Animal board invited review: Animal source foods in healthy, sustainable, and ethical diets - An argument against drastic limitation of livestock in the food system.

Animal source foods are evolutionarily appropriate foods for humans. It is therefore remarkable that they are now presented by some as unhealthy, unsustainable, and unethical, particularly in the urban West. The benefits of consuming them are nonetheless substantial, as they offer a wide spectrum of nutrients that are needed for cell and tissue development, function, and survival. They play a role in proper physical and cognitive development of infants, children, and adolescents, and help promote maintenance of physical function with ageing. While high-red meat consumption in the West is associated with several forms of chronic disease, these associations remain uncertain in other cultural contexts or when consumption is part of wholesome diets. Besides health concerns, there is also widespread anxiety about the environmental impacts of animal source foods. Although several production methods are detrimental (intensive cropping for feed, overgrazing, deforestation, water pollution, etc.) and require substantial mitigation, damaging impacts are not intrinsic to animal husbandry. When well-managed, livestock farming contributes to ecosystem management and soil health, while delivering high-quality foodstuffs through the upcycling of resources that are otherwise non-suitable for food production, making use of marginal land and inedible materials (forage, by-products, etc.), integrating livestock and crop farming where possible has the potential to benefit plant food production through enhanced nutrient recycling, while minimising external input needs such as fertilisers and pesticides. Moreover, the impacts on land use, water wastage, and greenhouse gas emissions are highly contextual, and their estimation is often erroneous due to a reductionist use of metrics. Similarly, whether animal husbandry is ethical or not depends on practical specificities, not on the fact that animals are involved. Such discussions also need to factor in that animal husbandry plays an important role in culture, societal well-being, food security, and the provision of livelihoods. We seize this opportunity to argue for less preconceived assumptions about alleged effects of animal source foods on the health of the planet and the humans and animals involved, for less top-down planning based on isolated metrics or (Western) technocratic perspectives, and for more holistic and circumstantial approaches to the food system.

Challenges in conducting clinical nutrition research.

Clinical nutrition research has played a pivotal role in establishing causality between diet or nutrient intake and health outcome measures and in the determination of dietary requirements and levels of supplementation to achieve specific outcomes. Because the studies are performed with humans, clinical nutrition research can be readily translated into public health messages. However, there are many challenges and considerations unique to the field, such as the baseline nutritional status of study participants, defining appropriate control groups, effective blinding of participants and investigators, the evolving ethics of randomized control trials, and a tension in a priori decisions regarding inclusion of nutritionally vulnerable participants versus representative samples of general populations. Regulatory approvals that place increasing burdens on the ability of investigators to carry out and complete research protocols have grown dramatically in recent years. There is much room for improved efficiency in the approval and reporting processes aimed at protecting volunteers and providing transparency to the public. Decreased redundancy would have a direct benefit to clinical nutrition research and investigators. Despite these challenges, the information to be gained and the rewards of clinical nutrition research remain high.

Genetically Modified (GM) Foods and Ethical Eating.

The ability to manipulate and customize the genetic code of living organisms has brought forth the production of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and consumption of genetically modified (GM) foods. The potential for GM foods to improve the efficiency of food production, increase customer satisfaction, and provide potential health benefits has contributed to the rapid incorporation of GM foods into the American diet. However, GM foods and GMOs are also a topic of ethical debate. The use of GM foods and GM technology is surrounded by ethical concerns and situational judgment, and should ideally adhere to the ethical standards placed upon food and nutrition professionals, such as: beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice and autonomy. The future of GM foods involves many aspects and trends, including enhanced nutritional value in foods, strict labeling laws, and potential beneficial economic conditions in developing nations. This paper briefly reviews the origin and background of GM foods, while delving thoroughly into 3 areas: (1) GMO labeling, (2) ethical concerns, and (3) health and industry applications. This paper also examines the relationship between the various applications of GM foods and their corresponding ethical issues. Ethical concerns were evaluated in the context of the code of ethics developed by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) that govern the work of food and nutrition professionals. Overall, there is a need to stay vigilant about the many ethical implications of producing and consuming GM foods and GMOs.

Do information, price, or morals influence ethical consumption? A natural field experiment and customer survey on the purchase of Fair Trade coffee.

We address ethical consumption using a natural field experiment on the actual purchase of Fair Trade (FT) coffee in three supermarkets in Germany. Based on a quasi-experimental before-and-after design the effects of three different treatments - information, 20% price reduction, and a moral appeal - are analyzed. Sales data cover actual ethical purchase behavior and avoid problems of social desirability. But they offer only limited insights into the motivations of individual consumers. We therefore complemented the field experiment with a customer survey that allows us to contrast observed (ethical) buying behavior with self-reported FT consumption. Results from the experiment suggest that only the price reduction had the expected positive and statistically significant effect on FT consumption.

Bioética: a ética da vida sob múltiplos olhares / Bioethics: the ethics of life in multiple views

Ao defender que o princípio de toda ética deve ser a reverência pela vida, o filósofo e humanista Albert Schweitzer descola o foco da ética tradicional, limitada ao aspecto das relações humanas, para uma posição de abrangência global que envolve todas as formas de vida, nelas incluída a própria natureza.Inspirado pelas ideias de Schweitzer e observando que o atual crescimento científico nem sempre é acompanhado em igual proporção pelo florescimento da ética na humanidade, Van Rensselaer Potter propõe, em 1971, o termo Bioética e enfatiza a necessidade premente de se procurar uma nova conduta, formada a partir de dois componentes que devem ficar inseparáveis: o conhecimento técnico-biológico e a promoção dos valores humanos.Hoje, quando é extrema a rapidez com que a ciência e a tecnologia se desenvolvem sem que haja a correspondente expansão dos processos éticos, torna-se indispensável que a Bioética passe a permear todos os outros saberes. Neste livro, olhares que se originam de múltiplas ciências confirmam a necessidade dessa presença em vários aspectos da vida cotidiana e trazem a experiência de pessoas que procuram aplicar em suas áreas de atuação a essência do pensamento bioético: a busca e o uso do conhecimento técnico-científico embasados numa conduta ética...