Conference on 'Future food and health' Symposium I: Sustainability and food security

The concept of a healthy and environmentally sustainable diet is not new, but with increasingconcern about future global food security and climate change there is a renewed interest in thistopic. Dietary intakes in UK accounts for approximately 20–30% of total annual greenhousegas emissions (GHGE), with the greatest contributions coming from high intakes of meat anddairy products. Dietary proposals to help mitigate climate change (i.e. reduce GHGE) havefocused on reducing consumption of meat and dairy products, but this must be considered inthe context of the whole diet, alongside any possible nutritional consequences for health.Bringing together health and environmental impact of the diet raises the question of whether ahealthy diet can also be an environmentally sustainable diet. While recent research showed thatit is possible to achieve a realistic diet that meets dietary requirement for health and has lowerGHGE, it cannot be assumed that a healthy diet will always have lower GHGE. With differentcombinations of food it is possible to consume a diet that meets dietary requirements for health,but has high GHGE. It is important to understand what constitutes a sustainable diet, but thisthen needs to be communicated effectively to try and change well-established dietary intakes ofthe population. Studies show that understanding of sustainable diets is poor and there are manymisconceptions (e.g. the overestimation of the protein requirements for a healthy diet), whichcould contribute to the barriers towards changing dietary intakes.Dietary requirements: Health: Greenhouse gas emissions: Sustainable diets