Toward healthy and sustainable diets for the 21st century: Importance of sociocultural and economic considerations.

Four years after the EAT-Lancet landmark report, worldwide movements call for action to reorient food systems to healthy diets that respect planetary boundaries. Since dietary habits are inherently local and personal, any shift toward healthy and sustainable diets going against this identity will have an uphill road. Therefore, research should address the tension between the local and global nature of the biophysical (health, environment) and social dimensions (culture, economy). Advancing the food system transformation to healthy, sustainable diets transcends the personal control of engaging consumers. The challenge for science is to scale-up, to become more interdisciplinary, and to engage with policymakers and food system actors. This will provide the evidential basis to shift from the current narrative of price, convenience, and taste to one of health, sustainability, and equity. The breaches of planetary boundaries and the environmental and health costs of the food system can no longer be considered externalities. However, conflicting interests and traditions frustrate effective changes in the human-made food system. Public and private stakeholders must embrace social inclusiveness and include the role and accountability of all food system actors from the microlevel to the macrolevel. To achieve this food transformation, a new "social contract," led by governments, is needed to redefine the economic and regulatory power balance between consumers and (inter)national food system actors.

Food identification by barcode scanning in the Netherlands: a quality assessment of labelled food product databases underlying popular nutrition applications.

OBJECTIVE: The quality of labelled food product databases underlying popular diet applications (apps) with barcode scanners was investigated. DESIGN: Product identification rates for the scanned products and the availability and accuracy of nutrient values were calculated. SETTING: One hundred food products were selected from the two largest supermarket chains in the Netherlands. Using the barcode scanners of the selected apps, the products were scanned and the results recorded as food diary entries. The collected data were exported. SUBJECTS: Seven diet apps with barcode scanner and food recording feature were selected from the Google Play and Apple app stores. RESULTS: Energy values were available for 99 % of the scanned products, of which on average 79 % deviated not more than 5 % from the true value. MyFitnessPal provided values for sixteen nutrients, while Virtuagym Food and Yazio provided values for only four nutrients. MyFitnessPal also showed the largest percentage of correctly identified products (i.e. 96 %) and SparkPeople the smallest (i.e. 5 %). The accuracy of the provided nutrient values varied greatly between apps and nutrients. CONCLUSIONS: While energy was the most consistently and accurately reported value, the availability and accuracy of other values varied greatly between apps. Whereas popular diet apps with barcode scanners might be valuable tools for dietary assessments on the product and energy level, they appear less suitable for assessments on the nutrient level. The presence of user-generated database entries implies that the availability of food products might vary depending on the size and diversity of an app's user base.

Decreasing the overall environmental impact of the Dutch diet: how to find healthy and sustainable diets with limited changes.

OBJECTIVE: To find diets optimised on nutrition and environmental impact close to the current Dutch diet and to identify the most effective and acceptable options for mitigating environmental impact. DESIGN: Linear programming was used to optimise diets of Dutch men and women aged 9-69 years, divided into ten age-gender groups. The analysis included nutrient composition, a metric for popularity and life cycle assessments of 207 food products. Greenhouse gas emissions, fossil energy use and land occupation were used to calculate a weighted score for the overall environmental impact. Optimised diets were solutions that minimised changes to the current diet while satisfying all nutritional constraints, with stepwise reductions in environmental impact. SETTING: The Netherlands. SUBJECTS: Dutch children and adults aged 9-69 years. RESULTS: Meat was always reduced. Vegetable, fruit and dairy contents remained similar, while bread, fatty fish and legumes increased. The extent of changes depended on age and gender. Beverages were not heavily reduced. Nutrients critical for the outcome were α-linoleic acid, retinol, Ca, Na, Se, dietary fibre, SFA, thiamin and Fe (women of childbearing age). Total protein, essential amino acids and carbohydrates were not critical. CONCLUSIONS: Reducing meat is the most effective option for lowering the environmental impact of diets in all age-gender groups. Reducing alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages is another option. Leaving out fish and dairy products are not. The differences in nutritional requirements related to age and gender have a significant effect on the composition of the optimised diets.

A Sustainability Compass for policy navigation to sustainable food systems.

Growing acknowledgement that food systems require transformation, demands comprehensive sustainability assessments that can support decision-making and sustainability governance. To do so, assessment frameworks must be able to make trade-offs and synergies visible and allow for inclusive negotiation on food system outcomes relevant to diverse food system actors. This paper reviews literature and frameworks and builds on stakeholder input to present a Sustainability Compass made up of a comprehensive set of metrics for food system assessments. The Compass defines sustainability scores for four societal goals, underpinned by areas of concern. We demonstrate proof of concept of the operationalization of the approach and its metrics. The Sustainability Compass is able to generate comprehensive food system insights that enables reflexive evaluation and multi-actor negotiation for policy making.

How we will produce the evidence-based EURRECA toolkit to support nutrition and food policy.

BACKGROUND: There is considerable variation in the recommended micronutrient intakes used by countries within Europe, partly due to different methodologies and concepts used to determine requirements and different approaches used to express the recommendations. As populations become more mobile and multi-national, and more traditional foods become available internationally, harmonised recommendations based on up to date science are needed. This was recognised by the European Commission's (EC) Directorate-General (DG) Research in their 2005 call for proposals for a Network of Excellence (NoE) on 'nutrient status and requirements of specific vulnerable population groups'. EURopean micronutrient RECommendations Aligned (EURRECA), which has 34 partners representing 17 European countries, started on its 5-year EC-funded programme in January 2007. The programme of work was developed over 2 years prior to submitting an application to the EC. The Network's first Integrating Meeting (IM) held in Lisbon in April 2007, and subsequent consultations, has allowed further refinement of the programme. AIM: This paper presents the rationale for the EURRECA Network's roadmap, which starts by establishing the status quo for devising micronutrient recommendations. The Network has the opportunity to identify previous barriers and then explore 'evidence-based' solutions that have not been available before to the traditional panels of experts. The network aims to produce the EURRECA 'toolkit' to help address and, in some cases, overcome these barriers so that it can be used by those developing recommendations. RESULTS: The status quo has been largely determined by two recent initiatives; the Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) reports from the USA and Canada and suggestions for approaches to international harmonisation of nutrient-based dietary standards from the United Nations University (UNU). In Europe, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has been asked by the EC's Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection to produce values for micronutrient recommendations. Therefore, EURRECA will draw on the uniqueness of its consortium to produce the sustainable EURRECA toolkit, which will help make such a task more effective and efficient. Part of this uniqueness is the involvement in EURRECA of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), consumer organisations, nutrition societies and other stakeholders as well as many scientific experts. The EURRECA toolkit will contain harmonised best practice guidance for a more robust science base for setting micronutrient recommendations. Hence, in the future, the evidence base for deriving nutrient recommendations will have greater breadth and depth and will be more transparent. CONCLUSIONS: The EURRECA Network will contribute to the broader field of food and nutrition policy by encouraging and enabling the alignment of nutrient recommendations. It will do this through the development of a scientific toolkit by its partners and other stakeholders across Europe. This will facilitate and improve the formulation of micronutrient recommendations, based on transparently evaluated and quantified scientific evidence. The Network aims to be sustainable beyond its EC funding period.