Food for thought: The underutilized potential of tropical tree-sources foods for 21st century sustainable food systems

1. The global food system is causing large-scale environmental degradation and is a major contributor to climate change. Its low diversity and failure to produce enough fruits and vegetables is contributing to a global health crisis. 2. The extraordinary diversity of tropical tree species is increasingly recognized to be vital to planetary health and especially important for supporting climate change mitigation. However, they are poorly integrated into food systems. Tropical tree diversity offers the potential for sustainable production of many foods, providing livelihood benefits and multiple ecosystem services including improved human nutrition. 3. First, we present an overview of these environmental, nutritional and livelihood benefits and show that tree-sourced foods provide important contributions to critical fruit and micronutrient (vitamin A and C) intake in rural populations based on data from sites in seven countries. 4. Then, we discuss several risks and limitations that must be taken into account when scaling-up tropical tree-based food production, including the importance of production system diversity and risks associated with supply to the global markets. 5. We conclude by discussing several interventions addressing technical, financial, political and consumer behaviour barriers, with potential to increase the consumption and production of tropical tree-sourced foods, to catalyse a transition towards more sustainable global food systems

A cross-disciplinary mixed-method approach to understand how food retail environment transformations influence food choice and intake among the urban poor: experiences from Vietnam

Nutrition insecurity among urban poor in modernizing Asian metropolises is a critical issue. It is well recognized that in urban Asia the poor are food insecure. Across Asia the food retail environment is transforming rapidly, in which supermarkets increasingly replace traditional food vending, like markets and street vendors that the urban poor depend upon. The question is, how these transformations impact the diets of the urban poor? What drives their food choice? What are their daily shopping practices and how does that affect their dietary intake? To investigate this, we developed across-disciplinary nutrition and social practices study with a sequential quantitative-qualitative mixed-method design

Food safety and nutrition for low-income urbanites: exploring a social justice dilemma in consumption policy

Equitable access to healthy food is a critical challenge in urban Asia. Food safety governance promotes modern supermarkets over more traditional markets, but supermarkets are associated with unequal access to food. This study investigates how retail policies driven by food safety impact the diets of the urban poor in Hanoi, Vietnam. We do this by linking food retail infrastructures with the food shopping practices and measured dietary intake of 400 women. Our results reveal sub-optimal dietary diversity and reliance on foods sourced through traditional markets, which do not provide formal food safety guarantees. Modern channels supply formal food safety guarantees, but are mainly frequented for purchasing ultra-processed foods. The paper uncovers a conflicting duality governing food security and suggests that the public responsibility for ensuring access of the poor to nutritious and safe foods requires a more diverse retail policy approach

Global burden of zoonotic disease, pandemics, COVID-19 and sustainable diets

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) defines a sustainable food system (SFS) as one that “delivers food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for future generations are not compromised” (FAO, 2018, np). This definition supports the important role of food safety and zoonotic disease mitigation in sustainable food systems, given the wide-ranging livelihoods, social, health, and environmental impacts of foodborne disease. Improving food safety in a range of agricultural value chains can contribute to sustainable diets by making fresh, nutritious foods safer and more desirable to global consumers. Many pathogens that cause food spoilage can also be addressed by interventions to improve food safety, thus reducing food waste. Safer food production and marketing may also reduce the risk of disease emergence caused by zoonoses, such as coronavirus disease or highly pathogenic avian influenza. Increased support to the infrastructure of informal or “traditional” food markets, where most of the global poor buy and sell food, can better support both livelihoods and health, thus reducing poverty