The report Redefining Protein: Adjusting Diets to Protect Public Health and Conserve Resources distils current research looking at the social and environmental impacts of producing high-protein foods other than meat (legumes: pulses and soy, nuts and seeds, eggs and dairy). It aims to provide hospitals with key information to design healthier meals. 

In this letter to the editor in Nature, the authors challenge simplified dietary strategies used in lifecycle assessment (LCA) based studies. Citing a paper that presents the LCA of three dietary scenarios for a basket of food products (representative of EU consumption) they argue that “it is irresponsible to present environmentally motivated dietary strategies... that conflict with longstanding public health nutrition objectives.”. 

This summary has been provided by FCRN member Alessandro Cerutti from the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC). Public administrations such as schools, hospitals and other sectors are well aware of the effort required to manage all the stages of the catering service, from menu selection through to waste management. Several strategies hold potential to reduce the environmental impacts throughout these stages, especially in the context of the Green Public Procurement (GPP). Unfortunately, despite the best of intentions, budget constraints are constantly forcing managers to make difficult trade-offs.

This book, by Pamela Mason and Tim Lang, explores what is meant by sustainable diets and why and how this can be made the goal for policymakers as we enter the Anthropocene. We do recommend that you take a look at Tim Lang’s blog-post for the FCRN where he discusses the book’s findings and insights.

This report by the FAO aims to equip policymakers in ministries of agriculture and rural development, development partners and others with the tools they need to design nutrition-sensitive food and agriculture policies and programmes.

In this paper, using three scenarios for food demand, the researchers model and highlight the indirect relationship between greenhouse gas (GHG) emission abatement within the food supply system and the energy system, globally.

Planetary health is a new approach that broadens health research to include the health of human civilisations and the natural (external) systems on which they depend. In a new journal, alongside The Lancet Public Health and The Lancet Global Health, The Lancet Planetary Health will explore the links between planetary and human health and how we can protect the environment on which we depend and develop sustainable systems that support human health. 

This report authored by By Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at University of London was commissioned for Friends of the Earth. It outlines the current state of policy thinking on sustainable diets and reviews some national, international and local attempts to chart new policy directions to tackle growing evidence that food consumption has immense impact on environment, health, society and economy.

This paper summarises the evidence on the role that agriculture plays in improving nutrition, how food systems are changing rapidly due to globalization, trade liberalization, and urbanization, and the implications for nutrition globally.