and approaches to “sustainable healthy diets” published in the literature since this discipline’s emergence a few years ago, identifying robust gauges and highlighting the flaws of the most commonly used models. The reviewed studies largely focus on one or two domains such as greenhouse gas emissions or water use, while overlooking potential impact shifts to other sectors or resources. The present study covers a comprehensive set of indicators from the health, environmental and socio-economic viewpoints. This assessment concludes that in order to identify the best food option in sustainability assessments and nutrition analysis of diets, some aspects such as the classification and disaggregation of food groups, the impacts of the rates of local food consumption and seasonality, preservation methods, agrobiodiversity and organic food and different production systems, together with consequences for low-income countries, require further analysis and consideration.

What Drives the Choice of Local Seasonal Food? Analysis of the Importance of Different Key Motives

“…The extant literature reveals that, in some cases, researchers avoid defining the term for consumers and instead instruct study participants to respond to questions according to their perception of what is local [36], or examine their perceptions by providing different definitions of local food, i.e., produced within a certain distance, within a state or a country [5,21]. In other cases, while acknowledging definitions of local food according to travel distances, researchers often use the domestic origin of food as a proxy for its locality [18,32,37], and domestic food as an example for local food [1,33]. This rather broad understanding of local as domestic presents an important driver for the demand for local food [37].…”

“…Researchers such as Lazzarini et al [32] and Aldaya et al [33], among others, emphasize that a focus on local food alone is insufficient to reduce environmental impacts. Consequentially, to reduce environmental impacts regarding the primary energy use (PEU) [30] and water use [31], it is relevant to consider both locality and seasonality in the food choice [28,33].…”

“…Researchers such as Lazzarini et al [32] and Aldaya et al [33], among others, emphasize that a focus on local food alone is insufficient to reduce environmental impacts. Consequentially, to reduce environmental impacts regarding the primary energy use (PEU) [30] and water use [31], it is relevant to consider both locality and seasonality in the food choice [28,33]. With this study, we thus want to bridge this research gap and identify which motives are relevant to drive a consumer's preference for and choices of food that is local compared to food that is both local and in-season (and thus more environmentally sustainable).…”

Fatty Acid Composition of Cannabis sativa, Linum usitatissimum and Camelina sativa Seeds Harvested in Lithuania for Food Use

“…As health is becoming an increasingly important value, consumers are seeking foods that offer variety, safety, and especially health benefits. A balanced and healthy diet should be based on available, accessible, affordable, safe, and culturally acceptable food and allow guaranteeing socioeconomic and environmental sustainability [9,10]. Therefore, no less important is the consumption of local foods.…”

Sustainable diet and cruciform ethics during COVID-19

“…At the collective level, one can set sustainable parameters to harmonize the environmental, economic and social guidelines and to consider the culturally sensitive and context-specific approaches. 9 At the individual level, ‘we need innovations for system improvements and different interacting strategies to promote a “behavior change” toward health-promoting and sustainable diets’. 10 Finally, the changes in the environment in the Anthropocene 11 also impact food production and diet so that a ‘cruciform ethics’ that proposes to curtail one’s desires can provide a kenotic element in sustainability.…”