Reports – Page 2 – Sustainability

Center for Ecoliteracy

The Center for Ecoliteracy in California, USA, advances the teaching and modeling of sustainable practices in K–12 schools. We build partnerships and the capacity of K–12 schools to support healthy, sustainable school communities and food systems change in schools. The Center for Ecoliteracy leads systems change initiatives, publishes original books and resources, facilitates conferences and professional development, and provides strategic consulting. We work at multiple levels of scale, with local, regional, state, and national programs.

Our California Food for California Kids® initiative builds the capacity of public school districts to provide students with fresh, locally-grown food and reinforce connections between the classroom, cafeteria, and garden. With a network of over 100 public school districts across the state, California Food for California Kids advances practical solutions that transform school food systems and how students learn about the food they eat.

In 2021, the Center for Ecoliteracy successfully advocated for California to become the first state to adopt universal school meals as a co-sponsor of the Free School Meals for All Act and a core member of the School Meals for All coalition. We are proud to be part of California’s leadership in transforming school food and recognizing the important role of school nutrition professionals.

Strengthening urban and peri-urban food systems to achieve food security and nutrition, in the context of urbanization and rural transformation (2024 July)

Citation: HLPE. 2024. Strengthening urban and peri‑urban food systems to achieve food security and nutrition, in the context of urbanization and rural transformation. Rome, CFS HLPE‑FSN. Retrieved from FAO CFS HLPE-FSN wesbiste.

In an era in which almost 80 percent of the global population resides in urban and peri‑urban (U‑PU) areas, understanding and addressing the complexities of U‑PU food systems is more critical than ever. This groundbreaking report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE‑FSN) challenges prevailing narratives, revealing that over three‑quarters of the world’s food‑insecure population lives in urban and peri‑urban regions, and that U‑PU areas are epicentres of multiple burdens of malnutrition.

The report provides an in‑depth analysis of the unique challenges and opportunities in these areas. It shows how U‑PU areas have a profound impact on food systems, influencing production, distribution and consumption patterns worldwide. The report emphasizes the need for equitable, accessible, sustainable and resilient food systems, for the realization of the right to food.

The report also stresses the importance of multilevel, multilateral and multi‑actor governance and highlights the intricate linkages between food systems and other critical systems related to water, energy and mobility. With action‑oriented policy recommendations, this report is an essential tool for policymakers, researchers and stakeholders dedicated to ensuring food security and nutrition in the context of rapid urbanization.

For a longer, more descriptive summary of the report, see the FAO news about the launch of the report on 2 July 2024.

#Dietitians & #Nutritionists are ideally placed to complement these efforts!

Austrian Dietary Guidelines (2024)

The 2024 Austrian Dietary guidelines were developed by the Competence Center for Climate and Health of Austria GmbH (GÖG) together with the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) and the Austrian Society for Nutrition (ÖGE). Both health and climate aspects were taken into account.

Visit the link to also download the brochure “Healthy eating, good for the climate” (in German) or it can be accessed or ordered via the brochure service of the Ministry of Social Affairs. The brochure contains healthy and climate-friendly recipes based on the plate model. It was developed by three universities of applied sciences for dietology on behalf of the Ministry of Health.

Exploring the barriers and facilitators for following a sustainable diet: A holistic and contextual scoping review (Barcelona, 2024)

Muñoz-Martínez, J., Cussó-Parcerisas, I., Carrillo-Álvarez, E. Exploring the barriers and facilitators for following a sustainable diet: A holistic and contextual scoping review. Sustainable Production and Consumption (2024). 46, 476-490. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2024.03.002 (pay wall)

Relevant to:

Dietitians, nutritionists, and public health professionals aiming to promote a shift towards sustainable and healthy diets.

Question:

Identifying the barriers and facilitators people experience when following a sustainable and healthy diet.

Bottom line for nutrition practice:

This research recognises the intricate net of factors that influence individuals to adopt a sustainable and healthy diet. Such influences vary significantly in magnitude and direction among different individuals. The complexity surrounding food decisions demands that interventions and actions targeting food behaviour are tailored to the characteristics and needs of the target population.

Abstract:

Changing current dietary patterns to more sustainable ones is paramount to decrease the pressure food systems are putting onto the planet and people’s health and wellbeing. However, modifying consumers’ behaviour is extremely challenging since multiple factors of variable nature (i.e., personal, socioeconomic, cultural, external…) influence food choices.
For this reason, we aim to identify consumers’ barriers and facilitators for following a sustainable and healthy diet, and explore how these are perceived among people from different socioeconomic backgrounds.
To do so, we conducted a scoping review of the literature with a consultation phase with citizens from Barcelona with different socioeconomic backgrounds.
Results revealed one hundred intricate factors that influence people’s food behaviour, which were grouped into internal, and external factors. Although the literature generally agreed on the direction of influence from the identified factors, the consultation phase generated substantial disagreements given the participants’ diverse perspectives and motivations. However, some limiting factors were commonly mentioned across groups which corresponded to feelings of distrust towards the food industry, lack of time, disgust towards specific foods, and the high cost of foods. Differences across socioeconomic groups were not observed except for the latter. All participants agreed that cost acted as a barrier, although participants from higher socioeconomic backgrounds were more capable to find arguments to overcome the price barrier.
Results are necessary to acknowledge the particularities embedded in each person and the need to design context-based interventions to effectively overcome people’s barriers and enhance their facilitators.

Details of results:

The scoping review revealed 100 intricate factors influencing consumers in following a sustainable and healthy diet.
The consultation phase allowed to identify the nuances surrounding the findings from the literature review.
Significant differences across socioeconomic groups were not observed except for how cost was considered as a barrier. For individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds, the high cost of food is a decisive factor for not purchasing sustainable food, whereas for those from high socioeconomic backgrounds, the cost barrier can be dissipated by factors linked with knowledge and consciousness.
Additional commonly identified decisive limiting factors were the distrust towards the food industry, lack of time, and disgust towards specific foods.
Newly recognised determining factors included knowledge of ethical aspects of food production, trust in small producers and food sellers, emotional involvement with producers, food addiction, lack of interest, selfishness, the belief that legumes put on weight, being a time-oriented individual, access to culture, food safety, social media, and perceived lack of time.

Of additional interest:

The results from the literature review barely covered the socioeconomic and cultural dimensions of sustainable diets. Although efforts were made to address this limitation by purposely covering this dimension during the consultation phase, future research should take these aspects into account to address sustainable diets in their broadest understanding.

Conflict of interest/ Funding:

None

Corresponding author:

Irene Cussó-Parcerisas, PhD
irenecp2@blanquerna.url.edu

TABLE (website)

TABLE’s mission: ingredients for better dialogue. TABLE is a food systems platform that sets out the evidence, assumptions and values that people bring to debates about resilient and sustainable food futures. They explore the data, the biases and the beliefs behind those debates in order to support better dialogue, decision making and action.

TABLE is for everyone with an interest in food. Acting as an interface between the worlds of research and practice, our work reflects and interrogates real and relevant food system debates. We are in constant dialogue with people working within the food system, including civil society, policy makers, advocates and practitioners.

TABLE puts together many resources such as explainers, blog posts, podcasts, letterbox series, other publications in their resource library, and a list of events and job opportunities. They have a page in Spanish as well. TABLE es MESA en América Latina.

A useful resource for busy people is their summary series which break down some of their explainers into a brief format. Short summaries are now available for the following explainers:

What is regenerative agriculture?
What is ecomodernism?
What is feed food competition?
What is the land sparing-land sharing continuum?
What is agroecology?
What is food sovereignty?
Soy: food, feed and land use change
Rewilding and its implications for agriculture
Agricultural methane
What is malnutrition?
What is the nutrition transition?
What is ultra-processed food? And why do people disagree about its utility as a concept?

TABLE was created in collaboration with the University of Oxford, building on the work of the Food Climate Research Network; the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), via the SLU Future Food platform; and Wageningen University & Research, and then expanded to include la Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and Cornell CALS (USA).

African Women’s Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems (2017)

The African Women’s Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems was launched in 2017 at the instigation of Elizabeth Mpofu, organic farmer, activist and leader, who felt compelled to address the continuing marginalization of peasant and indigenous women in Africa. Elizabeth was soon joined by peasant and indigenous women leaders from six African countries who, together, forged the Collaborative’s Statement of Intent.

We wish to highlight the significant role and rights of African women in producing, processing and preparing good food for people in homes and neighbourhoods across the continent, both rural and urban. We are committed to ensuring that the food we eat is nutritious and healthy and is part of a way of life that respects and takes care of Mother Earth. Two key initiatives include:

Women’s Seeds – The Collaborative highlights the role and contribution of peasant and indigenous women in community food systems. Women have a special relationship with seeds as sorters, savers, and sharers. We recognize the importance of healthy seeds as the source and strength of plants and animals that are central to our food systems. We share our knowledge and experience about women’s seeds and invite others to share their perspectives and actions.

Women & Agroecology – The Collaborative has a deep understanding of and respect for agroecology through the daily practice of peasant and indigenous women and girls in different parts of Africa. At the same time, we are aware of the widescale marginalisation and minimal participation of peasant and indigenous women in decision-making processes and the lack of respect for their knowledge and expertise as practitioners in all aspects of the food system. We recognize the need for a shared conceptual framework that can be used by individuals, organizations and networks to counter discrimination, inequity, and ill-health while promoting healthy, sustainable systems in policy and practice. We are carrying out a one-year learning project to identify our own path and priorities for women and agroecology, while at the same time building connections with broad-based feminist and agroecological movements campaigning for women’s rights and environmental justice. This is an important undertaking for the Collaborative, given the growing pressures on rural women as food producers and processors due to climate change, natural resource exploitation, and the escalation of industrial agriculture.

The African Women’s Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems is growing rapidly and welcomes your interest and support. If you’d like to volunteer, please let us know what your skills are, what country you are based in, what languages you speak, and how much available time you have. We also welcome donations to support our work. info@africanfoodsystems.org

Recipes for success: Working together for healthy and sustainable diets in Europe (2022)

Excerpts from the introduction to the guide by Marinke van Riet, Chief Weaver, Healthy Food Healthy Planet:

In September 2022, 25 change-makers from across eight European countries convened for three days on a farm outside of Berlin. The reason? To brew on where Healthy Food Healthy Planet as an emerging Pan-European movement needs to go next.
It was our first in-person event, having worked online for over two years, co-creating a strategy reflecting the voices and perspectives of over 120 different organisations. In our midst in Berlin were dietitians, doctors, policy-makers, climate change campaigners, animal welfare and food equity activists, funders, farmers, and artivists, united by a single demand: healthy, just and sustainable food environments, starting with rebalancing animal-sourced foods.
This guide, championed by Eating Better, showcases national and local level examples – where the ingredients for a successful recipe starts. Because together our impact is more powerful and inevitable is part of our newly found purpose. We can only address this enormous challenge together, civil society and funders alike – locally, nationally, regionally and globally.

From the Executive Summary:

Our food system is unsustainable. It’s pushing our warming planet way beyond its limits and driving obesity, preventable disease and food scarcity. Thankfully, adopting healthier, sustainable diets on a wide scale is a main priority for civil society. There’s no clear solution; complicated problems require a vast range of groups and people sharing their knowledge.
Many organisations across Europe have realised it’s more effective to tackle complex problems together to pool resources and expertise and make sustainable dietary change. We’ve spoken to a diverse range of organisations and individuals working on healthy and sustainable diets, across Europe about collaborations. In the spirit of collaboration, we want to share with you what we’ve found. We hope those involved and interested in collaborating for dietary change will find it useful and inspiring.

‘We started this project to bring together our learning from the past 9 years of Eating Better. But in doing so, we found that there is much to learn from collaborations elsewhere in Europe. It proved again to us that working across silos and within national food cultures is critical for making progress towards more healthy and sustainable eating.’
– Simon Billing Executive Director Eating Better

Availability and Accessibility of Healthy and Unhealthy Foods in Neighborhood and their Association with Noncommunicable Diseases: A Scoping Review (2024)

Sachdeva B, Puri S, Aeri BT. Availability and accessibility of healthy and unhealthy foods in neighborhood and their association with noncommunicable diseases: A scoping review. Indian J Public Health 2024;68:95-105. DOI: 10.4103/ijph.ijph_436_23

Abstract

Worldwide, 7 million mortalities and 187.7 million morbidities have been associated with dietary risks. Poor diets emerge because of an obesogenic environment. However, clear evidence indicating an association between food environment and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) is inconclusive.

The present review was conducted to study the associations between the availability/accessibility of healthy/unhealthy foods and the risk of NCDs among adults of the age group above 18. Studies published between 2012 and 2022 were retrieved using three databases – PubMed, Google Scholar, and Science Direct.

Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR), (2018) guidelines and based on the selection criteria, 3034 studies were retrieved, of which 64 were included in this review. Maximum studies were conducted in high-income countries and adopted a cross-sectional study design.

Overall, the results of the review illustrate mixed findings.

Compared to healthy food, direct associations between obesity and the availability/accessibility of unhealthy foods were reported (n = 12).
In the case of diabetes, supermarket availability was more likely to be protective (4 positive) compared to a negative association with unhealthy food stores (3 associations in 11 studies).
For cardiovascular diseases, an increased number of cases with fast-food outlets (n = 6) outnumbered positive associations with healthy food (n = 3).
Studies concerning multiple NCDs reported direct associations with unhealthy food outlets (n = 5) while inconclusive associations with healthy food.

Despite a large number of studies, a weak, inconclusive relationship between food environment and NCDs was found. The use of standardized tools and longitudinal and interventional studies are warranted to rationalize the execution of the policies related to the food environment.

Food Systems Transformation WhatsApp Community (2024)

The Food Systems Transformation WhatsApp Community grew out of Food Systems at COP28. It is now a year-round meeting place for food systems folks who will bring information from and back to our homes and communities. There are different channels within it to suit your interests and to limit notifications to only what you really want to see.

💼 Job Opportunities
📖 Recommended Reading
🗣 General Chitchat
🆘 Requests for Support
📅 Event Promotion
👋 Introduce Yourself

Join at: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Cx88Tny19mG8dP7tLNDF14

See you there!

Communicating about healthy & sustainable eating to consumers with low socioeconomic status: Evidence-based recommendations (2024)

European Food Information Council (EUFIC) and Caritas Trieste in Italy conducted joint research and developed evidence-based recommendations for “Facilitating the Healthy and Sustainable Diet Shift through Effective Communication in Communities with Low Socioeconomic Status”.

Consumers with low socioeconomic status (SES) face unique challenges that limit their uptake of healthy & sustainable eating (e.g., reduced affordability, accessibility, and availability of healthy & sustainable foods). The reduced exposure to, seeking of, and trust in health information that has been observed in consumers with low SES further reinforce these challenges.

This toolkit presents evidence-based recommendations on how to tailor your communication to consumers with low SES to empower them to shift towards healthier & more sustainable diets. The recommendations were developed based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative research findings.

Focus groups with social supermarket beneficiaries and professionals of the Caritas Trieste charitable foundation in Italy provided insights into the barriers and communication preferences of consumers with low SES with regard to healthy & sustainable eating. Based on these insights, tailored communication material (i.e., infographics) was developed and tested in a larger pool of consumers with low SES via an online survey.

This toolkit of recommendations is particularly relevant for science communicators, researchers, health professionals, journalists, NGOs, and policymakers who work with communities with low SES.