Search Results (32)

This study examines the relationship between the 1141 most consumed foods in Brazil and their individual and combined health and environmental impacts. Foods are analyzed across different food system clusters, based on the health burden (DALYs) in minutes of healthy life using the Health Nutritional Index (HENI), greenhouse gas emissions, and water use. The most consumed foods were in natura products, such as rice, beans and meat, and a few ultra-processed products such as biscuits and soft drinks. Our results revealed an average HENI of −5.89 min, with values varying from −39.69 min of healthy life (stuffed cookies) to 17.22 min (freshwater fish). Animal-derived products, particularly red meat, had the highest environmental costs, contributing significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and water use. In contrast, plant-based foods like beans and fruits had better HENI scores and lower environmental impacts. We also found that greenhouse gas emissions reached up to 21.3 kg CO_2eq (beef dish), and water use peaked at 306.1 L (mozzarella pizza). Our findings provide valuable insights into the real-world consequences of individual and institutional food choices, demonstrating their measurable impacts on health and the environment. By moving beyond theoretical assumptions, this evidence strengthens the case for integrating sustainability into public food policies, including dietary guidelines that consider regional specificities and environmental concerns alongside nutritional recommendations. Full article

Background/Objectives: The global population is undergoing a significant demographic shift characterised by an increasing proportion of older individuals. Healthy aging has become a priority for personal well-being and sustainable healthcare systems, with nutrition playing a pivotal role. However, the rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs), malnutrition, and a shift in eating behaviour underscore the need for tailored, effective nutrition communication strategies. This research is intended to provide the basic data needed to support the development of tailored nutritional communication strategies and practices. Methods: To investigate these aspects, a cross-national survey about nutrition and nutrition communication was conducted within the framework of the Innovative Training Network SmartAge, focusing on older adults aged 60 years and above in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, and France (each 25%; N = 1000 persons). This paper specifically focuses on the development, methodology, and discussion of the survey and aims to investigate the characteristics of the sample in relation to their dietary patterns and food choices within the European context. Results: The analysis identified significant associations between various plant- and animal-based food items and the variables gender, age group, and country. Spanish participants showed a dietary pattern towards the Mediterranean Diet, while German participants showed tendencies towards the Western Diet. Furthermore, the findings revealed that protein-rich foods such as meat, fish, nuts and seeds, legumes, and (whole) grains were infrequently consumed, particularly among German and Swiss participants. Conclusions: This study highlights the need to promote adequate protein intake among older adults, emphasising diverse sources like legumes, nuts and seeds, (whole) grains, and lean meats to support healthy aging. For the development of future nutrition communication strategies, the influence of the specific social, cultural, and traditional factors needs to be considered. Full article

Sustainable agriculture is pivotal to global food security and economic stability, with plant disease detection being a key challenge to ensuring healthy crop production. The early and accurate identification of plant diseases can significantly enhance agricultural practices, minimize crop losses, and reduce the environmental impacts. This paper presents an innovative approach to sustainable development by leveraging machine learning models to detect plant diseases, focusing on tomato crops—a vital and globally significant agricultural product. Advanced object detection models including YOLOv8 (minor and nano variants), Roboflow 3.0 (Fast), EfficientDetV2 (with EfficientNetB0 backbone), and Faster R-CNN (with ResNet50 backbone) were evaluated for their precision, efficiency, and suitability for mobile and field applications. YOLOv8 nano emerged as the optimal choice, offering a mean average precision (MAP) of 98.6% with minimal computational requirements, facilitating its integration into mobile applications for real-time support to farmers. This research underscores the potential of machine learning in advancing sustainable agriculture and highlights future opportunities to integrate these models with drone technology, Internet of Things (IoT)-based irrigation, and disease management systems. Expanding datasets and exploring alternative models could enhance this technology’s efficacy and adaptability to diverse agricultural contexts. Full article

It is well known that dietary choices impact both individual and global health. However, there are numerous challenges at the personal and systemic level to fostering sustainable healthy eating patterns. There is a need for innovative ways to navigate these barriers. Food as Medicine (FM) and Culinary Medicine (CM) are approaches to helping individuals achieve healthier diets that also recognize the potential to alleviate the burden of chronic diseases through healthy eating. Teaching kitchens, which offer an interactive environment for learning nutrition and cooking skills, are valuable educational tools for FM and CM interventions. Motivational interviewing (MI), a type of person-centered counseling, facilitates behavior change and may enhance FM and CM programs involving teaching kitchens. In this commentary, we share our experience with using MI in a community-based CM program at a teaching kitchen. In demonstrating our application of MI principles, we hope to offer an additional strategy for improving dietary quality and delivering nutrition education. Full article

Plant-based milk (PBM) has become increasingly popular due to its environmental sustainability, health benefits, ingredient abundance, and unique taste. This study aims to identify the main factors that affect consumer preferences and attitudes towards PBM, and to examine the effect of consumer attitudes including environmental awareness, health consciousness, and food neophobia on WTP. We use the double-bounded dichotomy choice (DBDC) method to calculate consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for PBM. We find that the appearance, taste, nutritional value, and environmental benefits of PBM significantly increase consumers’ WTP for it. Consumers with high environmental awareness are more likely to perceive PBM as environmentally friendly and are willing to pay a higher price for it. Consumers with high health consciousness tend to value the environmental benefits of PBM and prioritize purchase convenience, as it aligns with their health-conscious lifestyle, leading to a higher WTP for PBM. The results of our study can help design effective strategies to market plant-based milk and develop sustainable and healthy food systems. Full article

Background and objectives: There is a compelling need for a more sustainable food system because of climate change and contemporary Western diets, which pose a threat to human and planetary health. The food system is a social–ecological system, consisting of both biophysical and social sub-systems which are interlinked. This implies that changes in one sub-system can lead to synergies and trade-offs elsewhere. To identify such synergies and tradeoffs, researchers are integrating work from a range of disciplines in optimization models. This has resulted in models that are unique but have a similar overarching aim: ‘to create a sustainable food system by understanding the implications of food system choices’. However, the results of these models may differ. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to understand the differences and complementarity of two optimization models to grasp the complexity of the food system. Methods: we compared the Circular Food System (CiFoS) model with the Sustainable, Healthy, Acceptable, Realistic, and Preferable diets (SHARP) model. CiFoS is a biophysical optimization model that aims to produce a healthy diet for a growing population within planetary boundaries. SHARP is a benchmarking model that optimizes current diets for health and sustainability for consumers. Both models propose a healthy and sustainable diet. While CiFoS is detailed on how environmental impacts are calculated, SHARP has a finer grid on the consumption aspects. Results: based on previously modelled scenarios that showed different results in diet composition, we identified that these differences could be explained by fundamental characteristics of the model (e.g., environmental impact calculations or the consideration of distance to the current diet), data input and scenario settings. Besides, the models work complementary regarding the time scale (i.e., solutions for the upcoming years versus upcoming decades), geographic scale and an individual versus population approach. Conclusion: Optimization models may be used for the same goal, e.g., finding an optimal diet, but the nuance chosen will lead to different outcomes. The outcomes of such models are complementary and can therefore be used in conjunction to inform policy or other food system stakeholders. Full article

The health status of individuals in Slovenia across age groups is a matter of concern, as current unsustainable lifestyle choices are already leading to various chronic noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Outdated national dietary guidelines, their inconsistent implementation, and a lack of structural changes represent obstacles to promoting healthy and sustainable nutrition. Limited access to and rising prices of healthy, sustainable foods, in addition to the high availability of low-priced, highly processed foods, increase the risk of NCDs. The lack of systematic health monitoring and early disease detection poses a challenge. Global and local environmental issues, resistance, and/or the inability to adopt healthier diets hinder individuals from changing their nutritional behaviours. In this narrative review, we provide an overview of the current situation in Slovenia as well as planned activities initiated by the Slovenian government and the Prime Minister’s Strategic Council for Nutrition, aiming to make progress in supporting healthy and sustainable nutrition, limiting food waste, and increasing the availability of healthier foods for all. Improving the sustainability of the Slovenian food system can contribute to several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ensuring Slovenia’s commitment to internationally agreed-upon targets. This could lead Slovenia to take a role as a pilot country in testing and implementing the necessary systemic changes, which could be further applied in other countries. Full article

Connecting to and extending recent debates around more-than-human thinking, this paper explores how porous boundary treatments and plot layouts might encourage ecological exchanges within new urban and peri-urban developments. This study therefore responds to suggestions for innovative plot designs that facilitate positive trans-species interactions, especially considering wider anxieties surrounding biodiversity loss and recognition of the need for climate-resilient garden spaces. Focusing on a recent example of a large-scale residential development in the English midlands, this paper outlines the socio-economic, cultural and ecological significance of embedding different hedgerow designs into early planning considerations; revealing the need to move beyond current models. The discussion then turns to how such ambitions might encourage sustainable land use, particularly through creating potentially scalable urban agricultural systems that sustain healthy food choices. Full article

Climate change is a shift in the climate’s condition that lasts for an extended period, usually decades or longer, and that may be detected by changes in the mean and variability of its parameters. The full spectrum of players and their related value-adding activities, that are a part of the food supply chain, including the disposal of food items derived from agriculture, forestry, or fisheries, are collectively called food systems. Food systems are a component of their larger economic, social, and environmental contexts. Finally, food security is the condition in which all individuals consistently have physical and financial access to adequate safe, nutritious food that satisfies their dietary needs and food choices for an active and healthy life. Climate change and its relationships with food systems and security are complex since food systems significantly contribute to climate change. However, climate change impacts food systems unpredictably, leading to food insecurity through adverse impacts on the four dimensions of food security: utilization, access, food availability, and stability. Climate change adaptation plans are urgent and include measures such as flood and climate protection, waste management and recycling, climate-smart agriculture, and analytical climatic conditions innovation equipment on agricultural processes and activities. Nevertheless, addressing the climate crisis and its adverse impacts on food security through the activation and promotion of innovation needs reliable information and intervention in many different but interconnected fields, such as institutional design, philanthropy, novel partnerships, finance, and international cooperation. In this context, this paper analyses the relationship between climate change, agriculture, and global–local strategies to ensure food security and also discusses policies’ role in fostering innovation for supporting local agro-food systems and their capacity to sustain societal needs. Full article

While the Mediterranean diet (MD) is championed as a healthy and sustainable dietary pattern, the NOVA classification is discussed as a tool to identify ultra-processed foods and further specify healthy food choices. We tested whether the NOVA System aligns with the MD recommendations as presented in the MD pyramids. Foods from the Greek branded food composition database, HelTH, (n = 4581) were scored according to NOVA and assigned to the tiers of the traditional and/or sustainable MD pyramids. Nutritional quality was measured as nutrient content and Nutri-Score grades. NOVA identified 70.2% of all foods as UPFs, and 58.7% or 41.0% of foods included in the sustainable and the traditional MD, respectively. Although foods at the top of the pyramids were mostly (>80%) UPFs, NOVA identified > 50% of foods in the MD base as UPFs. Only 22–39% of foods in the MD base were not UPFs and of high nutritional quality (Nutri-Score A-B). NOVA has low discriminatory capacity across the MD tiers, and it restricts food choices to <30% of foods currently available in supermarkets and <60% within the recommended MD tiers. Therefore, the NOVA classification cannot always identify suitable food choices under the MD pyramid in the modern packaged food environment. Full article

The United Nations Global Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly through Goal 2, simultaneously seeks to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Therefore, it is crucial to focus on the agricultural production system and on consumption conditions. This means that ‘access’ to food should be determined with respect to the three dimensions of economic, physical and solidarity access to a quantity of food that fulfils both people’s nutritional needs and environmentally responsible consumption patterns. In Italy, 9.9% of the total population, i.e., six million people, live in a state of food insecurity. In Rome, 9.4% of the population lives in a condition of material deprivation, and applications for Citizens’ Income have increased, as well as food aids which amounted to EUR 20 million in 2020. The relationships between the cost of healthy and sustainable diets (which would cost 60% more than a staple diet) and the increasing economic difficulties people are facing, have prompted a focus on the multidimensional nature of food security, with particular emphasis on people’s ability to access food. In this paper, analyzing the Metropolitan City of Rome (Italy) as a case study, we present a pilot and innovative work on an affordability index to healthy and sustainable diet. A geospatial analysis highlights areas where economic difficulties in accessing food overlap with the shortage/absence of food retail outlets and with a lack of solidarity networks (e.g., civil society food distribution initiatives), allowing a new concept to come into focus, namely the blacked-out food areas. This concept helps to identify those areas in which people are socially excluded and cannot enjoy the same substantive food-related choices as people in other areas. The research outcomes provide insights into the geographical areas and neighborhoods characterized by critical access to healthy and sustainable food, providing crucial information for the planning and implementation of targeted social policies to tackle food insecurity. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only affected healthcare systems and global economies but also directly impacted food security and purchasing behaviors. The aim of this study is to investigate if COVID-19 has induced changes in public interest regarding Food Sustainability and healthy-sustainable dietary patterns across Europe and in European regions. A Google Trends search was performed using the search terms “Food Sustainability + Sustainable Diet + Sustainable Food” (grouped as “Food Sustainability”) and the topics “Sustainability”, “Healthy Diet”, “Mediterranean Diet”, and “Flexitarianism” for the years 2010 to 2022. Data were obtained for 12 countries in Europe. The trends in interest after the COVID-19 outbreak were forecast based on previous data. After the COVID-19 outbreak, an increase in Food Sustainability interest was observed and was higher than forecast based on the previous data. A significant interest increase in Sustainability was observed; nevertheless, this increase was smaller than the forecast increase. Mixed results were obtained for dietary patterns across European regions, yet, considering the mean interest for Europe, it seems that the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak dampened the interest in dietary patterns such as the Healthy Diet and Flexitarianism and promoted an interest in the Mediterranean Diet. Understanding consumers’ beliefs and behaviors toward food choices is crucial for the transition towards sustainable diets, and definitions of educational and behavioral interventions are essential to this transition. Full article

Food security is a matter of global concern, as the supply of food is one of the basic needs, ensuring the survival of the species. The trend of globalization and development of the global economy has shifted the responsible, local consumption patterns towards an increased homogeneity of diets, with food products being disconnected from their source, leading to two major results: (1) increased global consumption and (2) increased uncertainty in the supply chain. To determine what is the nutritional model of Romanians, we developed a questionnaire of 32 questions and distributed it using simple random sampling method. The questionnaire was issued both in physical and digital form and received 1053 responses. The survey was conducted during 2021 and 2022, both in urban and rural areas with the aim of investigating the consumption pattern of the population. The analysis of the questionnaire data reveals overconsumption of animal products, starchy vegetables and bread and pastry products. This nutritional pattern with a high intake in animal protein, correlated with a lack of diversification, is extremely unsustainable, having a negative impact on human health and environmental health. Full article

Enhancing healthy and sustainable food systems is one of the key goals of the current European Commission policy. In this light, the creation of a food environment where people are properly informed about the healthiness and sustainability of food choices is essential. This study aimed to evaluate the nutritional profile and the environmental impact of meals consumed in a workplace canteen in Italy in the presence of a nudge (i.e., the Double Pyramid logo) combined with a web-based application promoting the Mediterranean Diet. Energy and nutrient contents and the carbon, water, and ecological footprints of 29,776 meals were compared across three subsequent periods (from June to April) through one-way ANOVA. Although the choice of dishes labelled with the Double Pyramid logo was comparable across periods, the selection of fish- and plant-based dishes increased from +2% (fish, vegetables) up to +17% (whole-grain cereals), with a concurrent reduction of meat-based options (−2%). Although the consumption of healthy items increased (p < 0.001), they were not added as a replacement for alternative options, leading to a higher content in energy (p < 0.001) and nutrients (p < 0.001) and worse environmental footprints, contrarily to what was observed when data were adjusted for energy. The intervention significantly improved food choices; however, as the higher selection of desired dishes was not adequately compensated for, it was not fully effective. Full article

Establishing an effective choice architecture system enables people to improve their ability to make better food choices and encourage transformation of the food system into one that is more efficient, healthy, and sustainable. However, affecting consumer preferences by improving information supply is still a crucial issue that has not been comprehensively explored in China and many developing countries. This study aimed to identify the most effective information treatment method for increasing the likelihood of purchase and willingness to pay (WTP) for nutritionally enhanced eggs. A survey with five information treatments and a choice experiment was completed by a random sample of 2379 Chinese consumers, and the mixed logit model was subsequently applied to interpret the results. It was found that when nutritional information (NI), health benefit information (HBI), and/or market status quo information (MSQ) was presented to consumers, their utility increased. Different schemes had different effects on participants’ WTP. The HBI from scientific research institution, provided in the form of leaflets, has the most significant effect on improving WTP, increasing the WTP of consumers by 31.65%. WTP for functional eggs increased similarly in response to NI and MSQ information. However, adding NI to HBI did not significantly increase the value of functional eggs, especially when the information was presented to the interviewees in the form of short videos. This research broadens the present knowledge and application of an information communication strategy by suggesting that the combination of information content, carriers, source influence consumer preference and WTP for nutritionally enhanced eggs. The results have implications for the communication practices of food enterprises to optimize their marketing strategies and improve product innovation to add more value to the functional food. Full article