This literature review, undertaken by the Food Climate Research Network and Chatham House, and in association with EAT who also kindly supported the work, considers what the evidence has to say about effective ways of shifting people’s consumption patterns in more sustainable and healthy directions.

In 2014, the FCRN released a major report entitled Appetite for change: social, economic and environmental transformations in China’s food system. This provided a detailed and integrative analysis of the dramatic changes in China’s food system over the last 35 years, explored emerging environmental, health, economic and cultural trends and challenges, and identified policy and research implications.  

In this article published in the Economist, Jimmy Smith, director of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) argues that the livestock issue requires a differentiated approach.

This major study compiles and analyses global-level data to assess relationships among diet, environmental sustainability and human health.  It evaluates the potential future environmental impacts of the global dietary transition before exploring some possible solutions to the diet–environment–health trilemma. 

In April 2014 the Food Climate Research Network organised a workshop, funded and hosted by the Wellcome Trust with additional support from the Food Security programme of the UK research councils. Its aim was to bring people together to develop a research agenda on how our eating practices might be shifted in healthier and more sustainable directions.  Particular emphasis was placed on meat eating as an exemplar of an important, yet difficult aspect of our consumption practices, and one with a strong bearing on health and sustainability.

In this interview journalist Tom Levitt discusses with Barry Popkin, coordinator of the China Health and Nutrition Survey, how Chinese diets have shifted in recent years and what this means in terms of public health and environmental impacts.

We are pleased to announce a new FCRN discussion paper which considers the increasingly topical question of: ‘What is a sustainable healthy diet?’ 

The Food Climate Research Network has published a major new report focusing on China’s changing food system. Appetite for Change provides a detailed and integrative analysis of the dramatic changes in China’s food system over the last 35 years, and explores the linkages among the environmental, health, economic and cultural trends that are emerging.