Solely 20% of European food-based dietary pointers embody meals sustainability

The well being of the planet and that of humankind are profoundly interconnected: the best way we feed ourselves has a major affect upon each our personal well being and that of the setting. The rise in current many years of non-communicable illnesses carefully linked to our weight-reduction plan, comparable to most cancers and diabetes, and the truth that meals techniques account for one third of greenhouse gases, has led plenty of worldwide organizations to work to shift individuals’s dietary patterns in the direction of more healthy and, on the similar time, extra sustainable diets.

Anna Bach Faig, a FoodLab group researcher and member of the School of Well being Sciences on the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), has spent two years main a analysis venture commissioned in 2019 by the World Well being Group (WHO).

The venture, titled “Dietary Patterns for Well being and Sustainability,” had the mission of constructing worldwide consensus amongst specialists and designing actions to progress in the direction of a extra sustainable and wholesome meals system for Europe. The main target of Bach Faig’s analysis on the UOC has at all times been the connection between meals and well being and in recent times she has added sustainability to this.

She stated, “What we placed on our plates is so vital. For well being causes, and environmental ones, too, we merely cannot proceed with the present manufacturing and consumption mannequin.”

Stemming from a gathering held in Copenhagen with worldwide specialists within the fields of meals and sustainability, the researcher and her workforce—which included Sergi Fàbregues, member of the UOC’s School of Psychology and Schooling Sciences and researcher at its IN3 GenTIC analysis group, who was answerable for the methodological half—have revealed an open-access article in BMC Public Well being, which establishes a shared understanding of what sustainable wholesome consuming ought to entail.

The article concludes that there’s a want for a multi-stakeholder strategy, with the simultaneous execution of an aligned and coherent mixture of insurance policies in numerous fields, such because the formulation of strategic pointers and modifications in laws.

One vital step is the necessity to replace wholesome consuming pointers, as most of them don’t take sustainability into consideration: “It’s essential to replace current pointers, or create and implement new ones. Solely 20% of European food-based dietary pointers incorporate meals sustainability,” defined the researcher. Lately, AESAN, the Spanish Company for Meals Security and Diet, revealed a report with suggestions on sustainable diets and bodily exercise for the general public.

A primarily plant-based weight-reduction plan is essentially the most wholesome and sustainable

“There’s broad scientific consensus across the dietary patterns Europeans ought to undertake to enhance their well being and sustainability: particularly, there is a want to extend our consumption of vegetable-based meals (fruit, greens, complete cereals, pulses, nuts and seeds) and minimize our consumption of crimson meat—each processed and unprocessed—and ultra-processed meals excessive in salt, fats and/or sugar,” stated the UOC researcher.

This really means going again to the normal Mediterranean weight-reduction plan, which is excessive in greens and fish and low in meat (the Japanese weight-reduction plan can be one other legitimate choice). Along with their constructive results upon well being, plant-based diets are useful for sustainability, on condition that such meals have a decrease environmental affect than animal-based ones, when it comes to not solely greenhouse fuel emissions, but in addition using water, land, nitrogen and phosphorus, affirmed Bach Faig.

“The Mediterranean weight-reduction plan is an effective instance of a meals sample that’s useful for well being and the setting. Sadly, the general public’s meals patterns have turn into extra ‘Westernized’, with the inclusion of empty energy from refined sugars, fat and alcohol.”

This has led to a rise in obese and weight problems, along with an increase in non-communicable continual illnesses. By the use of instance, in keeping with the European Regional Weight problems Report 2022, Spain is likely one of the European nations with the best prevalence of kid weight problems.

Actions for a more healthy and extra sustainable weight-reduction plan

The opposite final result of this analysis led by the UOC has been the publishing of a WHO report on ‘Wholesome and sustainable diets: key workstreams within the WHO European Area.’ This doc brings collectively a collection of strains of motion to advertise modifications in meals techniques and dietary patterns. These embody the necessity for public procurement processes for meal suppliers to prioritize wholesome and sustainable diets; rising analysis into the dietary worth and environmental affect of processed plant-based meals (a few of which comprise excessive quantities of salts and sugars); reformulating processed meals, lowering the fats, sugar and salt content material, and so forth.

With modifications of this sort, we are able to obtain a major discount within the affect on the planet and enhance the general public’s well being. If we keep in mind that “22% of deaths worldwide could be attributed to a excessive consumption of salt and a low consumption of complete cereals and fruit, retaining the Mediterranean weight-reduction plan sample in our context is essential for public well being,” famous the researcher.

Our planet’s well being is a core strategic theme for the UOC, as is analysis into diet and wholesome and sustainable meals. The college has simply been offered the Catalan Community of Wholesome Universities Award for a grasp’s diploma ultimate venture on well being promotion with regard to the UN’s Sustainable Growth Targets (SDGs) by a scholar on its Grasp’s Diploma in Diet and Well being.

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Universitat Oberta de Catalunya