Challenges and opportunities when moving food production and consumption toward sustainable diets in the Nordics: a scoping review for Nordic Nutrition Recommendations 2023

We describe how food production, processing, and consumption contribute to these and other environmental challenges, and what kinds of dietary changes/transitions consistent with these goals are required. A major challenge is the high production and consumption of meat and too low consumption of fish, vegetables, and fruits. Meat production is a major source of emissions and, together with farmed fish, heavily dependent on imported feed ingredients, leaving a large land-use and water footprint in exporting countries while domestic land resources are not used optimally. Dietary patterns have changed drastically over the past 50 years, and in large parts of the population, meat consumption has doubled since the 1970s, rendering historic food culture less useful as a basis for present-day recommendations. The Nordics have Europe's lowest use of antibiotics in animal and fish production and have made some progress in reducing food waste along the food chain. A major opportunity is better alignment of food production and consumption based on local or regional production potentials, in conjunction with better and more constructive integration with the global food system while integrating novel technologies to reduce emissions and resource use.PMID:38716354 | PMC:PMC11075468 | DOI:10.29219/fnr.v68.10489

Source: Food and Nutrition Research - May 8, 2024 Category: Nutrition Authors: Helle Margrete Meltzer Hanna Eneroth Maijaliisa Erkkola Ellen Trolle Peter Fantke Juha Helenius J ørgen Eivind Olesen Merja Saarinen Amund Maage Trond Arild Ydersbond Source Type: research