Germany and Sweden Among Just a “Handful” of Countries Which Promote Sustainable Diets

20 May 2016 --- Germany and Sweden are among just a “handful” of countries which are promoting healthy diets which are also sustainable, claims a new report. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN) have compiled the “Plates, Pyramids, Planet” report. 

The report evaluates government-issued food guidelines, looking in particular at whether governments make links to environmental sustainability in addition to promoting good eating habits. 

The report found that just a "handful” of countries have food guidelines promoting diets and food systems that are not only healthy but sustainable.

Only Brazil, Germany, Sweden and Qatar had drawn connections to the threats posed by modern food production systems and the dietary patterns that drive them, as the report was written.

Two more countries – the Netherlands and the United Kingdom – have since taken steps to incorporate environmental considerations into their food guidelines. 

According to the compilers of the report, the low number of countries overall signals a real missed opportunity for many countries to promote diets and food systems that are not only healthy but sustainable.

The report highlights that poor dietary habits, rich in meat and foods that are high in sugar and fat and low in whole grains, fruits and vegetables have been closely linked to no communicable diseases – a leading cause of premature death, not only in high-income countries but also many parts of the developing world. 

These diets are typically not only unhealthy, but environmentally unsustainable, the report says.

“Growing numbers of people now understand that diets rich in whole-grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables – with reduced consumption of meat and smaller quantities of high-fat and high-sugar foods – are good for our bodies. There is also ample evidence showing that such diets have much lower environmental impacts than the unhealthy and unsustainable eating patterns that are increasingly prevalent today,” said lead author Carlos Gonzales-Fischer of FCRN. 

“So by eating well for our own personal health, we’re also doing right by the planet – in essence, it’s a win-win.”

“Between the new Sustainable Development Goals –the SDGs – and the Paris climate agreement, the international community is making a clear push to position sustainability at the heart of planning and decision making,” adds Anna Lartey, director of FAO’s Nutrition and Food Systems Division. 

“Specifically SDG 2 makes a clear link between the needs for healthy nutrition and sustainable agriculture – and it’s time that dietary guidelines reflect that relationship.”

The report highlighted that more than 80 governments – just over a third of all countries in the world – already issue advice to their citizens in the form of food based dietary guidelines, a number of that is growing and including low and middle income countries.

Despite these encouraging developments, however, most governments have yet to issue national dietary advice, and this lack is particularly apparent in low income countries – for example, only five countries in Africa have such guidelines.

And most existing guidelines still fail to consider the environmental impacts of dietary choices. 

The study emphasises that, to have a real effect on food consumption, dietary guidelines need to have clear links to food policies that are actually implemented – such as school and hospital meal standards and advertising and industry regulations.

“Dietary guidelines are an essential first step – they provide a vision, at national level, of how we could and should be eating. But often the connection with practical policies on the ground is absent, or unclear,” says co-author Tara Garnett.

The report’s overarching suggestion is that countries that already have dietary guidelines should begin to consider a process of incorporating sustainability into them. “Those countries that do not already have them are in a unique position to develop integrated guidelines from the outset,” Garnett added.