Broadening influence on the food supply and environmental sustainability

Dietitians have long recognised the potential of food reformulation to improve the health of the general population, even without changes in consumer behaviour.1 However, increasingly, we are realising that food choices cannot be judged solely in terms of nutritional outcomes; environmental impacts must also be considered. This year, the American Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior has released a position paper declaring that ‘environmental sustainability should be inherent in dietary guidance, whether working with individuals, or groups about dietary choices, or in setting national dietary guidance’.2 At the same time, a Lancet Commission has just produced a landmark report that integrates, with the quantification of universal healthy diets, global targets for sustainable food systems.3 We are now at a global climate tipping point and being challenged to consider the very basis of how to develop advice about healthy eating. The Food and Agriculture Organization defines sustainable diets as those that are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, nutritionally adequate, safe, healthy, culturally acceptable and economically affordable while optimising natural and human resources.4 Sustainability can also been seen as a key component in any assessment of food security.5 Calls for dietary guidelines to include sustainability began more than 35 ago,6 and a number of international dietary guidelines panels have considered the sustainability of the food system when producing recommendations.7 Nonetheless, there is a wide disparity in the carbon emissions intensity of the healthy diets recommended in different countries, ranging from 687 kg CO2 equivalents per capita per year in India to 1579 kg in the United States of America.8 Today, global climate change is recognised as an urgent problem, with other pressing environmental issues, including loss of biodiversity, land degradation, fresh water shortages and water pollution.9 The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report assessed energy, land and ecosystems, infrastructure and industry to see how they would need to be transformed to limit global warming to 1.5°C. It concluded that among the actions needed is changing food systems and promoting diet changes away from land-intensive animal products.10 Global agriculture and food production release more than 25% of all greenhouse gases (GHG).11 Emissions vary widely between foods; ruminant meats such as beef and lamb can have emissions per gram of protein 250 times that of legumes, while eggs, seafood, poultry and pork have much lower emissions than ruminant meat. How a given food is produced also affects emissions. When sustainably grazed on lands unsuitable for cropping, dairy and red meat production can increase food security, dietary quality and provide environmental benefits via nutrient cycling.12 Nonetheless, while producers have some limited ability to reduce the environmental impacts of food production, dietary change will remain the most effective mechanism to deliver environmental benefits.13 Using global life cycle analysis of emission data, it has been calculated that a move to a Mediterranean, pescatarian or vegetarian diet could reduce GHG emissions from food production by 30–55%.11 The literature on sustainable diets has grown substantially in the last decade.14-16 A recent study examined 66 different dietary studies that enabled comparison of their nutritional quality and carbon footprints.17 The authors found that the Mediterranean diet and the Atlantic dietary pattern (common in northern Portugal and Galicia), as well as those in India and Peru, had much lower carbon footprint scores than the diets of northern or western Europe and concluded that a shift to a diet rich in vegetables and lower in animal protein would be healthier and more environmentally friendly. Other studies have also concluded that reductions in meat consumption would lead to reductions in GHG emissions as those of meat and dairy consumers are about twice those of vegans.18-21 This issue of Nutrition & Dietetics includes a collection of articles that relate to nutritional improvements in the food supply, including recipe modifications to reduce sodium content,22 implementation of healthy food policies in health services,23 the development of national meal guidelines for Meals on Wheels programs24 and the impact of health star labelling on the reformulation of packaged foods.25 As more and more people consume food prepared by others, such approaches will continue to be important for the work of dietitians. Nonetheless, dietitians will also need to consider how to embed environmental concerns in national dietary policies in the future. In the current Australian dietary guidelines, published in 2013, the topic of environmental sustainability is only briefly mentioned in a five-page appendix, and its key messages focus on issues of food waste, healthy food choices and buying locally grown food rather than any recommendations to change food patterns substantially.26 There have been attempts to describe what a healthy and sustainable diet could look like in Australia,27 but in general, the topic does not get the attention it deserves at the level of government policy-making28 and intersectoral action has been hampered by disparate definitions, a perceived lack of robust evidence and divergent views about the role of government in environmental policy and food regulation.29 It seems clear that moving to a diet based on more whole and plant-based foods is going to be one of the most important dietary strategies at a global level both for the planet and for human health. However, the dietary choices that an individual makes are influenced by culture, price, availability, taste and convenience, as well as nutritional knowledge. If we are going to encourage the move to a food system that is more environmentally sustainable, nutritionists and dietitians will need to educate consumers on how to do this30 and help develop food policy, dietary guidelines and labelling regulations that articulate the changes needed. There is already a high level of community concern in Australia about the environmental impact of the food supply.31 We may discover that many individuals find concerns about environmental impact more motivating than concerns about health when considering whether to make a dietary change. The author received no funding to write this editorial. The author declares no conflict of interest. PW is the sole author of this manuscript.