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Understanding consumer knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors towards food waste is critical for informing evidence-based programs to advance sustainable food systems. A lack of knowledge regarding consumer food waste at the local level limits the ability to inform place-based solutions that are locally relevant. We administered an online survey to examine consumer perceptions, behaviors, and knowledge of food waste at the household level in Montana, a rural state in the United States. The majority of surveyed participants (58%) reported that they waste 10% or less of procured food. Almost half the participants (48%) are willing to take additional action to reduce food waste. Social factors including guilt and setting a good example were found to be greater motivators for reducing food waste compared to economic and environmental factors. Most survey participants (80%) perceive it would not be difficult to notably reduce their household's food waste. Overall, participants' reporting of their household's food waste quantity is lower than national quantities while their willingness to reduce food waste was higher than findings from a national survey. This study highlights the need for place-based solutions that are locally relevant to reduce household food waste towards enhancing the sustainability of food systems for supporting planetary health.

Wild foods are primary components of traditional and Indigenous food systems that are valued for food security while being vulnerable to global change. This case study examines practices, experiences, and perceptions associated with wild food environments through a household survey in the rural American state of Montana. Findings highlight that wild food environments contribute to cultural identity, sense of place, food security, and dietary quality of surveyed households while being vulnerable to loss of traditional ecological knowledge as well as climate and land-use change. Of the 182 informants, 80% hunt, 83% fish, and 68% forage wild botanicals. More than half of the informants agreed that wild food procurement is part of their cultural identity (66%). Collectively, informants procure more than 172 wild food species with the most prevalent being deer, waterfowl, elk, trout, bass, a range of berries, mushrooms, and botanicals used medicinally. Participants have a multidimensional value system where wild food procurement is valued for diets, recreation, family time, spirituality, and connection to the environment. The majority of participants agreed that the consumption of wild foods contributes to the nutritional quality (87%) and diversity (82%) of their diets while lowering food costs (59%). At least half of the informants reported observing changes in climate patterns over the past decade including increased temperature (50%) and more extreme and variable weather patterns (38%) that they perceive are impacting wild food environments including shifts in wild game, fish, and edible plant populations. Based on findings, we support that wild food environments and associated bio-cultural resources are a critical place to understand, conserve, and promote for nutrition. We thus advance the concept of “conservation for nutrition”. Community engagement, education, and policy plans are called for to promote wild food environments toward supporting sustainable diets and planetary health.

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Elementary education can equip future consumers and leaders with the systems thinking skills, real-world experiences, and knowledge to make decisions and lead progress toward sustainability transitions. The implementation of learning standards that focus on sustainability is one approach for integrating sustainability and food systems content into elementary education. The purpose of this study was to administer a survey with elementary-level educators to: (1) identify practices and perceptions of integrating sustainability and food systems concepts into the classroom; and (2) determine if practices and perceptions vary based on the presence of state learning standards focused on sustainability. A total of 171 educators completed the majority of the survey from two northwestern states in the United States: Washington (which has state learning standards focused on sustainability) and Montana (which does not have sustainability learning standards). Findings that 30% or less of the surveyed educators integrate sustainability and food systems content in their classroom highlights the urgent need for reforming elementary school curriculum to integrate sustainability as a central unifying framework to support societal and planetary health. Given the similarities in survey responses between educators in Washington and Montana, findings emphasize that state learning standards focused on sustainability are not adequate on their own to foster teacher adoption of sustainability content. There is thus a need for larger curriculum reformation to integrate sustainability as a framework, development of place-based teacher resources, and open access professional development to ensure that elementary-school students cultivate the systems thinking skills, real world experience, and knowledge that will allow them to develop the competencies to ultimately guide society toward meeting the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.