Healthy diet: a step toward a sustainable diet by reducing water footprint.

BACKGROUND: This paper aims to assess different scenarios that reduce water use by following healthy diet recommendations. In this study, a food frequency questionnaire was used to assess the usual food intake of a sample of 723 individuals, aged 20-64 years, from Urmia, Iran. In order to calculate water use for production of food items, the water footprint method was applied. A linear programming technique was used to find a healthy diet with low blue water footprint in three scenarios. RESULTS: The biggest decline in water use compared with real intake (57%) was found in scenario 1, where the model-generated consider energy intake equal to usual energy intake. In scenario 2, in which the proportion of each food group was allowed to be in accordance with the Iranian food pyramid, the reduction in water use was less than for scenario 1 (47%). In scenario 3, where the Recommended Dietary Allowance values were also added to the set of model restrictions, the water usage was 51% of the real diet. CONCLUSION: A healthy diet with greater proportion of energy from fruit and dairy instead of a diet with high proportion of energy from 'meat-fish-poultry-eggs' and 'bread-cereal-rice-pasta' can supply all Recommended Dietary Allowances while reducing water use. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry.