Hi, my name is Becky Ramsing and I work at the Center for a Livable Future in the food communities in public health program. I'm delighted to be with you today as we talk about strategies for sustainable diets. Over the next four sections I hope to build a framework for a sustainable, healthy diets in the US and globally. And then follow with guidance on how to communicate and influence behavior and policy change around food consumption. I will be speaking primarily from a practitioner role given my long career as a registered dietitian and health educator. As you've heard from previous modules achieving a sustainable diet is complex and requires balancing climate, water and other environmental factors with health and resilience. I want to point you to two diagrams that help us understand what is sustainable diet encompasses. On the left, looking like the petals of a flower, we see that it's not just a matter of producing and eating the right foods. There are many systems to take into account, the environment, food and nutrient needs, equity and justice, local economy, culture and finally health. On the right is a simpler diagram of an ideal food system that categorizes the system into health, planet and community or people. Achieving one, does not guarantee the other. Currently in the US, our food system is overloaded with foods that increase the risk of obesity and chronic disease, among other health problems. And we've seen the consequences of this from COVID-19, where people who have diabetes, obesity and other chronic diseases are more vulnerable to severe illness. This photo by the Good Food Purchasing Program depicts the components of the food system on a food tray to exemplify that it's all that's involved in getting food to the plate. When we take all these factors into account, we can make better decisions and find mutually beneficial solutions. In terms of environmental sustainability, the concept of planetary boundaries is a useful approach. When boundaries are crossed, it negatively effects other systems. The data shows that our food system is currently on a crash course. We're in the danger zone for the areas of biodiversity, nitrogen flows, fresh water and land which is related to destruction of forests. This visualization from the FAO demonstrates the influence that our food and agriculture system has on these different boundaries. As you see, livestock is responsible for over 90% of biodiversity loss. Agriculture as a whole is responsible for 70% of freshwater use, 78% of water pollution, and 50% of land use. In a recent paper, researchers at the University of Chicago in Potsdam University for climate impact research calculated that almost half of current global food production depends on planetary boundary transgressions. If these boundaries were strictly respected instead, the present food system could only provide a balanced diet for 3.4 million people. The authors then demonstrated that transformation towards sustainable production and consumption patterns could actually support 10.2 billion people within the planetary boundaries. The key prerequisites are spatially redistributed cropland, improved water, and nutrient management, food waste reduction and dietary changes. But it will require a social and ecological U-turn that requires adopting radically different ways of farming and of eating. Looking only at land use, here's another visualization of agriculture's impact on land. 50% of habitable land is used for agriculture. 77% of which is for livestock, which only supplies 10% of the world's calories and 30% of global protein supply. As demand for meat and dairy grows, most forest will have to be destroyed for food production, resulting in negative impacts across the systems and planetary boundaries. As you've seen from earlier presentations, meat particular ruminant meat, has a disproportionately large greenhouse gas footprint due to methane production. But also land use change mostly for animal feed. The EAT-Lancet paper in 2019 compared our current diets to what it would take to keep consumption within planetary limits globally. Three major food groups are driving the boundaries for public health, but also for planetary health, beef, starchy foods, and eggs. More importantly, we are under consuming important food groups such as nuts, legumes, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. So let's talk about a sustainable diet. We're going to talk about what it is and how we can help people achieve it. You've heard a lot about meat in the previous modules, so I won't spend much time on meat right now, particularly the need to reduce ruminant meat. This slide emphasizes the importance of reduction of higher meat-eating countries such as ours. Moving for red meat to seafood, the picture becomes a bit more complicated. The US dietary guidelines calls for increasing consumption of seafood because it is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, it is. Also, an important source of protein globally. However, they increased demand for seafood has put a strain on supply. And like trust you'll animals has led to fishing in production methods that have environmental and health consequences. For example, farm seafood can be highly sustainable, but some forms of aquaculture can lead to public health risk. Due to the use of chemicals and antibiotics, bioaccumulation of contaminants through feed made from it, fish meal, diseases and pollution from farmed animals. Reducing wild populations of threatening food security for local communities. And increasing pressure on limited probably lenient resources to produce crop based feed for an expanding industry. Scientists also see more health risk from seafood due to climate change. Warmer oceans, create algae blooms, and some algae blooms contain vital plankton that can produce toxins that are taken up by shellfish during filter feeding. And can work its way up the food chain into crabs and other animals and ultimately onto our dinner plate. Given the known health clinics, consequences of eating too much red and processed meat just eating less as a simpler solution than when we come to dairy. Dairy intake is associated with health benefits, especially for growth in children, but also possibly for severe heart disease in all cause mortality. But dairy has a significant environmental footprint and dairy alternatives are mix on both sides of the equation. Recommendations for dairy must incorporate these nuances. This slide demonstrates the dairy has a lower environmental impact than beef, but it is not more efficient to produce than poultry, pork or eggs. One nuance might be the type of dairy consume dairy products that require large quantities of milk. Such as butter, Greek yogurt and hard cheeses have greater environmental impacts than liquid milk alone. Dietary diversity or dietary species richness is a measure of food biodiversity in nutritional quality of Diets. In terms of biodiversity species richness has declined dramatically in the past 100 years or so. Today, only 12 plants provide 75% of the World Food, just rice, maize and wheat contribute to 60% of plant calories. A study in seven countries found in association of the nutritional quality with the number of plant species people ate. This is consistent with the recent Sophie report demonstrating the healthy diets were the most diverse diets. They had greater variety of unprocessed or minimally processed foods across food groups while restricting highly processed foods and drink products. In this slide image, as a measure of nutritional quality mean, the mean adequacy ratio or MAR. Was calculated as the arithmetic mean of the quantity of nutrient consume per its requirement for each individual on the daily basis. Food processing and production are aspects of our food system that also have an impact on our health and our environment. Processing and transportation influence both health and sustainability. The farther that food moves away from its original source, typically, the greater the impact. Nutrients are lost or changed along the chain or in some places never fully developed. As women produces, harvested before, it's fully ripened so that it will withstand transportation and storage. Resources are used for processing and packaging particular plastics and chemical preservatives such as BPA. And many processed foods have added sugars and refined flowers or and oils, of which high consumption is associated with overweight and chronic disease. After running through a myriad of issues to keep in mind for sustainable diets. I'll spend the remaining time attempting to summarize more practically what a sustainable diet looks like. Here are a few more guiding principles that can be developed into recommendations. I'll talk a little more about some of these and then we'll come back to this slide at the end. The US has a long way to go to get to a minimally healthy diet for the dietary guidelines alone. Americans are consuming more meat in refined greens than recommended an are not meeting requirements for fruits, vegetables and dairy. While the poultry consumption has increased, the majority of meat consumed is still red. Meat, beef, pork and Lamb, and nearly quarter is processed. Reducing the consumption of animal products, particularly red and processed meats, is perhaps the first and most impactful step. Especially in high income countries such as the US. The best available estimates of US meat consumption is nearly six ounces of total meat a day. With red meat and processed meat making up the bulk of that which exceeds the general recommendations. This pie chart from 2014 shows the type of protein foods Americans are consuming. As you can see, nearly 3/4 of foods are made up by Pete Beef, Pork and chicken. Less than 1/4 is from plant sources. Along with less meat, it is worth. About better meat. Well, the impact on climate is not significantly different. There are many other health, environmental consequences to the way animals are raised for food. Choosing meat raised without antibiotics is a first step. So what about local? In terms of climate, the benefits are small in comparison to changing production and consumption patterns. However, there are other benefits of local purchasing to consider. Such as general use of more sustainable practices on small farms. More variety and lower use of harmful chemicals. The main message and perhaps the one that could make the most impact overall, is simply focusing more on plants. They answered a lot of our issues from environment to health to affordability. While eating less meat is critical, the health benefits are only realized when more legumes, whole grains, vegetables and fruits are consumed instead. Legumes in particularly, offer huge value in terms of both nutrition, and environment. We're eating more in the US, but still minuscule compared to other proteins. Pulses are a subgroup of legumes used mainly as protein sources in the diet. Common pulses include beans, dried peas, chickpeas and lentils. Pulses are high in protein, fiber and many vitamins. They're generally hardy crops and grow easily. They're associated with healthy overall diets, lower BMIs and lower risk of diabetes and other chronic diseases as seen on the previous slides. There are missed perspectives on soy, in terms of health, soy has positive effects. Soy production uses less water and resources. And over 70% of soybeans grown in the US actually are used for animal feed. Only about 6% ends up as food for humans. So soy intake by humans is not driving the production issues. Nuts are nutrition powerhouses. They do tend to require more water sometimes and possibly chemicals to produce. But there are other factors to keep in mind. Tree nuts for example, may use mostly rain water and yield a lot more than other trees. Peanuts are actually legumes, not nuts, and they're grown in the soil. They have similar footprint as other legumes and also fix nitrogen into the soil. With all the health benefits, the emphasis on vegetables especially cannot be missed. Root vegetables, especially use less water to grow and colorful vegetables are important sources of health protective phytochemicals. Grains are often overlooked when talking about plant based protein in foods. Corn, soy and wheat are the most grown, but there are many other used globally and being sold in the US. Such as teff, farrow, quinoa, brown rice and oats. Whole grains in particular offer beneficial fiber and vitamins as well as some protein. In fact, just choosing whole grains over refined products uses wheat more efficiently, thus making it a more sustainable choice. To sum it up, here a few guiding principles again, that can be developed into recommendations for sustainable diets in the US. It's not exhaustive, but it can help us develop some communications and communicate these principles in our work and our life. So, I'll read them through briefly. One, is just replacing animal proteins with vegetable proteins for a few meals a week. Emphasizing smaller portions of better meet when we have it. Choosing sustainable seafood. Emphasizing sustainably produced food such as organic or sustainable farming practices. Purchasing produce in season and choosing a variety of produce. Consuming dairy in moderate amounts. Choosing whole grains always or often. Using less processed and less packaging in the foods we purchase. Using whole foods most often and focusing on diversity and variety. And we will catch you in the next section as we talk about global diets and sustainability.
