From "good for people" to "good for people and planet"-Placing health and environment on equal footing when developing food-based dietary guidelines

Abstract

Dietary guidelines are a primary tool for promoting healthier and more sustainable diets. Despite several ex-amples of dietary guidelines that consider -to various degrees -aspects of environmental sustainability, there is currently no framework that systematically incorporates environmental sustainability as a primary consider-ation. We present a five-step framework for developing environmentally sustainable dietary guidelines that would simultaneously meet nutritional requirements while staying within environmental boundaries. The steps comprise: 1) determining an average healthy diet for different population groups and criteria for healthy diets; 2) identifying relevant environmental aspects and establishing corresponding boundaries; 3) identifying systemic effects and crucial sustainability aspects; 4) altering the average diet to meet environmental goals and resolve trade-offs between environmental and nutritional goals; and 5) formulating sustainable food-based dietary guidelines. To exemplify the framework, we pilot it in the Swedish context, but it could be utilised for any other country.

Keywords

Dietary guidelines; Environmental sustainability; Food systems; Framework; Sweden

Published in

Food Policy
2023, volume: 117, article number: 102444
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCI LTD

SLU Authors

• Moberg, Emma

  • Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Van Rysselberge, Pierre

  • Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Röös, Elin

  • Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Food Science
Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2023.102444

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/122759