Sustainable healthy diets | TableDebates

PhD thesis: Simultaneous optimisation of the nutritional quality and environmental sustainability of diets

FCRN member Corné van Dooren defended his PhD thesis at VU University Amsterdam on 20 March 2018 on the topic of optimising both nutritional quality and environmental sustainability of diets.

Image: Jeremy Noble, Roast, Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

Pursuing a low meat diet to improve both health and sustainability: How can we use the frames that shape our meals?

In this paper, the authors conducted a review of numerous studies to examine the content, advantages and limitations of a frame-based approach to assist consumers in reducing their intake of conventional meat (e.g. eating less meat or different meat, such as organic or certified for animal welfare or environmental impact). Particularly, they want to evaluate whether behaviour can be shifted by creating new frames and to identify frames that can bridge a transition by highlighting ‘push’ factors away from routine meat eating, or ‘pull’ factors towards encouraging the consumption of alternatives.

New MOOC: Sustainable food systems: a Mediterranean perspective

A new online course developed by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network deals with environmental and climate-related challenges in the Mediterranean and shows how sustainable food systems are being used. The course is aimed at students, current and future practitioners in the agricultural, food and beverage sectors, and policymakers and regional stakeholders.

Image: Memphis Meats Press Kit, Southern Fried Chicken

TEDx talk: The end of animal farming by Jacy Reese

Social scientist and co-founder of the Sentience Institute Jacy Reese discusses public attitudes to diets and the potential of lab-cultured meat to end animal farming, as well as possible pitfalls.

Report: Action on sustainable diets (food service)

This report from Foodservice Footprint discusses the need for more sustainable diets, outlines the business case for introducing them and provides a framework to help food service businesses offer sustainable food options.

News: Greenpeace launches campaign to halve meat and dairy consumption by 2050

Greenpeace is calling for global meat and dairy consumption to be halved by 2050, citing climate change, the health benefits of plant-based foods and the association of animal farming with antimicrobial resistance.

A greasy sandwich and fries. Photo by Ulvi Safari via Unsplash.

Changing diets threaten public health & the environment

In this piece, Judy Bankman introduces key elements of disease, diet, and sustainability relevant to the expansion of Western-style consumption patterns.Judy Bankman joined Brighter Green as a research intern in 2013 when she was completing her Master of Public Health at NYU’s College of Global Public Health. Working with Brighter Green allowed her to direct her academic interest into a research and policy-focused project, which linked current public health issues with food systems analysis. Her research culminated in several blog posts that were published by Food Tank and Civil Eats from 2013 to 2014, and ultimately the discussion paper published in October 2017 by Brighter Green, “Chronic Disease, Changing Diets, & Sustainability: The Globalization of Western-style Eating and Its Implications”.

Image: stu_spivack, hummus, Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

Conservatism predicts lapses from vegetarian/vegan diets to meat consumption (through lower social justice concerns and social support)

In this article, researchers aim to understand the factors predicting why people return to eating meat after adopting a non-meat diet. Since past research shows that political ideologies play a role in predicting meat consumption, the researchers’ focus is investigating to what extent these ideologies predict lapsing from vegan/vegetarian diets.

Image: Jon Åslund, Frukt och Grönt (och andra färger) i Östermalmshallen, Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

Evaluating the environmental consequences of Swedish food consumption and dietary choices

In this paper, FCRN member Michael Martin examines the environmental impacts of various Swedish dietary choices across a wide range of environmental impact categories, paying particular attention to the trade-offs between impact categories.