Food transitions in the 20th–21st century

Abstract

Dental caries is a highly prevalent chronic disease and its consequences cause a lot of pain and suffering. Sugars, particularly sucrose, are the most important dietary aetiological cause of caries. Both the frequency of consumption and total amount of sugars is important in the aetiology of caries.`The evidence establishing sugars as an aetiological factor in dental caries is overwhelming. The foundation of this lies in the multiplicity of studies rather than the power of any one.'1 . That statement by the British Nutrition Foundation's Task Force on Oral Health, Diet and Other Factors, sums up the relationship between sugars and caries in Europe. There is no evidence that sugars naturally incorporated in the cellular structure of foods (intrinsic sugars) or lactose in milk or milk products (milk sugars) have adverse effects on health. Foods rich in starch, without the addition of sugars, play a small role in coronal dental caries. The intake of extrinsic sugars beyond four times a day leads to an increase risk of dental caries. The current dose-response relationship between caries and extrinsic sugars suggests that the sugars levels above 60 g/person/day for teenagers and adults increases the rate of caries. For pre-school and young children the intakes should be proportional to those for teenagers; about 30 g/person/day for pre-school children. Fluoride, particularly in toothpastes, is a very important preventive agent against dental caries. Toothbrushing without fluorides has little effect on caries. As additional fluoride to that currently available in toothpaste does not appear to be benefiting the teeth of the majority of people, the main strategy to further reduce the levels of caries, is reducing the frequency of sugars intakes in the diet. Dental erosion rates are considered to be increasing. The aetiology is acids in foods and drinks and to a much lesser extent from regurgitation.

Eating up the world’s food web and the human trophic level

“…The global convergence in HTL is consistent with the convergence in diet structure between countries with diverse levels of development (18,19), and in agreement with previous studies of the FAO (17,25). Globalization and economic development facilitate the access to diverse foodstuffs and can enhance the rate of this convergence (18,26).…”

“…The global increase in HTL is consistent with the nutrition transition that is expected to continue for several decades (16,17) from plant-based diets toward diets higher in meat and dairy consumption (18)(19)(20)(21)(22). This 0.15 increase in HTL from 1961 to 2009 is mainly due to the increased consumption of fat and meat (SI Appendix, Figs.…”

“…For India, China, and countries in groups 1-3, HTLs are low and rising. With economic growth, these countries are gaining the ability to support the human preference for high meat diets (18,19,26). For countries in group 4, the nutrition transition has reached a point where health problems associated with high fat and meat diets (i.e., high HTLs) have led to changes in policy and government-run education programs that encourage these populations to shift to more plant-based diets [i.e., lower their HTL; SI Appendix, Figs.…”

Food as a Commons: Reframing the Narrative of the Food System

“…Actually, in the last 300 hundred years two transitions have been documented in western societies (Fogel, 2008;Popkin, 2003;Bengoa, 2001), as well as in Asia (Chen & Xu, 1996). Some of them have been fast and violent processes, such as the introduction of new crops from the Americas, while on other occasions they have undergone slowly.…”

La participación social como estrategia central de la nutrición comunitaria para afrontar los retos asociados a la transición nutricional

“…El conocimiento y control de los factores asociados a los problemas inherentes a esta transición nutricional acelerada suponen un desafío de envergadura para los responsables políticos y los profesionales de la salud pública 12,38,39 . La complejidad y la velocidad de los patrones de cambio aumentan la dificultad de adecuación de las intervenciones en materia nutricional.…”