Health, Food Security and Sustainable Food Systems
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Food".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 10
Special Issue Editors
Interests: food chemistry; waste reuse; functional foods; polyphenols
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The problem of food waste is a serious environmental and social issue, likely to worsen with population growth. The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) estimates that food production will need to increase by over 70% by 2050 to feed a population of 9.1 billion. It is, therefore, imperative to develop sustainable food systems that ensure nutrition, health, and food security without compromising the economic, social, and environmental conditions of future generations.
To achieve this sustainability, integrated and multidisciplinary approaches must be adopted that cover the entire supply chain, from producer to consumer. A crucial challenge in the sustainable management of food industry waste, in line with the "zero waste" model, lies in the application of a circular management strategy, which requires the development of innovative waste transformation techniques.
Agro-industrial supply chains produce abundant, high-value byproducts with powerful functional and nutritional properties. Carotenoids, betalains, glucosinolates, vitamins, minerals, and fiber are compounds with high biological value that can be recovered from agri-food by-products.
There is growing interest in using "green" extraction techniques to recover bioactive substances from the food supply chain. These methods offer faster, more efficient, safer, and more sustainable alternatives to conventional approaches.
Developing innovative products that combine alternative proteins and functional ingredients from food waste is a major challenge for today's sustainable health and food systems.
This Special Issue, titled "Health, Food Security and Sustainable Food Systems," will bring together original scientific reviews and articles related to all aspects of food production, waste/byproduct generation and use, value-added products, new technical and technological solutions, and environmental compatibility.
Dr. Vita Di Stefano
Dr. Carla Buzzanca
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- agricultural sustainability
- waste reuse
- functional foods
- bioaccessibility
- food safety
- sustainable food systems
- food supply chains
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