The confluence of population, economic development, and environmental pressures resulting from increased globalization and industrialization reveal an increasingly resource-constrained world in which predictions point to the need to do more with less and in a “better” way. The concept of sustainable diets presents an opportunity to successfully advance commitments to sustainable development and the elimination of poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, and poor health outcomes. This study examines the determinants of sustainable diets, offers a descriptive analysis of these areas, and presents a causal model and framework from which to build. The major determinants of sustainable diets fall into 5 categories: 1) agriculture, 2) health, 3) sociocultural, 4) environmental, and 5) socioeconomic. When factors or processes are changed in 1 determinant category, such changes affect other determinant categories and, in turn, the level of “sustainability” of a diet. The complex web of determinants of sustainable diets makes it challenging for policymakers to understand the benefits and considerations for promoting, processing, and consuming such diets. To advance this work, better measurements and indicators must be developed to assess the impact of the various determinants on the sustainability of a diet and the tradeoffs associated with any recommendations aimed at increasing the sustainability of our food system.

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The stark observation of the co-existence of undernourishment, nutrient deficiencies and overweight and obesity, the triple burden of malnutrition, is inviting us to reconsider health and nutrition as the primary goal and final endpoint of food systems. Agriculture and the food industry have made remarkable advances in the past decades. However, their development has not entirely fulfilled health and nutritional needs, and moreover, they have generated substantial collateral losses in agricultural biodiversity. Simultaneously, several regions are experiencing unprecedented weather events caused by climate change and habitat depletion, in turn putting at risk global food and nutrition security. This coincidence of food crises with increasing environmental degradation suggests an urgent need for novel analyses and new paradigms. The sustainable diets concept proposes a research and policy agenda that strives towards a sustainable use of human and natural resources for food and nutrition security, highlighting the preeminent role of consumers in defining sustainable options and the importance of biodiversity in nutrition. Food systems act as complex social-ecological systems, involving multiple interactions between human and natural components. Nutritional patterns and environment structure are interconnected in a mutual dynamic of changes. The systemic nature of these interactions calls for multidimensional approaches and integrated assessment and simulation tools to guide change. This paper proposes a review and conceptual modelling framework that articulate the synergies and tradeoffs between dietary diversity, widely recognised as key for healthy diets, and agricultural biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions, crucial resilience factors to climate and global changes.

Recurrent food crises and global environmental change are critical issues that pushed food security and sustainability to the top of the policy agenda. Policy-makers need assessment tools that help them decide what actions they should take to achieve these goals. This paper proposes a new metric system assessing the sustainability of food systems and diets at a subnational level adapted to the context of the Mediterranean area. Recognizing the systemic dimension of sustainability, the proposed information system builds on a vulnerability/resilience conceptual framework and considers the interactions between a set of biophysical and socioeconomic drivers of vulnerability and a number of context-specific food and nutrition security issues. A three-round iterative Delphi survey was conducted to involve a number of selected experts in the indicator selection process. 18 indicators were finally identified for eight preselected causal models of vulnerability and resilience at the interactions between a set of four drivers of change (water depletion, biodiversity loss, food price volatility, and changes in food consumption patterns) and four food and nutrition security outcomes (nutritional quality of food supply, affordability of food, dietary energy T. Allen and P. Prosperi are first co-authors.

Background. Wild foods and their actual and potential contributions to nutrition security have rarely been studied or considered in nutrition and conservation programs.Objective. To study the role of wild food biodiversity in achieving a cost reduction of a nutritionally adequate diet for women and young children in Kenya using linear programming.Methods. An ethnobiological inventory of available food biodiversity was carried out by means of focus group discussions, and five wild foods were selected for further modeling. A market survey assessed available food prices by season. Diets were modeled to minimize cost and maximize nutrient adequacy using the Cost of Diet linear programming tool. Modeling was done without and with wild foods.Results. The modeled diets without wild species were deficient in iron for all age groups during the dry season, deficient in vitamin B 6 and calcium for infants aged 6 to 8 months during the dry season, and deficient in iron and zinc for infants aged 6 to 8 months over the whole year. Adding wild foods, especially Berchemia discolor, to the modeled diets resulted in a lower-cost diet, while meeting recommended iron intakes for women and children between 12 and 23 months of age. Even after integrating wild foods into the model, targeted approaches are needed to meet micronutrient requirements for infants from 6 to 8 and from 9 to 11 months of age. Conclusions. An application of linear programming to screen available wild foods for meeting recommended nutrient intakes at a minimal cost was illustrated. This type of study helps to objectively assess the potential of biodiversity to contribute to diets and nutrition.Key words: Cost of Diet, food biodiversity, linear programming, nutrition security, wild foods IntroductionThe determinants of poor nutrition are often rooted in poverty and inequity. Meeting nutrient needs of families while keeping costs to a minimum, improving resilience, and respecting cultural traditions remains a challenge. For many populations, local and traditional foods, including wild foods, can play an important role as a safety net during difficult periods or to complement diets with essential nutrients [1][2][3]. However, for most of these species, little is known about their nutritional value, safety, availability, use, and consumption patterns and their subsequent impact on human health, undernutrition, overnutrition, and risk of noncommunicable disease.The present study innovatively brought together the fields of ethnobiology, nutrition, and food security to study the role of wild, neglected, and underutilized species in achieving a cost reduction of a nutritionally adequate diet for women, pregnant women, lactating women, and young children 6 to 23 months of age (covering the 1,000-days window of opportunity) during the dry and wet seasons in the eastern region of Baringo District in Kenya. The study focuses on the "window of opportunity" from minus 9 to 24 months, because improving nutrition for this group has the highest impact on reduction of d...