Tag: food

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Nutrition Policy

The evidence on nutrition policies has accumulated a series of policy recommendations based on the best available evidence. The German Institute of Human Nutrition has presented these results repeatedly not only to the scientific community, but also to the interested public at the Science Week or the Long Night of Science. Their leaflet on the tools to improve our human nutrition in market economies highlights “nutrition competence” as a key component of a broad strategy to improve our food and subsequently health. Nutrition goes beyond the biological ingredients of food to include basic understandings of human metabolism including the times and timing of meals. This competence has to be transmitted to preschoolers, pupils as well as adults to stem the waves of obesity (ARTE Docu). Learning how to manage your own nutrition is a crucial competence to strive and survive. In schools it can have substantial impacts on performance and inequality of opportunities as well.

The science-based policy recommendations propose to alter the structure of costs, for example via tax reductions, in favor of healthy food. Plain water should be substantially cheaper than sweet beverages or alcoholic drinks. Nuts and proteins from vegetables fall in the same category as plain water. It is in the longer term interest of all of us that schools, canteens at work places or homes for the elderly offer also healthy nutrition at least as a daily option. More sustainability in food production is last, but not least part of nutrition policies. A lot to chew on to improve nutrition.

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Food Future

What do we have for dinner today, tomorrow or in 10 years from today? Research Institutes presented some of their insights based on solid evidence in the open door event in Berlin. The 5 years of the project “food4future” are over and my glance through some of the results suggests that we shall have many more proteins, most from vegetable sources, on our plates. The arguments for improved sustainability are rather compelling. The taste of these products that currently have higher amounts of bitter taste might be solved. Similarly sea food beyond fish like halophyte will enter our diet. The salty taste can be incorporated in meals in which we add salt or other spices anyway. These elements might make it possible to feed the 8 billion people on our planet. We probably also need to include protein rich insects in the meal plans of the still growing human species. It appears like a rather long shot into the future of nutrition, but if we do not think ahead and start the change in our mindsets we shall be badly prepared for the future and more people will decide to seek food in other places of the earth rather than stay hungry. It also helps us to refocus our priorities in nutrition and aim for a better balance of the pleasures of eating and sustainability. The issue of food for future generations starts with food for thought in the abundantly nourished Northern parts of the planet. (Image: AI Copilot, Prompt: 2 couples enjoy eating a meal of halophytes and insects, 2024-6-25)

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Energy Food

For more than a decade now researchers have shown the link between energy prices and food prices. At first sight this might seem surprising. In traditional or romantic associations with growing food, there is no link between the cost of energy and food production. Growing crops in your garden does not need more than sunlight, soil and water. Yes, that was long ago. Industrial production of food is heavily relying on energy to heat, feed and water plants or animals. Additionally, the supply chains have become far more distant, which increases the CO2 footprint even further. Therefore, it is no longer surprising that a great number of econometric studies confirm the close link of energy prices and subsequent pressure on food prices. This is not restricted to Europe, but has reached global contamination.
Enjoying seasonal local food is a double catch solution. You grow according to local weather conditions and use traditional conservation methods, if the crop is exceeding your demand at that time. Providing heating for animals to increase productivity or quality of products appears to be one of the most wasteful ways to further increase the spiralling up of energy and food prices.
In agricultural science there is a lot of research into the “energy intake” of animals to better grow or produce more milk etc. This is the expensive intermediary step using energy to produce energy intake for animals rather than humans. It is surprising that we take so many years to address these well-known linkages that have turned to serious problems after Russia’s war on Ukraine. Agriculture and farmers can be part of the solution rather than a problem themselves, if the link of energy consumption and food prices is taken seriously.

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Food Change

Changing habits of eating is among the most difficult behavioral changes. We get so used to our habits to prefer certain alimentary mixtures that we tend to believe we can no longer change them. Depending on our will power we are able to command for more or less longer periods our food intake. Bodily functions of blood pressure or insulin levels play tricks on us of a powerful kind. Therefore it is interesting to see towards the end of a food market what kind of food is sold and what has been left over.

In the historic market of the food, wine and spice loving region of Burgundy in Dijon the ad hoc inspection of an étalage was surprisingly different from my expectation. ‘Paté’ containing meat was left over towards the end of the opening hours and the fish based ’Paté’ was almost sold out. A change towards a more healthy and somewhat more sustainable diet is slowly creeping into societies. This gives hope that food changes are possible and markets will adapt eventually as well. It is a change for the better for each person and our societies as well as the planet.

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Hunger

The UN strategic development goals (SDGs) list after the eradication of hunger as number 2 no hunger by the year 2030. Following the report of FAO, the UN 🇺🇳 organization in charge of nutrition in a larger sense, the world is moving further away from reaching this goal in the 4 last years. The Covid-19 pandemic had disrupted supply chains and caused higher prices for basic ingredients. The poorest countries were most vulnerable to such price increases when even in the rich world government deficits were rising sharply. Before sufficient relief arrived Russia’s war in Ukraine destroyed crops, interrupted again supply chains from Ukraine to many of the poorest nations. Energy prices are a substantial part in the production of fertilizers for agricultural products. Same story Russia disrupted the whole supply chains for food production at affordable prices for the poorest parts of the world. Additionally, Indian food production was lower due to the drought, Pakistan had extreme flooding. Both countries are important export nations for feeding the world. Continuing climate change is likely to put global food production under additional pressure. Price rises will hit the poorest again and again. Feeding animals with crops that could otherwise alleviate hunger in other parts of the world puts the rich world’s consumption patterns also into the spotlight. Fighting global hunger is largely a question of how wealthy nations deal with nutrition. The struggle to fight obesity and hunger under the joint concern of malnutrition unites all parts of the world. Time to act together on both topics.

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Monitor SDGs

The advantage of the goal-setting at the U.N. is definately that the progress or regress can be monitored. To do this, a definition for each goal in words is presented, which has to be translated in all languages. Some notions are subject to conceptual issues. Poverty, for example, in an individualistic society needs to be defined at an individual level. In societies where women and dependent children or elderly persons are part of one household, the household is the unit of definition. After the conceptual clarification the measurement of a set of indicators needs to be identified. How do we measure poverty? Here the focus is either on absolute poverty (lump sum of money available) or relative poverty (relative to others in society). Stability of poverty, poverty as transitional  or access to poverty relief programmes as well as charity organisations in a country will play a role here. No simple answers and comparisons here. Timeliness of data is another issue. Data and sampling are costly in itself, therefore not every year the measurement is repeated to gauge progress or regress.
I take account of the SDGs in my own work in the form that the 17 SDGs of the U.N. are part of my work as well. In consulting practice it is a frequent task to check for example a larger enterprise on its contribution to the implementation of SDGs locally, nationally or globally. To start a reflection phase of my blog entries I just used the “search function” of the webpage and entered the first 6 SDGs in English and German to check, whether my webpage is SDG-proof. The result shown below in simple frequencies. Education and Learning come out as top scores. Other areas show fewer entries. In some goals, like gender, the keywords to check for are more diverse and return less precise results. This opens the conceptual box again. The notions summarised under a SDG goal might be numerous or singular – which leads to a bias in results. “Bildung” in German finds also “Weiterbildung” = further or continuous education at the same time, not the English term education. Subtle differences, but potentially huge effects. Overall, an interesting exercise to analyse my/your own mind and business practice. Focused attention versus broad coverage of SDGs, each has its strength and weaknesses. Goal 17 to strengthen the means of implementation and global partnership may build just on many more organisations doing their SDG-homework. Name, Measure, Improve – that is the action. SDGs in Blog1-6