Eating to protect our health & our planet: abstracts

Introduction by the Chairs

The food system is a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions and water and land use. One of the most pressing issues facing society today is the need to balance diets that are both healthy and sustainable. Sustainable diets are defined as “dietary patterns that promote all dimensions of individuals’ health and wellbeing, have low environmental pressure and impact, are accessible, affordable, safe and equitable, and are culturally acceptable”*.

The overall goal of the 8th summit of the Yogurt in Nutrition Initiative (YINI) is to highlight the need to transform our food systems to ensure a sustainable future for ourselves and the planet. The first speaker, Janet Ranganathan, will set the stage by describing the challenges of balancing the needs of a growing global population and the demand for additional food, particularly animal products, while limiting greenhouse gas emissions. She will also describe solutions proposed by the World Research Institute. The second speaker, Pieter van’t Veer will describe two approaches, Food based Otpimeal model and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), for modeling diets that are healthy, sustainable and fit within a prevailing food culture. The final speaker, Jess Haines will use the recommendations for action from the FAO/WHO “Sustainable healthy diets – Guiding principles” report as a framework to provide policy- and consumer-level strategies that are needed to support sustainable healthy eating as well as the key opportunities and challenges to achieving sustainable healthy eating in practice. A short Q&A and panel discussion will follow the three presentations.

Sharon Donovan & Olivier Goulet

Download the book of abstracts of the event (pdf)

*FAO and WHO. 2019. Sustainable healthy diets – Guiding principles. Rome