This briefing by The Food Foundation explores the accessibility of sustainable, low emission diets for low income groups in the UK. The report focuses on two consumer behaviours needed to meet agrifood emissions targets: a reduction in meat and dairy consumption, and the elimination of household level food waste. The report finds that whilst theoretical models of low income diets are affordable, the reality is that they are often not accessible for low income households.

This book discusses the influences that drive food insecurity in the UK, including social inequality, transport, employment, rural isolation, local politics, the COVID-19 pandemic and increases in the cost of living.

UK anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe has drawn attention to the disproportionate impact that inflation has on the prices of the cheapest product lines, on which many lower income households rely. Monroe is working to establish a new inflation measure that will track the rising costs of the cheapest supermarket items in the UK.

This paper compares the costs of various dietary patterns (including flexitarian, pescatarian, vegetarian, and vegan) in 150 countries. It also estimates diet-related healthcare costs for each diet as well as climate change costs. The cost of these alternative diets compared to current diets varies strongly by country as well as by whether healthcare and climate costs were included.

This book, which is being released in its third edition, offers a critical examination of the food system through the lenses of gender, ethnicity and poverty. This edition includes a new chapter on sustainable diets and ethical consumption.

This report from the Rockefeller Foundation uses true cost accounting to assess the United States food system. It finds that (quantifiable) annual costs to health, the environment and biodiversity are US$3.2 trillion - around three times higher than US expenditure on food, which is US$1.1 trillion per year. The report finds that people of colour are disproportionately affected by negative impacts including non-communicable diseases, food insecurity, and air pollution exposure.

This report from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future reviews the literature on the working conditions, social contexts and public health threats experienced by farmworkers and their communities in the US. 

This podcast from the US-based Migration Policy Institute interviews Dr Megan Carney, anthropologist and director of the University of Arizona’s Centre for Regional Food Studies, about the links between climate-related food insecurity and people’s decision whether to migrate.

This report from the UK charity the Food Foundation sets out ten metrics which could be used to gauge the health of the UK’s food system. Compared to 2019, the report finds improvement in the following metrics: wages in the food industry, products with too much sugar, and products with not enough vegetables. Deterioration has been seen in food prices (note that figures are only available until the first quarter of 2020 and thus do not capture the full impacts of COVID-19) and in places to buy healthy food.