...if demand can be moderated, then an alternative scenario may be preferred. Here cereal crops are grown only for human consumption and farm animals are confined to grazing on pasture or consuming byproducts. This „livestock for resource efficiency‟ scenario could yield genuine ecosystem benefits but the amount of meat and dairy products available for consumption will be low....the more of an animal one is prepared to eat, the fewer animals are needed for a given quantity of meat. Such meat will include both cuts and organs that are low in fat – liver, kidneys, lean muscle – as well as fattier parts that are processed with added salt to improve palatability – sausages, mince, burgers and nuggets. This suggests a potential trade off between resource efficiency and nutritional quality.
While simple answers are not possible, what is clear is that an environmentally sustainable level of meat production will be substantially lower than the norm for high income consumers today.
One thing is clear: the food system today is unsustainable, whether defined in narrow environmental terms or more broadly to include socio-economic dimensions.
Something needs to be done, as most people acknowledge. There is growing recognition that a shift towards „sustainable diets‟ is one important approach – although this recognition is by no means widespread. At this stage however, definitions are multiple and there is no unanimous agreement of just what such a diet might look like on a plate, as it were.
Such a diet may compromise on certain nutritional ideals but it certainly represents a significant improvement on the quality of the average British diet today. However not everyone likes compromises. Disagreements are likely to continue as to whether nutritional guidance should prioritise societal over individual objectives; the needs of people today and in this country, over generations tomorrow and in other countries; the legitimacy of measures such as GM and fortification strategies in compensating for deficits; and the relative importance assigned to non-nutritional determinants of health. Critically, there will be strong disagreement as to whether people can actually be persuaded to eat like this, and if persuasion is not possible, what level of coercion (through prices, regulations and so forth) might be legitimate or effective.
Moving beyond a narrow environmental focus, we know far less about the complex relationship between nutritional objectives, environmental sustainability and our other social and economic goals. This is partly because most of the work on sustainable diets has been driven by the environmental agenda – understandably so, in view of the massive environmental problems we face. However it also reflects the fact that social and economic objectives are extremely hard to agree upon. For example: food should be affordable, but does that mean that cheap food is good? Is small scale or large scale production to be preferred? Is equality an end in itself or can its pursuit stifle innovation? There may well be synergies between nutritional adequacy, environmental sustainability and certain economic goals, but there are also likely to be costs and deciding how they should balanced between the two depends on one‟s ideological position. What is more, some economic benefits are only likely to ensue if certain changes are made to the workings of the economy – and there will be disagreements as to how far that is possible.
Finally, this chapter has been as much about values as about „science.‟ While scientific knowledge – including in the fields of nutrition and the environment - may be important, the meaning people assign to its insights will be influenced by beliefs about what is right and wrong, about how the world works and how it ought to work. Any discussion of sustainability and which we should go, has to take into account, and explore, the values that stakeholders bring to the debate.
"Sustainable diets for the future: Can we contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by eating a healthy diet?" ARTICLE in AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL NUTRITION · AUGUST 2012
"A UK public health perspective: what is a healthy sustainable diet?" H. Riley and J. L. Buttriss
"Is a healthy diet an environmentallysustainable diet?" ARTICLE in PROCEEDINGS OF THE NUTRITION SOCIETY · NOVEMBER 2012
