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The SALSA Questionnaire: creation and validation of a tool to assess people’s self-perceived barriers and facilitators to follow a sustainable and healthy diet (2025 Feb)

Muñoz-Martínez, J., Cañete-Massé, C., Cussó-Parcerisas, I. et al. The SALSA Questionnaire: creation and validation of a tool to assess people’s self-perceived barriers and facilitators to follow a sustainable and healthy diet. Environ Dev Sustain (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-024-05954-y (open access)

This work was partially supported by an ICDA SFS Toolkit grant. You can read more under ‘Spain’ on the NDA SFS Grant page.

*From the Article: Table 2 Results from the Exploratory Factor Analysis with sample A (n = 207), including factor loadings, eigenvalues, and percentage of variance*

Abstract:

A transition towards a sustainable and healthy diet (SHD) is crucial for both population and planetary health. However, changing consumer’s behaviour is challenging due to the many factors influencing food choices. Tools that comprehensively assess these factors are paramount, yet none are available in Spain. Hence, we created and validated the SALSA questionnaire to capture self-perceived barriers and facilitators for SHD.

The process involved three phases:
— First, item development combining insights from a scoping review and content validity with experts (n = 9) and the target population (n = 38);
— Second, scale development by pre-testing the questionnaire (n = 4), administering it through an online survey to two samples(Dimensionality-Sample, n = 516; Reliability-Sample, n = 61), and applying exploratory factor analysis for factors extraction and item reduction;
— Third, scale evaluation by testing its dimensionality through confirmatory factor analysis, its reliability through Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s omega, and intra-class correlation coefficient, and construct validity through discriminant validity, convergent validity, and correlation analysis.

Results yielded a questionnaire with 27 items grouped into four dimensions: personal factors, sociocultural factors, external factors, and meat and plant-based meat alternatives. The psychometric analysis revealed that the SALSA questionnaire is a reliable instrument to identify behavioural determinants.

School Meals Coalition. (2021 website)

The School Meals Coalition is a prominent and innovative vehicle for multilateral action and addresses multiple Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) outcomes. The School Meals Coalition is a government-led and partner-supported effort that aims at ensuring that by 2030 every child worldwide can receive a healthy meal in school. Led by Brazil, Finland, and France, the Coalition was one of the most impactful and successful initiatives coming out of the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021.

The Coalition is an example of a new generation of multilateralism; It’s about governments and partners agreeing to join forces and work together to improve the quality, sustainability, and scale of national school meals programmes and complementary interventions. It is about breaking silos and pooling resources – best practices, experience, information, and technical support. Through its multisectoral and holistic approach, the Coalition addresses implementation bottlenecks, strengthens evidence for decision-making, provides opportunities for improved coordination and generates the political will and buy-in needed for change through advocacy.

Besides food provision (SDG 2), school meal programs boost agriculture, create jobs, increase school attendance and learning, and enhance health. They function as in-kind cash transfers, promoting social stability, gender equity, and comprehensive social protection efforts. Additionally, school meals programmes can integrate complementary interventions, including WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene), nutrition education, and other routine school health and nutrition services.

School meals represent a powerful, multisectoral tool, which can contribute to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals, including poverty (SDG1), hunger (SDG2), health (SDG3), education (SDG4), gender equality (SDG5), economic growth (SDG8), reduced inequalities (SDG10), Responsible consumption and production (SDG12), climate action (SDG13) and strengthened partnerships (SDG17).

To achieve this member states have set three objectives:

Restore all national school meal programmes lost to the pandemic by 2023
Reach the 73 million most vulnerable children who were not reached even prior to the pandemic by 2030
Improve the quality and efficiency of school health and nutrition programmes globally by 2030

2025 January

Planet-friendly school meals: opportunities to improve children’s health and leverage change in food systems (2024)

Pastorino, S., et al. (2024, November 18). Planet-friendly school meals: Opportunities to improve children’s health and leverage change in food systems. The Lancet Planetary Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(24)00302-4

Planet-friendly school meals, defined as programmes delivering equitable and healthy foods for children, produced in ways that do not pollute or overexploit natural resources and protect biodiversity, are a platform to tackle many food system challenges.

Multiple stakeholder collaborations are required to move towards planet-friendly school meals. This entails changes directed at two sets of policies as outlined in the Planet-friendly school meals conceptual framework (figure): those making immediate changes to school meal programmes; and those developing demand-driven planet-friendly procurement policies that promote ecological farming and develop sustainable regional food systems.

School meals, mostly state-funded, reach 418 million children every day worldwide offering an opportunity to improve diet quality, and ultimately nutrition and health, and act as a catalyst for food systems transformation contributing to meeting global climate, food, and biodiversity goals.

2025 January

Good Practices in School Gardens and School Meals: Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean (2024)

As part of food and nutrition education actions and a component of Sustainable Schools, the Programme encourages school garden initiatives, considering their potential to transform food habits of current and future generations, training students to be aware of the impacts of food production on the environment and on agri-food systems. In addition, with the greater impact of climate change, this educational tool becomes even more relevant as it can offer concrete contributions to the mitigation of climate effects.

Since 2009, the Brazil-FAO International Cooperation Programme for School Meals, an alliance between the National Fund for Education Development (FNDE), the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), has been developing activities to strengthen and institutionalise school meal programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

About 2 billion people in the world are overweight or obese due to a poor diet and sedentary lifestyle. Around 133.4 million Latin Americans and Caribbeans do not have access to a healthy diet. In addition, this region has the highest healthy food costs (LAC Food and Nutrition Security Overview, 2023).

Given this scenario, the cooperation has promoted actions aimed at offering healthy and adequate menus, public procurement from smallholder farming, improvement of school infrastructure and food and nutrition education actions such as school gardens, exchanges of experiences, training and technical visits between 26 LAC countries, within the framework of the Sustainable School Feeding Network (RAES).

2025 January

Global Roots (website)

Global Roots promotes regenerative, equitable, and nutritious plant-based food systems by modeling agricultural conservation projects, partnering with organizations around the world to implement whole systems change, and providing on-the-ground education programs. They are based in the USA* and the Dominican Republic** in partnership with the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and are exploring other expansion areas. By recognizing the overlap between nutrition for personal and planetary health, we can drastically improve global health standards while simultaneously reducing agricultural land use requirements paving the way for increased conservation.

Objectives:

Expand the practice of agriculture as a form of conservation, life-enhancement, and regeneration to areas around the world.
Provide education opportunities on how to transition consolidated, top-down food systems to community-owned land trusts and regenerative land practices.
Demonstrate through model programs how transitioning inefficiently used farmland from speculative markets to locally-owned land initiatives increases healthy food options, employment opportunities, and resilient communities of health.
Increase peer-to-peer networking and coalition building through the Whole-Communities platform.
Provide technical support to promote regenerative, equitable, and nutritious plant-based food systems.

* The Brightside Farm and Nursery in the USA is the home of Global Roots. The farm is located outside of Chapel Hill, North Carolina in growing zone 8a and covers an area of 2.5 acres hosting the nursery, mixed vegetable production, and orchard. Operations of the farm and nursery are governed by the Global Roots staff and board of directors.

** The RAICES Institute education center is located in the Dominican Republic in the province of Las Hermanas Mirabal, north of Salcedo in the village of La Cumbre. The center is owned and operated by RAICES Global with program support from Global Roots and the T. Colin Campbell center for Nutrition Studies. The center hosts education programs and aims to establish plant-based communal food hubs.

2025 January

Options for reforming agricultural subsidies from health, climate, and economic perspectives (2022)

Springmann, M., Freund, F. Options for reforming agricultural subsidies from health, climate, and economic perspectives. Nat Commun 13, 82 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27645-2

Agricultural subsidies are an important factor for influencing food production and therefore part of a food system that is seen as neither healthy nor sustainable. Here we analyse options for reforming agricultural subsidies in line with health and climate-change objectives on one side, and economic objectives on the other.

Using an integrated modelling framework including economic, environmental, and health assessments, we find that on a global scale several reform options could lead to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and improvements in population health without reductions in economic welfare. Those include a repurposing of up to half of agricultural subsidies to support the production of foods with beneficial health and environmental characteristics, including fruits, vegetables, and other horticultural products, and combining such repurposing with a more equal distribution of subsidy payments globally.

The findings suggest that reforming agricultural subsidy schemes based on health and climate-change objectives can be economically feasible and contribute to transitions towards healthy and sustainable food systems.

2025 January

Serving hope: rethinking school meal programs in Latin America (2024)

López, D. S., Gamba, M., & Uriza-Pinzón, J. (2024). Serving hope: Rethinking school meal programs in Latin America. The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, 36, Article 100818. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2024.100818

Fig. 1 School meal programs in Latin America.

This article is a commentary providing a good overview and links to improving school meals programs, including issues to foster and educate on Sustainable Food Systems.

Snippets from the Article: “To bolster the effectiveness of school food programs in LAC it’s imperative to adopt innovative strategies. The above involves integrating nutritional education into the school curriculum, establishing sustainable school farms with local products, and incorporating gastronomy into SMP to enhance menu acceptance and reduce food waste. Community involvement ensures cultural relevance and supports local farmers, while technological solutions aid in addressing socioeconomic disparities, infrastructure, and logistics, facilitating better monitoring and data-driven decision-making. Moreover, long-term initiatives for enhancing school food programs should focus on aligning policies, raising awareness, capacity building, and conducting research and evaluation.”

“Fulfilling Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targeting hunger mitigation and universal food access within the framework of SMPs is crucial for global well-being. Enhancing quality and coverage in SMP across LAC is essential, requiring concerted efforts to improve nutrition, promote sustainable development, and advance global health.”

2025 January

Analysis: U.S. Lags Behind Other G20 Nations at Adding Sustainability Into Dietary Guidelines (2023)

Rifkin, J. (2023). U.S. lags behind other G20 nations at adding sustainability into dietary guidelines. Center for Biological Diversity. https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/pdfs/g20-dietary-guidelines-analysis.pdf

The Center for Biological Diversity released an analysis of the dietary guidelines of the G20 countries that found the United States has fallen behind in including sustainability. The analysis found that most G20 nations include sustainability goals and recommendations to reduce meat and/or increase plant-based foods. But the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, also known as the DGA, does not consider dietary impacts on the environment or recommend reduced meat consumption, though animal agriculture is a major driver of climate change and biodiversity loss.

While G20 nations have taken the lead, fewer than half of national dietary guidelines around the world include environmental sustainability. But that number has been rapidly growing over the past 10 years, with an increase in recommendations to reduce meat consumption and an emphasis on plant-based diets. Aligning dietary guidelines with sustainability goals is particularly important in G20 countries, where the current per capita consumption of meat and dairy is higher than the global average.

The Food Planet Prize

The Curt Bergfors Foundation was established on August 30th, 2019, in acknowledgement of the perils that our current food systems pose to the health of people and the planet, and with the conviction that the ways we produce, distribute and consume food must be radically and urgently reformed if future generations — and the planet itself — are to survive and thrive. Immediate action is required.
* The vision is a well-nourished world population on a thriving planet.
* The mission is to drive a rapid transition to a sustainable global food system. They do this through research grants, awards, and information campaigns. Most of their activities are centred around the Food Planet Prize.

Through the foundation and the founding capital that Curt provided (500 million SEK came from his private assets), Curt acknowledged that our current ways of producing, distributing, and consuming food are causing significant damage and that we must urgently and drastically change our modus operandi to save both human and planetary health. The foundation supports the transition to sustainable food systems through research grants, awards, and information campaigns. Its primary tool is The Food Planet Prize. With an annual award of two million USD, it is the world’s most significant environmental endowment.

The Food Planet Prize rewards innovative initiatives that will improve the global food system within a ten-year period while supporting a resilient biosphere and feeding a growing world population. It is Curt’s brainchild and his greatest legacy. He wished to contribute to a better, more bountiful Food Planet and was confident that it could be nursed back to health.

We share this with you as there is a long list of winners and nominees you can gain inspiration from, or partner with, as you work to further Sustainable Food Systems wherever you are.

Or maybe you will apply to win the award yourself!

Winners & nominees

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.