Kurt A. Rosentrater, Laetitia Palmade, and Elif Kongar's editorial about food and environmental, economic, and social sustainability

Kongar, Elif

Palmade, Laetitia

Rosentrater, Kurt A.

UB ScholarWorks

EDITORIALpublished: 01 October 2019doi: 10.3389/fnut.2019.00158Frontiers in Nutrition | www.frontiersin.org 1 October 2019 | Volume 6 | Article 158Edited by:Kathleen L. Hefferon,Cornell University, United StatesReviewed by:Aida Turrini,Council for Agricultural andEconomics Research, ItalyPenelope Anne Field,Independent Researcher, Dunedin,New Zealand*Correspondence:Kurt A. RosentraterKarosent@iastate.eduSpecialty section:This article was submitted toNutrition and Sustainable Diets,a section of the journalFrontiers in NutritionReceived: 22 May 2019Accepted: 19 September 2019Published: 01 October 2019Citation:Rosentrater KA, Palmade L andKongar E (2019) Editorial: Nutrition atthe Crossroads: Food at theIntersection of Environmental,Economic, and Social Sustainability.Front. Nutr. 6:158.doi: 10.3389/fnut.2019.00158Editorial: Nutrition at the Crossroads:Food at the Intersection ofEnvironmental, Economic, and SocialSustainabilityKurt A. Rosentrater 1*, Laetitia Palmade 2 and Elif Kongar 31Departments of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, and Food Science and Human Nutrition, Iowa State University,Ames, IA, United States, 2Département Génie Biologique et Agroalimentaire, Polytech Montpellier, Université de Montpellier,Montpellier, France, 3Departments of Technology Management and Mechanical Engineering, University of Bridgeport,Bridgeport, CT, United StatesKeywords: food, sustainability, environment, water, energyEditorial on the Research TopicNutrition at the Crossroads: Food at the Intersection of Environmental, Economic, andSocial SustainabilitySocieties around the world are at a critical juncture. As the planetary population grows, thereare increasing demands for expanding available food, more nutritious and healthy foods, andcontemporaneously the need for greater efficiencies and decreased impacts upon the environment.The sustainability of food production systems is a complex issue that requires a global andmultidisciplinary approach, combining not only agronomy, ecology, nutrition, epidemiology,processing, energy use, but also marketing and sociology. It is within this context that this specialissue aims to illustrate, through review articles, case studies, as well as modeling and simulationstudies, some means of understanding the integration of food, in a broad sense, within ourenvironment and society.For example, currently consumption of meat products is being challenged both environmentallyand nutritionally, and the transition to alternative protein sources is being encouraged. However, abetter understanding of the links between livestock breeding, feeding, environmental impacts, andthe nutritional quality of meat and dairy products produced could improve the sustainability ofthese food choices. On the other hand, consumer demand for a healthier and more sustainable diet,which may lead to the consumption of new products, such as insects, requires the implementationof specific dissemination strategies and government programs, integrating marketing, economic,and psychological aspects. Technological challenges are also addressed in this special issue, withan overview of various strategies adopted by many food companies to reduce energy and waterconsumption. Among them, the use of new non-thermal technologies is a promising way toimprove the sustainability of food processing by reducing environmental impacts. In addition,key issues concerning the development of packaging with reduced ecological footprints are alsopresented. A focus is also placed on the importance for companies to integrate environmental andsocial sustainability markers into industrial performance indicators.Although not exhaustive, we have attempted to cover multiple facets of food systems inthis Research Topic. For example, several articles focus on food processing factories andoperations; others focus on ingredients and food choices; while others discuss business operations.Some have as a primary focus empirical data, others utilize survey information, while otherspursue simulation and modeling. Nikmaram and Rosentrater provide an overview of recentRosentrater et al. Nutrition at the Crossroadstechnologies and advances in energy and water efficienciesin food processing factories. Picart-Palmade et al. provide adeep discussion about various non-thermal technologies, andhow these are improving the efficiencies of food processingoperations. Guillard et al. discuss advances in packagingmaterials and how these are improving the sustainability of foodsystems, especially within the context of circular economies.Dohmen and Raman focus on human diets, education, prices,and food choices. Provenza et al. explore which type of beefand dairy production are more sustainable—pasture or feedlot-raised—as method of raising/feeding will impact environmentalimpacts. Berger et al. investigate insects as a source ofproteins, and whether they can live up to their promise asa sustainable food source for humans. Finally, Duman et al.model the integration of environmental and social metricsusing a Balanced Scorecard approach for food productionbusiness operations.This issue is especially timely since, in an era of big dataand predictive analysis, managerial reliance on modeling andsimulation have never been greater. Today, the wide availabilityof data collection, storage, and dissemination tools have fosteredefforts to create more intelligent, better informed, and data-driven decision making platforms. Collectively these can providea means for internal and external optimization of businessoperations, and can ultimately improve the environmental andsocietal impacts of products and processes. Simulation modelsand analysis tools also allow tracking and recording of real-timedata that can be inputted into performance evaluation systems.In integrated systems these types of models and analyses not onlyprovide a better understanding of the issues, but also make itpossible for internal and external criteria, and their interrelations,to be assessed in the analysis. Thus, resource utilization, riskidentification, forecasting, and performance evaluation can bedynamically quantified.Indeed, assessing and improving the global food system ishighly complex, even when considered from a regional viewpointor an industry-specific standpoint. This Research Topic coverssome facets of the food industry, but not all. For the interestedreader, many other references are also available. A few of theseinclude Burlingame andDernini (1), SUSFANS (2), Tuomisto (3),and Willett et al. (4).Additional resources can be found in other Research Topicsthat have been published in Frontiers in Sustainable FoodSystems, including livestock nutrition, soil carbon, modelingagro-ecosystems, urban agriculture, food waste, and many more.These can be found at https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems#research-topics.We would like to thank all of the contributing authors tothis Research Topic. It is encouraging to see such innovativework. We hope that you, the reader, also find this ResearchTopic interesting and useful. And hopefully this helps to spurthe conversation about food, systems, and steps that can betaken to improve environmental and social sustainability as theindustry tries to achieve the goals of an abundant, nutritious, safe,and environmentally-friendly food supply.AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONSAll authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectualcontribution to the work, and approved it for publication.REFERENCES1. Burlingame B, Dernini S. Sustainable Diets - Linking Nutrition and FoodSystems. CAB International (2018). Available online at: https://www.cabi.org/bookshop/book/9781786392848 (accessed August 26, 2019).2. SUSFANS. Metrics, Models and Foresight for European Sustainable Foodand Nutrition Security. Food Systems for Health – Environment – Equityand Enterprise (2019). Available online at: https://www.susfans.eu/portfolio(accessed August 26, 2019).3. Tuomisto HL. The complexity of sustainable diets. Nat Ecol Evol. (2019)3:720–1. doi: 10.1038/s41559-019-0875-54. Willett W, Rockstrom J, Loken B, Springmann M, Lang T,Vermeulen S, et al. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable foodsystems. Lancet. (2019) 393:447–92. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that the research was conducted in theabsence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as apotential conflict of interest.Copyright © 2019 Rosentrater, Palmade and Kongar. This is an open-access articledistributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided theoriginal author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the originalpublication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice.No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with theseterms.Frontiers in Nutrition | www.frontiersin.org 2 October 2019 | Volume 6 | Article 158

Editorial: Nutrition at the Crossroads: Food at the Intersection of Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability

https://scholarworks.bridgeport.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/4291/fnut-06-00158.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Editorial: Nutrition at the Crossroads: Food at the Intersection of Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

UB ScholarWorks