Designing a healthy, low-cost and environmentally sustainable food basket: an optimisation study

Abstract

Objective: Sustainable diets are diets with low environmental impacts and high affordability which contribute to food and nutrition security. The present study aimed to develop a healthy, low-cost and environmental-friendly food basket for Iran based on current consumption. Design: The Households Income and Expenditure Survey data were used. Linear Programming was utilised to obtain the optimal diets, separately, for each goal of the sustainable food basket: (1) Diet with maximum Nutrient Rich Food (NRF) index, (2) Diet with minimum cost, (3) Diet with the minimum water footprint and (4) Diet with the minimum carbon footprint. Goal Programming techniques were used to optimise the sustainable food basket by considering all goals simultaneously. Setting: Iran. Participants: Households (n 100 500) in urban and rural areas of Iran, nationally representative. Results: In the ‘optimal model’, compared with the usual consumption, the amount of the ‘bread, cereal, rice, and pasta’, ‘meat, poultry, fish, eggs, legumes, and nuts’ and ‘fats, oils, sugars, and sweets’ groups was decreased. Inside those food groups, cereals, poultry and vegetable oil subgroups were increased. Also, dairy, fruits and vegetable groups were increased. In this model, there was a 14 % reduction in the total water footprint, a 14 % decrease in the total carbon footprint, a 23 % decrease in the cost and a 7 % increase in NRF of diet compared with the usual consumption. Conclusions: Increasing the consumption of dairy, fruits and vegetables and reducing the consumption of bread, rice, pasta, meat, fish, eggs, legumes, nuts, hydrogenated fats and sugars are required to achieve a sustainable food basket.

Balancing a sustained pursuit of nutrition, health, affordability and climate goals: exploring the case of Indonesia

“…Clearly, there is no obvious win-win scenario, and identifying priorities and pathways to achieve change requires careful interpretation of the results. The difficulty of identifying a dietary scenario that concurrently meets nutrient, health, affordability, and environmental goals was also reported from Iran by Eini-Zinab et al ( 34 ).…”

Global Review of Dairy Recommendations in Food-Based Dietary Guidelines

“…While there is a growing body of evidence showing that increasing dairy food intake could be part of the solution to help reduce the global disease burden (37,40), there is also a growing body of evidence investigating the role of dairy foods as as sustainable source of nutrition (41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46). These investigations have so far returned conflicting results, which largely depend on the specific foods or food groups being investigated (e.g., dairy, beef, or all animal-sourced foods), the type of modeling used (e.g., life cycle assessment, enviromental impact analysis, global foodsystem modeling), the breadth of analysis performed (e.g., a single indicator vs. multiple indicators), the specific outcomes being measured (e.g., carbon footprint per kg of food vs. per 100 kcal of food vs. per g of nutrient in a food) and where the food is produced (e.g., high-income vs. low-and-middle income countries).…”

The Supply of Calories, Proteins, and Fats in Low-Income Countries: A Four-Decade Retrospective Study

“…While Piras et al [ 122 ] found the largest share of food to be wasted at the household level in developed countries, the waste–consumption relationship is mediated by the level of income even across the developing world. For instance, Eini-Zinab et al [ 123 ] revealed that eating more dairy products and fruits and vegetables and less bread, rice, pasta, legumes, hydrogenated fats, and sugars could reduce the total water and carbon footprints of the agricultural sector by 14% each. In lower-income communities, however, people struggle for eating rather than healthy eating, even less responsible eating.…”