Moving Toward Healthful Sustainable Diets

[Guest guest]

Hi All, Moving Toward Healthful Sustainable Diets gets into organics,

optimum use of the world's resources etc.

Cheers, Al.

Alan Pater, Ph.D.; Faculty of Medicine; Memorial University; St. 's, NL

A1B 3V6 Canada; Tel. No.: (709) 777-6488; Fax No.: (709) 777-7010; email:

apater@...

Nutr Today 2003 Mar-Apr;38(2):57-59

Moving Toward Healthful Sustainable Diets.

Storper B.

Nutritionists have increasingly been focusing on the challenge of moving

consumers toward healthful diets and simultaneously helping them to make the

connection between healthy food and a healthy environment. Simply stated, to

foster food sustainability, consumers will need to choose minimally processed

and minimally packaged foods. In addition, when possible, they should buy

locally produced foods to support regional agriculture and local economies,

preserve farmland, and use less energy and other natural resources.

PMID: 12698055 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Barbara Storper, MS, RD, is the Director of FOODPLAY Productions, an Emmy

Award-winning nutrition media

organization that produces national touring school theater shows, video kits,

media campaigns, and resources to improve

children’s health. Ms Storper holds degrees in both journalism and nutrition

and has received the first Outstanding Young

Nutrition Educator in the Country Award and Media Partnership Award from the

Society for Nutrition Education.

Corresponding author: Barbara Storper, MS, RD, FOODPLAY Productions, 221

Pine St, Florence, MA 01062 (e-mail:

barbara@...).

Abstract

Nutritionists have increasingly been focusing on the challenge of moving

consumers

toward healthful diets and simultaneously helping them to make the connection

between

healthy food and a healthy environment. Simply stated, to foster food

sustainability,

consumers will need to choose minimally processed and minimally packaged

foods. In

addition, when possible, they should buy locally produced foods to support

regional

agriculture and local economies, preserve farmland, and use less energy and

other

natural resources.

Nutritionists have increasingly been focusing on the challenge of moving

consumers toward healthful diets and simultaneously

helping them to understand that what’s good for their health may well be good

for the health of the planet. Promoting food

sustainability and ecologic harmony as an essential function of the nutrition

professional was first proposed more than 20 years ago

by Dr Joan Gussow, Swartz Rose Professor Emeritus of Nutrition Education

at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Dr

Kate Clancy, Director of The Agriculture Policy Project at the Henry A.

Wallace Institute for Sustainable Agriculture. Today, their

message falls on receptive ears, as nutritionists better understand the

connection between agriculture, the environment, hunger,

health, and, ultimately, food security.

Drs Gussow and Clancy first introduced the term “food sustainability” to

the nutrition profession in an article published in 1986 by

the Journal of Nutrition Education entitled, “Dietary Guidelines for

Sustainability.”1 They explained how the US Dietary Guidelines,

the government’s model for promoting health, can also be used as the

framework by which nutritionists can promote sustainable diets.

The article still serves today as a seminal treatise, calling the profession

to promote a diet that is healthy for the individual, the rest of

the world, and the planet.

Dr Gussow is still on the forefront of this mission today, promoting the

sustainability advantages of “whole foods”—foods that are

minimally processed and packaged. Nutritionally, whole foods fit more easily

into a healthful diet than their processed and packaged

counterparts because they are naturally higher in fiber and lower in fat,

sodium, sugar, and additives. Globally, whole foods also

bypass the high energy costs of food processing. In general, more profit

stays with the farmer, helping farmers to make a livable

income, thus staving off the alarming decline of the small and family farm in

this country. Last, but far from least, Gussow claims that

whole foods taste better, give people more opportunity to prepare them the

way they like, and allow people to feel more connected to

the food’s origin.

What’s even better, she proclaims in her newest book, This Organic Life:

Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader2 (Figure 1) is for

people to eat locally produced food, and whenever possible, grow their own.

The important current issue, says Gussow, is learning

how to produce food for everyone in a way that’s sustainable, and we are not

doing that. What we are doing, she continues, is

overproducing food globally while destroying the environment and our capacity

for future food production. Supermarkets “trick” the

consumer by selling foods from around the world all year long so that

consumers on the East Coast expect summer produce in the

winter, such as strawberries in January. The economic and environmental costs

associated with these practices, however, are invisible

to most consumers.

Figure 1. Joan Gussow, author and leading

proponent of “thinking globally, acting locally,”

practices what she preaches in her own backyard

garden.

For Gussow, localization of the food supply remains the optimal approach

to foster sustainability. The need to relocalize our food

supply is urgent now, according to Gussow, because of the increasing harm

caused by agribusiness practices—their emphasis on

monocultures (ie, growing single crops over large areas) and their continued

dependence on pesticides. She claims that our present

agricultural system downplays the health and environmental hazards of

pesticides, which are being used today at a far greater rate

than when Carson’s 3Silent Spring first exposed their alarming

consequences.

Sustainability and Modern Farming Practices

Gussow uses the example of a potato to explain why current farming

practices are not sustainable. There are 5,000 known varieties

of the potato plant. Peruvian Indians in the Andes knew and used 3,000 of

them. Yet, today, only 6 are grown commercially in the

United States. Why? According to Gussow, it is to meet the demands of a

processing industry that requires uniformity. The fast-food

industry, in particular, prefers a single variety, the Russet, for its shape.

The Russet potato is long enough so that when made into

French Fries, the fries can extend beyond the edges of the cardboard

container, creating the visual appearance consumers expect. Yet,

she claims that limiting a nation’s reliance on a few varieties of a crop is

precisely what devastated Ireland’s economy in the 1840s,

when blight struck the two varieties of potatoes on which the entire nation

depended for its food supply.

She also argues that monoculture also depletes the soil, creating an

increased dependence on fertilizers and pesticides,

manufactured from nonrenewable fossil fuels. This overdependence on

pesticides, in turn, increases the health problems for growers

and consumers of pesticide-ridden produce here and abroad.

Returning to a more locally produced food supply will not only help the

environment but also, according to Gussow, make the

public more aware of the link between their food and the health and

environmental consequences of modern farming methods. Buying

locally not only supports small farms and helps to maintain local economies

but also helps neighbors stay in business and ultimately

promotes sustainable communities.

It is surprising, according to Gussow, that the United States ranks as one

of the leading food importers in the world! She believes

that emphasizing local agriculture here may also help poor people in other

countries who are steadily being pushed off their own lands

when large agribusiness firms establish production sites for luxury and

out-of-season foods for US tables. Ironically, she notes, the

fruits and vegetables we eat out of season are often produced in countries

with poor sanitation and questionable hygienic practices.

Why eat a fruit from a country where one would not drink the water? Eating

locally may offer a safe and healthy alternative to the

consequences of a global marketplace.

Moving Toward Sustainable Diets

Here are some ways nutritionists can help to promote sustainability:

* Recommend that a certain portion of the weekly grocery money be used

exclusively for foods that are produced

locally and sold in farmers markets or through farms that establish

memberships with local residents.

* Learn about and promote seasonal foods that can be grown locally in the

consumer’s own region and teach people

how to cook these foods—or how to cook at all!

* Have your own backyard garden and encourage public organizations, schools,

hospitals, etc, to build community

gardens and use the foods grown for feeding programs.

Here are some creative resources nutrition educators can use to promote

food sustainability with school-age children:

* LIFE Program (Linking Food and the Environment) a project of Teacher’s

College, Columbia University promotes

the “Food Triangle”—a take-off on the Food Pyramid. Using a triangle, the

project staff divide foods into three

groups—“plant foods,” “animal foods,” and “man-made foods”—to help children

learn about how their food choices

affect their environment and their health. They also use hands-on activities

such as gardening, cooking, shopping,

composting, and recycling.

* “Earth Friends” is a minidiscovery museum housed at Teacher’s College where

classes from New York City schools

visit and learn about food from farm to table in a series of games, exhibits,

and cooking activities. Contact Russo,

Project Coordinator, 212-678-3955.

* “Cookshop” is a classroom curriculum designed by the New York Community

Food Resource Center to help

students and teachers cook a variety of locally grown wholesome foods that

will then be introduced in the school

cafeteria. Evaluations show dramatic increases in consumption of these

previously unfamiliar foods when students learn

about them first in class. Contact Toni Liquori at 212-894-8074 or

tliquori@....

* “Close Encounters with Agriculture,” a ative Extension Service of the

University of land Program links

elementary school children with class activities and field trips to

agricultural areas to learn about animals, horticulture,

and farming.

* “Field to Table,” a Cornell University Extension Project helps students to

identify and increase their consumption of

locally grown fruits and vegetables based on the Northeast Regional Food

Guide.

* “From Land to Landfill” is a program developed by nutritionists at Purdue

University using a systems approach to

integrate health and nutrition into core subject areas.

* “FOODPLAY” is this author’s traveling nutrition theater show that tours

schools nationally and uses juggling, theater,

music, magic, and audience participation to encourage children to make food

choices that are good for their health and

the health of the planet. Contact Barbara Storper at 800-FOODPLAY or

http://www.foodplay.com.

For a Resource Guide to Programs Connecting Education with Food,

Nutrition, and the Environment, contact Pamela Koch,

MEd, RD, Project Coordinator, LIFE Program, Teachers College, Columbia

University, 525 West 120th St, Box 137, New York, NY

10027; 212-678-3480; or pak14@... (please send $7.00 payable to

“Teachers College”).

REFERENCES

1. Gussow JD, Clancy K. Dietary guidelines for sustainability. J Nutr Edu.

1986; 18:1–15. [Context Link]

2. Gussow JD. This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader. White

River Junction, Vt: Chelsea Green

Publishing Company; 2001. [Context Link]

3. Carson R. The Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin; 1994. [Context

Link]