This article by the Sustainable Food Trust summarises and reviews the latest report by The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance. The author highlights the calls by the Review’s chair, Jim O’Neill, for a decreased use of antibiotics - especially those of most use in human medicine - worldwide, and presents the evidence laid out in the report and elsewhere for the link between veterinary use of antibiotics in livestock and increased antimicrobial resistance in human pathogens.

The World Health Organisation has called on countries to reduced sugar intakes among their child and adult populations.  It recommends that people should obtain no more than 10% of their daily calories from free sugars, and cutting intakes to below 5% would provide additional benefits.

In June 2014, Public Health England (PHE) published ‘Sugar reduction: Responding to the challenge’. This set out what PHE would do to review the evidence across a broad range of areas and identify those where action is most likely to be effective in reducing sugar intakes. The findings from this review and the assessment of the evidence-based actions to reduce sugar consumption are set out in this report “Sugar reduction – the evidence for action”.

Recent research has shown that some foods have a considerably higher emissions-footprints than do others and that changes in average dietary consumption patterns towards lower-emissions foods, has potential as a climate change mitigation measure.

The WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified processed meat in Group 1 of carcinogenic substances– the highest evidence level (“based on sufficient evidence”). Red meat is placed in Group 2A as probably carcinogenic (based on limited evidence). The new classification is announced in a research summary report published in The Lancet Oncology 26 October 2015 where WHO summarises its review of all scientific evidence on which substances can be linked to any type of cancer in humans. 

Reducing the cost of healthy foods in supermarkets and retail outlets increases the amount of healthy fruits, vegetables and whole grains that people eat while lowering consumption of foods with low nutritional value, say researchers at RAND Corporation South Africa.

This study entitled: “Dairy products and the risk of type 2 diabetes: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of cohort studies” takes another look at the evidence on the association between intake of dairy products and the risk of type 2 diabetes.  

This publication provides information on using price policies to promote healthy diets and explores policy developments from around the WHO European Region. It examines the economic theory underpinning the use of subsidies and taxation and explores the available evidence.

The UK’s official dietary guidelines were updated in March 2016. The Carbon Trust has undertaken a useful analysis of the environmental implications of the new plate. FCRN member John Kazer (Footprint Certification Manager at The Carbon Trust) provides the following summary of the analysis here: