On our plate today: Healthy and sustainable food choices

The world’s food system is riddled with problems and contradictions. Millions of people in poor countries are still hungry; yet millions in rich countries are suffering from obesity. Meanwhile, the use of land and water for agriculture is eroding the environment, and food consumption is responsible for 31% of EU greenhouse gas emissions.

“Our western diets cannot be made universal,” said Olivier de Schutter, a law professor who was UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food until this year. “I think we need a food policy. We need realistic strategies that bring all this together.”

The LiveWell project for Low Impact Food in Europe (LIFE) project is grappling with these difficulties. It aims to show that a diet that reduces greenhouse gases can also be healthy, nutritious and affordable. It does this by, for example, suggesting diets adapted for three pilot countries – France, Spain and Sweden. Livewell also brings together business, policy makers and civil society, aiming to generate maximum support for sustainable diets.

“You don’t have to be vegetarian,” said Duncan Williamson, Food Policy Manager at WWF UK at the LiveWell final conference, organised by Friends of Europe and WWF. “You just need to moderate meat consumption. Livewell for LIFE was about raising awareness. Now it is about actions.”

Some 800 mln people in the world are suffering from hunger, many of whom need more protein in their diet, said Jean-Pierre Halkin, Head of Unit for Rural Development, Food Security and Nutrition at the European commission Directorate General for Development and Cooperation. “This is one of the most extreme forms of inequity.”

However, the world’s current meat production system has been sharply criticised for its waste and environmental impact. For example, grasslands in the southern hemisphere have been converted for crop-growing to feed animals for meat production in richer countries. As a whole, humans’ ecological footprint – the burden they are placing on the earth’s ecosystem – is 1.5 planets. Tony Long, Director at the WWF European Policy Office, said that Europeans are more wasteful than the average, living on the equivalent of 2.6 planets. “That means we are living at someone else’s expense.”

Overconsumption is now weighing on healthcare systems. Europeans consume in 95 kg of meat a year on average, and 7% of EU healthcare costs are related to obesity or overweight, said de Schutter. He said we should reduce meat consumption to 20 kg a year.

But that is hard while the food processing industry provides cheap, convenient food for an increasingly busy population. “People have less time to cook or prepare healthier alternatives,” he said. “So they buy convenience foods instead.”

A report produced by LiveWell presents a toolbox of policy options to encourage better diets. It identifies three specific actions for the short term: strengthening public procurement, integrating healthy and sustainable dietary guidelines and improving food education.

Public health education can help encourage healthier, more sustainable diets. The French government has for some years been delivering messages on the desirable intake of things like vegetables and dairy products.

However, these guidelines are only followed by a minority of the population, said Agnès Martin, Science and Nutrition Director for Dairy R&D at Danone Nutricia Research. “Policy messages are not enough,” she said. “Changing food choice behaviour is difficult.”

This conference was organised as part of the LiveWell for Low Impact Food in Europe (LIFE) project, which is funded with the contribution of the EU’s LIFE+ Programme for the Environment.