Anne Roulin

The Nutrient Balance Concept: A New Quality Metric for Composite Meals and Diets

Background Combinations of foods that provide suitable levels of nutrients and energy are required for optimum health. Currently, however, it is difficult to define numerically what are ‘suitable levels’. Objective To develop new metrics based on energy considerations—the Nutrient Balance Concept (NBC)—for assessing overall nutrition quality when combining foods and meals. Method The NBC was developed using the USDA Food Composition Database (Release 27) and illustrated with their MyPlate 7-day sample menus for a 2000 calorie food pattern. The NBC concept is centered on three specific metrics for a given food, meal or diet—a Qualifying Index (QI), a Disqualifying Index (DI) and a Nutrient Balance (NB). The QI and DI were determined, respectively, from the content of 27 essential nutrients and 6 nutrients associated with negative health outcomes. The third metric, the Nutrient Balance (NB), was derived from the Qualifying Index (QI) and provided key information on the relative content of qualifying nutrients in the food. Because the Qualifying and Disqualifying Indices (QI and DI) were standardized to energy content, both become constants for a given food/meal/diet and a particular consumer age group, making it possible to develop algorithms for predicting nutrition quality when combining different foods. Results Combining different foods into composite meals and daily diets led to improved nutrition quality as seen by QI values closer to unity (indicating nutrient density was better equilibrated with energy density), DI values below 1.0 (denoting an acceptable level of consumption of disqualifying nutrients) and increased NB values (signifying complementarity of foods and better provision of qualifying nutrients). Conclusion The Nutrient Balance Concept (NBC) represents a new approach to nutrient profiling and the first step in the progression from the nutrient evaluation of individual foods to that of multiple foods in the context of meals and total diets.

Nutrition in the Bin: A Nutritional and Environmental Assessment of Food Wasted in the UK

The UK currently has the most detailed, directly measured data for food wasted in the home. This includes information on the exact types of food wasted. These data allow calculation of the nutrients within that waste, as well as its environmental impact. The results progress the conversation beyond how much food is wasted or its energy content; it permits the implications for nutrition and sustainability to be assessed in detail. Data for UK household food waste were expressed as an average waste per capita for each type of food. Each food type was matched with an item (or group of items) from the UK Composition of Foods (7th Ed). The level of nutrients wasted was compared to UK Reference Nutrient Intakes (RNIs) for adult women (19–50 years, used as a proxy for general population requirements). The data were normalized into “nutrient days” wasted per capita per year, then into the number of complete diet days (for 21 nutrients plus energy). Results show that approximately 42 daily diets were discarded per capita per year. By individual nutrient, the highest losses were vitamin B12, vitamin C, and thiamin (160, 140, and 130 nutrient days/capita/year, respectively). For protein, dietary energy and carbohydrates, 88, 59, and 53 nutrient days/capita/year, respectively, were lost. Substantial losses were also found for under-consumed nutrients in the UK: calcium, which was mostly lost via bakery (27%) and dairy/eggs (27%). Food folate was mainly lost through fresh vegetables/salads (40%) and bakery (18%), as was dietary fiber (31 and 29%, respectively). Environmental impacts were distributed over the food groups, with wasted meat and fish the single largest contribution. For all environmental impacts studied, the largest contribution came from agricultural production. This paper shows that there are areas where interventions preventing food waste and promoting healthy eating could work together (e.g., encouraging consumption of vegetables or tackling overbuying, especially of unhealthy foods). Food manufacturers and retailers, alongside governments and NGOs, have a key role to minimize waste of environmentally impactful, nutrient-dense foods, for instance, by helping influence people’s behaviors with appropriate formulation of products, packaging, portioning, use of promotions, or public education.

Planting seeds for the future of food

Abstract The health and wellbeing of future generations will depend on humankinds ability to deliver sufficient nutritious food to a world population in excess of 9 billion. Feeding this many people by 2050 will require science‐based solutions that address sustainable agricultural productivity and enable healthful dietary patterns in a more globally equitable way. This topic was the focus of a multi‐disciplinary international conference hosted by Nestlé in June 2015, and provides the inspiration for the present article. The conference brought together a diverse range of expertise and organisations from the developing and industrialised world, all with a common interest in safeguarding the future of food. This article provides a snapshot of three of the recurring topics that were discussed during this conference: soil health, plant science and the future of farming practice. Crop plants and their cultivation are the fundamental building blocks for a food secure world. Whether these are grown for food or feed for livestock, they are the foundation of food and nutrient security. Many of the challenges for the future of food will be faced where the crops are grown: on the farm. Farmers need to plant the right crops and create the right conditions to maximise productivity (yield) and quality (e.g. nutritional content), whilst maintaining the environment, and earning a living. New advances in science and technology can provide the tools and know‐how that will, together with a more entrepreneurial approach, help farmers to meet the inexorable demand for the sustainable production of nutritious foods for future generations.

Healthy and sustainable diets for future generations: Healthy and sustainable diets

Abstract Global food systems will face unprecedented challenges in the coming years. They will need to meet the nutritional needs of a growing population and feed an expanding demand for proteins. This is against a backdrop of increasing environmental challenges (water resources, climate change, soil health) and the need to improve farming livelihoods. Collaborative efforts by a variety of stakeholders are needed to ensure that future generations have access to healthy and sustainable diets. Food will play an increasingly important role in the global discourse on health. These topics were explored during Nestlés second international conference on ‘Planting Seeds for the Future of Food: The Agriculture, Nutrition and Sustainability Nexus’, which took place in July 2017. This article discusses some of the key issues from the perspective of three major stakeholder groups, namely farming/agriculture, the food industry and consumers.