Snippets

Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020 – 2025 published Posted in: Animal Food Sources, Diet, Health, Nutrition, Vegetable Food Sources Read the guidelines The USDA has released their latest dietary guidelines document, with a new emphasis on the importance of considering different life stages when designing guidelines. A new set of dietary guidelines are designed for the US population every five years, based on the recommendations of a scientific advisory committee who review the latest… read more...
WWF encourage planet-based diet Posted in: Diet, Food Systems, Health, Nutrition, Production, Sustainability, Vegetable Food Sources Read the report The WWF report Bending the Curve: The Restorative Power of Planet-Based Diets joins other efforts to demonstrate the negative health and environmental consequences of our current way of producing and consuming food, while proposing ways to turn this around. The report opens with the assertion that our food system must provide healthy,… read more...
FAO Statistical Yearbook 2020 shows big changes Posted in: Animal Food Sources, Food Systems, Livestock, Production, Vegetable Food Sources Visit the yearbook The latest global statistics from FAO show large increases in both crop and animal-sourced food production, but also reductions in cropland and agricultural employment. Since 2000, there has been a drop of just over 1 billion people from the agriculture workforce, going from 40% of global employment to just 27% in recent… read more...
Trends in undernourishment show promise Posted in: Affordability, Diet, Food Systems, Health, Mortality, Nutrition Read the article A study of undernourishment in 76 countries found positive results, but not all global regions are progressing at the same rate. Although overnutrition continues to grow globally, undernutrition rates are decreasing. Undernutrition currently affects more than 800 million people, either as protein-energy malnutrition or micronutrient deficiencies. The researchers used data from 1991-2013 from the FAO and the World Bank to analyse both undernutrition and related factors. The… read more...
Peas please Posted in: Diet, Health, Nutrition, Production, Sustainability, Vegetable Food Sources, Waste Read the article Food Foundation in the UK are gaining traction with their ‘Peas Please: Making a pledge for more veg’ initiative, the results of which were recently described in Nutrition Bulletin. Despite a historically growing UK market for fruit, which has increased by around 50% since 1970, vegetable purchasing was seen to slowly decline over the same period. The common perceptions of vegetables as boring or not… read more...
Comparing apples with potatoes: the Vego-guide Posted in: Energy Consumption, Food Systems, Production, Sustainability, Vegetable Food Sources Read the article Researchers in Sweden have designed a tool for comparing the environmental impacts of different plant foods. The tool is designed for interested consumers who want to know more about the environmental implications of these foods in their diets. Using life-cycle analysis data for 90 plant foods, the Vego-guide considers the climate, biodiversity, water use and pesticide use… read more...
Calcium comparisons between dairy, soy and almond beverages Posted in: Animal Food Sources, Diet, Health, Nutrition, Vegetable Food Sources Read the article Research in the journal Current Developments in Nutrition has found that almond beverages were inferior to both milk and a calcium-fortified soy drink for bone health. The New Zealand researchers fed rats diets supplemented with either milk, or a soy-based or an almond-based drink. They analysed the amount of the liquid and feed consumed, as well as indicators of bone health and body composition. Fortified with calcium,… read more...
SNI in spotlight at Primary Industries NZ summit Posted in: Animal Food Sources, Cost, Diet, Food Systems, Nutrition, Production, Sustainability, Vegetable Food Sources Representatives from industry, policy and research came together last week to attend presentations on trade, sustainability, consumer science and future trends for the primary sector in New Zealand at the Primary Industries Summit in Wellington. The summit, organised by Federated Farmers of New Zealand, was held at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa… read more...
World Wildlife Fund release planet-based diets model Posted in: Food Systems, Sustainability Visit the site On a country and diet basis, you can use the WWF model to set the amount of different food groups in a diet and see the caloric, mortality and environmental impacts of the new diet if adopted by the entire country. The model takes previously published figures as its basis for the mortality and environmental impacts, and national dietary guidelines to give recommended… read more...
65 kg of food waste per person per year Posted in: Nutrition, Waste Read the article Research investigating nutrient losses via food waste give an intuitive understanding of the implications of food waste. Food waste across 151 countries was assessed, using indicators for nutrient loss across 25 different nutrients. Globally, it was found that 65 kg of food was wasted per person per year, which when compared to nutrient requirements is the equivalent… read more...