Sustainable healthy diets | TableDebates

Eating Better & Medact’s briefing on sustainable dietary guidelines

In this policy briefing “A Healthy and Sustainable Food Future Policy recommendations to embed sustainability in the Eatwell Guide and wider UK food policy” the Eating Better Alliance and Medact call on Public Health England (PHE), government more broadly and health professionals to do more to promote healthy and sustainable diets and to ensure that dietary recommendations underpin food and farming policy.

Brian, Food choices, Flickr, Creative Commons License 2.0.

Blog: Dietary guidelines don’t work. Here’s how to fix them

In a blog-piece for The Conversation, Duane Mellor (Associate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Canberra) and Cathy Knight-Agarwal (Clinical Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Canberra) argue that it is time to rethink the purpose of dietary guidelines both in terms of content and how people adopt (or ignore) their messages.

IEA Discussion Paper No.82 CHEAP AS CHIPS: Is a healthy diet affordable?

This report from the UK free market think tank Institute of Economic Affairs claims that healthy food is actually cheaper than ‘junk food’. In drawing this conclusion the IEA also states that taxes on unhealthy foods (consumed as they say disproportionately by people with low incomes) is unlikely to be enough to change consumer behaviour and will be regressive - it will hit poorer people the hardest.

Image credit: with wind, 400kcal diet, Flickr, Creative Commons License 2.0

A healthier US diet could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from both the food and health care systems

This paper looks at link between diets, health and climate and particularly the effects of adopting healthier diets in the US on the risk of disease, health care costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

IEEP’s report: Towards an integrated approach to livestock farming, sustainable diets and the environment: challenges for the Common Agricultural Policy and the UK

This report by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and commissioned by UK’s Eating Better Alliance looks at future policies towards livestock farming and trade in the UK and EU.

Updated version of WCRF’s policy framework to promote healthy diets & reduce obesity

The World Cancer Research Fund International has created the NOURISHING policy database which has now been updated and holds 390 policy actions from 125 countries, and 70 evaluations.

Effects of climate change would encourage most British adults to change their diet

In a recent public survey commissioned by the Global Food Security (GFS) programme, many British adults say they recognise that the food system is a key contributor to climate change and that they would change their diets to avoid negative future climate impacts.

Sustainability Challenges in the Agrofood Sector

This new 712 page book in 28 chapters is edited by Rajeev Bhat. It addresses a very wide range of topics on agriculture, food and sustainability.

Photo credit: Migle, Flickr, Creative Commons License 2.0

Dietary guidance for pulses: the challenge and opportunity to be part of both the vegetable and protein food groups

This paper provides an overview of dietary guidance for pulses, discussing their nutritional composition and health benefits as well as the evolution of the way in which the USDA’s dietary guidelines categorise pulses. The paper was published in a special issue on The Potential of Pulses to Meet Today’s Health Challenges: Staple Foods in the journal Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.