Nutrition today: Holistic thinking is required for a sustainable food system in order to resolve conflicting goals and use synergies.
Vienna (OTS) – The EU Commission wants to make the continent climate-neutral by 2050 and presented a sustainable growth strategy with the Green Deal at the end of December 2019. The “Farm to Fork” strategy and the planned measures to preserve biodiversity have a direct impact on the food system. The focus is also on packaging that should be 100% economically recycled across the EU by 2030. However, there are still some building blocks and a holistic view missing on the way to a sustainable food system, as experts say in the current issue of nutrition today, the magazine of the forum. nutrition today (f.eh), emphasize. In addition to comprehensive information for consumers, they also require ecological, social, economic, health and cultural aspects to be addressed simultaneously and equally.
The EU Commission has set itself the goal of making the food system fairer, healthier and more environmentally friendly. According to the definition of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), a food system includes “all actors and their interrelated value-adding activities involved in the production, aggregation, processing, distribution, consumption and disposal of food as well as parts their broader economic, social and natural environment”. A variety of political measures are therefore used to change the system.
Ursula Trübswasser emphasizes in an interview that such a policy mix is a great enrichment for Europe and an important requirement for the member states nutrition today. She is the first author of the report “Sustainable food policy in Austria – analysis of political documents with regard to activities to promote sustainable nutrition”, which was prepared by scientists at the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences. But not only in Austria, but also in the EU initiatives, the systemic approach to transforming the food system is missing, which enables synergies and can resolve conflicting goals. An example of this is insufficient funding for increased consumption of vegetables and fruit as well as for a gradual reduction in consumption of meat and meat products. Both have so far been related too much to health effects, but not to environmental aspects.
When it comes to ecology, however, regionality and seasonality are often brought into conflict. The emissions from energy and transport weigh less than the fundamental question of whether one chooses animal or plant-based food. A reduction in both the production and consumption of meat and meat products would have a greater impact on reducing emissions. Comprehensive nutrition and consumer education and consumer information are important, but only one component. Cultural determinants, social norms and socio-economic factors also need to be increasingly taken into account.
It’s also worth taking a look at the packaging of food. A key aspect of making packaging more sustainable is reducing it. By 2040, packaging waste should be gradually reduced by at least 15% compared to 2018. As a rule, reusable containers that are only transported over short distances and have high circulation rates are the most ecologically friendly. Reusable PET combines the advantages of lightweight packaging with the positive aspect of the reusable system, which causes 80-90% less plastic waste and material consumption than disposable PET bottles. Reusable glass is classified less favorably as the transport distance increases due to its higher weight. Aluminum beverage cans have a low transport weight, are easier to stack than bottles and can be completely recycled in a relatively energy-saving manner. Composite materials (e.g. cardboard coated with plastic) are light and easy to transport, but recycling is laborious and inefficient.
The current issue of nutrition today will be available to media representatives as a PDF version upon request to [email protected].
Other topics in the magazine:
- Goals and tasks of the Service Center for Sustainable Food and Nutrition Systems, which is located in the Agency for Health and Food Security (AGES) and supports interministerial cooperation.
- The Tyrolean project KIDchen uses the guide kinder.kulinarik.weg.tirol to show the way to a healthy, tasty and communal eating culture.
- Neophobia refers to the rejection of unfamiliar foods. For example, children often refuse vegetables. Nutritionist and sensory expert Eva Derndorfer explains why this is the case and why neophobia is less pronounced in the city than in the country.
- She also presents flax seeds as an alternative to chia seeds as a local “superfood” that comes from one of the oldest cultivated plants in the world.
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