Novel use of UK national data finds a growing gap between the prices of more and less healthy foods between 2002 and 2012. Healthy foods in 2012 were three times more expensive per calorie than less healthy foods. Food prices in the UK have risen faster than the price of other goods in recent years, and this new study, which tracked the price of 94 key food and beverage items from 2002 to 2012, shows that the increase has been greater for more healthy foods, making them progressively more expensive over time.

Although there is no absolute consensus on the recommendation for total fat and dietary fat and saturated fat (SFA) intake between governing bodies and health organizations, there is a general sense of convergence. All guidelines currently suggest that total fat should not exceed 35% of daily calories. Although most guidelines propose a target for dietary SFA, there is no consensus on the value to aim for.

This blog discusses the June Business Forum meeting organised by the Food Ethics Council which saw businesses and NGOs coming together to consider how industry and government discusses issues of food consumption and choice now, and how this might need to change.

This book contains 17 chapters focusing on the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, food security, water resources and economic stability. Strategies to develop sustainable systems that minimize impact on climate and/or mitigate the effects of human activity on climate change are also presented.

Advocates of the alternative food movement often insist that food is our "common ground" – that through the very basic human need to eat, we all become entwined in a network of mutual solidarity. In this book, the author explores the contradictions and shortcomings of alternative food activism by examining specific endeavours of the movement through various lenses of social difference – including class, race, gender, and age.

BBSRC - Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council has released a report on sustainable intensification (SI) together with an invitation for interested parties to comment. Responses received will be taken into account in addressing the group’s recommendations.

The European Commission was due to publish a Communication on Sustainable Food in 2013 to “assess how best to limit waste throughout the food supply chain, and consider ways to lower the environmental impact of food production and consumption patterns”.  This long-awaited Communication has still not been published.

This set of papers reports on findings from the most recent undertaking of the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS). The CHNS is a long-term ongoing longitudinal cohort with in-depth community data and household socio-demographic data and very detailed diet, activity, body composition and cardiometabolic measures representative of large populations in China, the largest and one of the most rapidly changing countries in the world.

In this open letter a large number of civil society organisations present a critique of the use of ‘Climate Smart Agriculture’, a concept that is gaining increasing attention among governments, NGOs, academics, corporations and in international policy. They state that they have concerns around the aims of the 'Global Alliance on Climate Smart Agriculture' to establish policies to enable farming to deal with the impacts of climate change.