Nordic Nutrition Recommendations take the lead towards food production sustainability
With a revision of the Nordic Nutrition Guidelines, due in June 2023, precedence is set to include measures for sustainable food production. Even though more countries are likely to follow suit, it may not be enough to bring our food systems into line with the planet´s limits.
The Nordic Nutrition Recommendations is a long-lasting collaboration between the five Nordic countries, also involving the three Baltic states, commissioned by the Nordic Council of Ministers. The work to scan, assimilate and synthesize knowledge on health, diets, and sustainable food production has been going on since 2018 and involves more than 300 scientists worldwide. The revised guidelines will be used to update country-specific National Dietary Guidelines (NDGs) for each country.
- We are systematically researching all available science-based literature. There has been an enormous medical development in the knowledge and scientific work about the health effects of our food consumption over the past 10 years. Every day, about 150 articles are published globally. We are then producing 36 updates on the health effects of nutrients, and 17 updates about food groups. Through the process, groups of scientists prepare suggestions for each group, which are then peer-reviewed, before it is tested in an open, public consultation. Then, it is tested by an international committee, until the final conclusions are drawn by the central working group, explains Rune Blomhoff. He is a Professor at the Department of Clinical Nutrition at the University of Oslo and heads up the working group responsible for developing the recommendations.
- This is the main focus of our work. But, for the first time, we have been asked to include the sustainability of our food production in the report. No countries have done this previously and on the scale we´re looking at. This is a very exciting part of our work. But: The issue of sustainable food production is a moving target, which we are trying to incorporate in a way which keeps our advice relevant also in five to ten years, Blomhoff says.
More countries to follow suit
According to the Oslo-based EAT Foundation, if current trends continue, food consumption patterns in the G20 countries (the 20 largest economies in the world) would exceed the planetary limit for food-related GHG emissions by 263% by 2050. After the United Nation`s Food System Summit in 2021, 17 nations so far have joined what is called «The Coalition for Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems for All» – platform, working toward a transformation of our global food consumption—and hence also production. Among these are some European countries, such as Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland in addition to the European Union itself. According to the platform’s website, a sustainable food system includes «…diets that are health-promoting and disease-preventing; diets that are available, affordable, accessible, and appealing to all, diets that are produced and distributed using methods that ensure decent work and sustain the planet, soil, water, and biodiversity. The vision of the Coalition is to align, mobilize and support collective action towards the shared vision of a world where all people are eating healthy diets from sustainable food systems.»
The ongoing work done in the Nordic countries is in line with this vision, and it is therefore followed by other countries also in the process of updating their National Dietary Guidelines, including several of the G20 countries. Germany will update its NDG sometime in 2023. Says Anne Carolin Schäfer, a researcher with the German Nutrition Society: - The main differences between previous NDGs and the new update will be the new methodology we use, utilizing mathematical optimization to support the derivation of recommended food quantities as well as the inclusion of environmental aspects directly in the derivation process. Before, environmental aspects played a role only in our communication.
What is done in one country, is shared with another. - Our methodology and the scrutiny with which we have attacked the amount of new available research, has caused interest around the world. Countries like Canada, Japan, and the USA have asked us to share our methodology. But in the same manner, we carefully monitor what is happening elsewhere. These questions are so complex and they are beyond what individual nations can handle, Professor Blomhoff, head of the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations says.
Not enough to save the planet
- The world, to a degree, is making some progress towards a more sustainable food system, because of 1) a greater awareness that agriculture causes a lot of carbon emissions and 2) the soaring cost of energy and above all fertilizers is causing the supply chain to rethink some of its practices. The problem is that it is probably not going fast and broad enough and that there still does not seem to be a long-term plan to achieve targets and a detailed roadmap to getting there, Matthieu Favas comments. He is a renowned journalist with The Economist magazine and has worked extensively on issues of food and energy in Europe and beyond.
Will updated National Dietary Guidelines, including sustainability measures, do the trick then? Olav Kjørven, Senior Director of Strategy with the EAT Foundation and former Assistant Secretary General and Director of Development Policy at the United Nations Development Programme, agrees that it may not – but argues it nevertheless is a big and important step forward. The Oslo-based EAT Foundation launched the by now well-known EAT-Lancet Report in 2019, which was the first full scientific review of what constitutes a healthy diet from a sustainable food system. A second EAT-Lancet Commission is now at work, with an updated and expanded report due to be launched late in 2024.
- Obviously, the dietary guidelines can be a very powerful tool to drive the changes we need to healthier and more sustainable consumption patterns. It is a necessary step to update and reform the guidelines, because by and large they have lagged behind the nutrition science, and ignored the environmental science. However, it is a necessary but not sufficient step. The NDGs are often neither translated into the policy changes we need to see, nor into laws and regulations. If that were the case, we could see real shifts in consumption patterns. Many countries, also among the G20s, display huge discrepancies between what the guidelines say and the policies they actually have in place, such as their agricultural subsidies and fiscal policies. While the guidelines in almost every country call for increased consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, etc, the actual policies that can influence such changes in consumption make it harder and more expensive to do so, for example by subsidizing staple crops and feed for livestock and failing to tax foods saturated with sugar, fats, and salt. Still, these things can change, and a lot can be done once good, updated guidelines are in place, Kjørven says.
As an example of the latter, the NDGs may be of great importance in teaching our next generations about healthy eating as well as sustainable food production. Even our workplaces, as many increasingly eat a hot meal at work, could be a powerful tool in shaping our habits if the procurement of food at work were to be based on the coming type of NDGs. Relating to investment and regulating the marketing of food, Kjørven also asks for legislation in line with the new standard of NDGs so that we make it harder to make a ton of money on aggressive marketing of unhealthy and unsustainable food. On the opposite end, incentives will be needed for companies to market what is actually both good for us and for the planet.
Holistic approach needed from governments
- This is really about not treating food as a one-sector issue as before, which was mainly the agricultural sector. We need a whole-of-government approach to this, where these policy areas work together, and where especially the ministries of finance are deeply involved, Kjørven says. He hopes the G20 and other countries update their guidelines, as the Nordic countries and others are in the process of doing. - We would expect and hope that they base their guidelines on the best available science both in the health and nutritional area, but also on the climate/environmental area. Really, that they will be food-based as opposed to looking at the content nutrient by nutrient, which has been the predominant way to advise the populations of the world in the past. Most NDGs seem to go towards food-based recommendations; that the overall plate should include all relevant food groups, including both animal- and plant-based food types, but move decisively in the direction of being plant-rich. How far they will go remains to be seen, but at least we now see that there is a very robust global scientific understanding of what healthy and sustainable eating looks like. Nutrition science will never be completely settled, but that debate, except for some fringe voices, is about details. We see a very strong consensus that a healthy diet basically is a plant-rich diet, with a wide variety of crops contributing to that diet. It also includes a very important presence of animal-based proteins, but the biggest part of the plate is from plants. I think that´s very robustly grounded, Kjørven says.
Soil diversity is very important
The issue of soil health and biodiversity is a very important issue if we are to create a sustainable food system. In fact, it is probably more important than we have fully understood, or appreciated until relatively recently.
- We now know there is a direct correlation between degraded soil and human health, as poor soils produce fewer nutritional crops. The link between our gut microbiology and soil health is also becoming more evident. But another aspect of it is that if we restore soil health, we can also absorb massive amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere. There is no way we can reach the 1.5-degree future, without succeeding in building healthy soils, Kjørven says.
Using the situation in Norway as an example, Research Professor Trond Knapp Haraldsen, who works at the Division of Environment and Natural Resources with the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO), points out that as the government of Norway on the one hand pushes for better soil diversity and the use of organic inputs to the soil as a measure for preventing carbon loss. On the other hand, it makes it hard for farmers to do this because of strict rules on the use of the very same natural fertilizers, which cause the leaching of nitrogen and phosphorus into rivers and lakes leading to eutrophication. This shows some of the paradoxes in play, and the need for stronger collaboration between government bodies in order to make the food production more sustainable.
- It is quite clear that by turning more circular and re-using organic material, we add more microbiological life into the soil which will strengthen the soil quality. It is evident that there is a correlation between how much organic material is being circulated in the soil, and what soil fauna is present. The most barren production is the one-sided production of grain or carrots. By growing the latter, again and again, carrots with their roots are pulled out, and nothing is returned. Adding compost material in the carrot production will compensate for what is being taken out of the ground, Haraldsen says.
Ove Bergersen, also with NIBIO as a Senior Research Scientist, agrees: Not enough compost is being produced on farms in the western world. Using many of the huge farms in the US as an example, the soil here is composed mostly of sand and dirt, with little nutritional content. Instead, artificial fertilizer is poured into the soil, making a harvest possible. But this is not sustainable, partly because of the high carbon footprint of artificial fertilizer, in addition to the lower content of nutrition.
Their conclusion is, however: Change in the way agriculture is done, is extremely slow. Sobering as this may be – may it hopefully mobilize to increased action towards a really sustainable food system. With this challenge, as with others, we seem to run out of time.
