Daily cost of consumer food wasted, inedible, and consumed in the United States, 2001-2016

The impact of dietary preference on household food waste: evidence from China

Food waste jeopardizes food security and causes economic and resource losses. Household food waste is the most significant source of global food waste and urgently needs to be reduced. Based on the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), our study estimates the daily food waste data of 6,418 sample observations across China and the dietary preference scores of their household heads. Using a count regression model, our study explores the relationship between dietary preference and household food waste in Chinese households, and further explores the moderating function of household refrigerator use. The study has found that: (1) improving dietary preference score can significantly reduce household food waste ratio, and robustness tests support this finding. (2) There is a positive moderating effect of refrigerator use in the process of how dietary preference influence food waste. (3) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of dietary preference on household food waste varies by gender and age of the household head, household size, economic level, urban-rural type, and north-south region. Our study provides evidence that improving dietary preference can reduce household food waste in China, which has certain implications for waste reduction in other developing countries.

Augmenting the National Nutrition Data System to Promote Diet Sustainability Analyses

Research on sustainable diets has become an important and growing area of the nutrition field, but recent studies have pointed to a lack of sustainability metrics and methods that are hindering research and policy progress. To fill this gap, the White House National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health calls for increased funding to improve metrics, data collection, and research to address all domains of sustainability, which include nutrition/health, economic, environmental, and social domains. Commodity recipe databases, such as the Food Commodity Intake Database (FCID), are important tools for conducting diet sustainability analyses because they translate mixed dishes from dietary surveys, such as the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), into commodity ingredients. These ingredients have been linked to data on environmental impacts and economic costs from other databases, thus facilitating collaboration between nutrition researchers, environmental scientists, economists, and others. These linkages cannot be made with other components of the national nutrition data system, such as the Food Patterns Equivalents Database (FPED), because the disaggregated food groups from them are not relevant for examining environmental impacts. Although the NHANES is conducted on an ongoing basis, and FPED is continually updated, the FCID has not been officially updated since 2010. This severely limits advancements in sustainability research and related policy analyses. In this commentary, we argue that the federal government should promote this diet sustainability work by integrating a commodity recipe database into the national nutrition data system, and updating it on a regular basis, as it does with other component databases.

Cerebrating and engagement, paths to reduce fresh produce waste within homes

A real-world study was conducted with the aim to reduce people's fresh fruit and vegetables waste within their homes. For 6 weeks participants measured their fresh produce waste. Half the participants were impelled to complete food waste logs whilst the other half was a control group. This was followed by a 6-month monitoring period to establish if changes would last. Fresh produce waste decreased with over a quarter of what the participants had wasted at the beginning of the 6 weeks, for all groups. Additionally, an attitude questionnaire distributed at the onset and at the end of the study showed a shift in pro-reduction of food waste. As this indicated that thinking about food waste prompts engagement, we tested this idea using a different sample group. A questionnaire measuring attitudes and cognition confirmed the importance of thinking and provided further insight into the findings from the first study.

Opportunities for Consistent and Holistic Metrics to Support Food Systems Transformation: A Summary of a Symposium Presented at Nutrition 2023

There is an urgent need for global food systems transformation to realize a future where planetary health reaches its full potential. Paramount to this vision is the ability of stakeholders across sectors to understand how foods and dietary patterns impact food systems inclusive of all domains of sustainability-environmental, nutrition/health, economic and social. This article is a synopsis of presentations by 3 food systems experts to share the latest science in a session entitled "How do you measure sustainability? Opportunities for consistent and holistic metrics to support food systems transformation" at the American Society for Nutrition's 2023 annual conference. As summarized here, global population data showing widespread malnutrition underscore the important role of dietary diversity through a balance of plant- and animal-source foods to achieve nutritionally adequate diets and reduce risk of noncommunicable diseases. Yet, recent international audits of countries, companies, and organizations and their sustainability targets largely demonstrate an underrepresentation of robust nutrition/health metrics to support public nutrition and health progress. Addressing limitations in diet-sustainability modeling systems provides a viable opportunity to accurately reflect the important contributions and trade-offs of diets across all domains of sustainability to ultimately support evidence-based decision making in advancing healthy food systems.

Cultural influences on the effects of social norm appeals

This study reports on an experimental test of the effects of descriptive and injunctive norm appeals on intentions to prevent food waste in China and the United States (N = 1449), testing the role of cultural context and group orientation in this process. Results showed that the main effects of descriptive and injunctive norm messages on behavioural intentions were mediated by normative perceptions, and cultural context moderated both paths of this mediation. Specifically, with the same message exposure, Chinese participants perceived food waste prevention as more prevalent and socially approved compared to US participants. Normative perceptions interacted with cultural context to influence behavioural intentions, such that both descriptive and injunctive norm perceptions predicted stronger intentions to prevent food waste among Chinese participants compared to Americans. Group orientation yielded a main effect on behavioural intentions, instead of the moderation effects as expected. Findings suggest the need for culturally grounded and contextualized approaches to communication of social norms, as well as building cultural concepts into theories of social norms. This article is part of the theme issue 'Social norm change: drivers and consequences'.

Aquatic food loss and waste rate in the United States is half of earlier estimates

Food loss and waste (FLW) is a major challenge to food system sustainability, including aquatic foods. We investigated aquatic FLW in the food supply of the United States, the largest importer of aquatic food globally, using primary and secondary data and life cycle methodology. We show that there are significant differences in FLW among species, production technology, origin and stage of supply chain. We estimate total aquatic FLW was 22.7%, which is 43-55% lower than earlier estimates reported in the literature, illustrating the importance of applying a disaggregated approach. Production losses associated with imported food contribute over a quarter of total FLW, and addressing these losses requires multinational efforts to implement interventions along the supply chain. These findings inform prioritization of solutions-including areas of need for innovations, government incentives, policy change, infrastructure and equity.

Greater adherence to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans is associated with lower diet-related greenhouse gas emissions but higher costs

Introduction

Few studies have evaluated the sustainability of popular diet patterns in the US, which limits policy action and impedes consumer efficacy to make sustainable dietary changes. This study filled this gap by evaluating the relationship between diet quality, greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE), and diet cost for plant-based, restricted carbohydrate, low grain, low fat, and time restricted diet patterns.

Methods

Dietary data were retrieved from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2011-2018, n = 8,146) and linked with data on GHGE and food prices from publicly available databases. Diet quality was measured using the Healthy Eating Index-2015. The present study (1) compared the mean diet quality, GHGE, and diet cost between diet patterns, (2) evaluated the association of diet quality to GHGE and diet cost for each diet pattern, and (3) estimated the contribution of food sources to GHGE and diet cost for each diet pattern.

Results

Higher diet quality was associated with lower GHGE for the general population and for most diet patterns (p < 0.01) except for the plant-based and time restricted diet patterns (p > 0.05). Higher diet quality was associated with higher cost for the general population and for all dietary patterns (p < 0.01) except the time restricted diet pattern (p > 0.05). Protein foods, mostly beef, accounted for the largest share of GHGE (29-40%) and diet cost (28-47%) for all diet patterns except plant-based.

Discussion

Higher diet quality was associated with lower GHGE but was often accompanied by higher diet cost. These sustainability trade-offs can help inform major policy discussions in the US and shed light on further research needs in the area of food systems transformation.

Assessment of the Environmental Impacts of a Localized Food System and Food Waste Reduction in a Water-Scarce Region Using Diet Optimization Models

Despite growing interest in fresh local produce across the United States, scaling up local agricultural development might impose new environmental pressures on increasingly scarce water and land resources in specific localities. Drawing upon the case of the Palouse of the US Inland Northwest, this study evaluates land and water footprints of local foods along with food waste reduction in a water-scarce region. We used both non-robust and robust diet-optimization techniques to estimate the minimum amounts of irrigation water necessary to grow foods locally and to satisfy the local population's caloric or nutrition needs. Our modeling results indicate that, on an annual basis, an increase of less than 5% of the current freshwater withdrawal on the Palouse could satisfy 10% of the local population's aspirational demand for locally grown food products, while more than 35% of local foods (by mass) may be wasted. Furthermore, reducing food waste by 50% could simultaneously reduce water use by up to 24%, cropland use by 13%, and pastureland use by 20%. Our findings not only provide intriguing information for access to local food but could also be used to stimulate new efforts to increase consumers' and retailers' awareness of environmental benefits associated with food waste reduction.

Greenhouse gas emissions, cost, and diet quality of specific diet patterns in the United States

BACKGROUND

Major policy agendas are calling for accelerated investment in research that addresses the impact of diet patterns on multiple domains of sustainability.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the comparative greenhouse gas emissions, diet cost, and diet quality of plant-based, low grain, restricted carbohydrate, low fat, and time restricted diet patterns on a daily per capita basis.

DESIGN

Dietary data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2013-2016, n=4,025) were merged with data on greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) and food prices from multiple databases. The Healthy Eating Index-2015 was used to measure diet quality.

RESULTS

The plant-based diet pattern had the lowest GHGE (3.5 kg CO2eq, 95% CI: 3.3, 3.8 kg CO2eq) and among the lowest diet cost ($11.51, 95% CI: $10.67, $12.41), but diet quality (45.8, 95% CI: 43.3, 48.5) was similar (P>0.005) to most other diet patterns. All of the sustainability impacts of the low grain diet pattern were intermediate. The restricted carbohydrate diet pattern had the highest diet cost ($18.46, 95% CI: $17.80, $19.13) but intermediate diet quality (46.8, 95% CI: 45.7, 47.9) and moderate-to-high GHGE (5.7 kg CO2eq, 95% CI: 5.4, 5.9 kg CO2eq). The low fat diet pattern had the highest diet quality (52.0, 95% CI: 50.8, 53.1) and intermediate GHGE (4.4 kg CO2eq, 95% CI: 4.1, 4.6 kg CO2eq) and diet cost ($14.53, 95% CI: $13.73, $15.38). The time restricted diet pattern had among the lowest diet quality score (42.6, 95% CI: 40.8, 44.6), had GHGE similar to most other diet patterns (4.6 kg CO2eq, 95% CI: 4.2, 5.0 kg CO2eq), and low-to-moderate diet cost ($12.34, 95% CI: $11.38, $13.40).

CONCLUSIONS

Most diet patterns were associated with sustainability trade-offs. The nature of those trade-offs can help inform discussions on food and nutrition policy in the US, including the National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, and future Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Measurement of diets that are healthy, environmentally sustainable, affordable, and equitable: A scoping review of metrics, findings, and research gaps

Introduction

Research on the impacts of dietary patterns on human and planetary health is a rapidly growing field. A wide range of metrics, datasets, and analytical techniques has been used to explore the role of dietary choices/constraints in driving greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, environmental degradation, health and disease outcomes, and the affordability of food baskets. Many argue that each domain is important, but few have tackled all simultaneously in analyzing diet-outcome relationships.

Methods

This paper reviews studies published between January 2015 and December 2021 (inclusive) that examined dietary patterns in relation to at least two of the following four thematic pillars: (i) planetary health, including, climate change, environmental quality, and natural resource impacts, (ii) human health and disease, (iii) economic outcomes, including diet cost/affordability, and (iv) social outcomes, e.g., wages, working conditions, and culturally relevant diets. We systematically screened 2,425 publications by title and abstract and included data from 42 eligible publications in this review.

Results

Most dietary patterns used were statistically estimated or simulated rather than observed. A rising number of studies consider the cost/affordability of dietary scenarios in relation to optimized environmental and health outcomes. However, only six publications incorporate social sustainability outcomes, which represents an under-explored dimension of food system concerns.

Discussion

This review suggests a need for (i) transparency and clarity in datasets used and analytical methods; (ii) explicit integration of indicators and metrics linking social and economic issues to the commonly assessed diet-climate-planetary ecology relationships; (iii) inclusion of data and researchers from low- and middle-income countries; (iv) inclusion of processed food products to reflect the reality of consumer choices globally; and (v) attention to the implications of findings for policymakers. Better understanding is urgently needed on dietary impacts on all relevant human and planetary domains simultaneously.

Effect of surfactant assisted ultrasonic pretreatment on production of volatile fatty acids from mixed food waste

In this study, the potential effect of surfactant assisted ultrasonic pretreatment on mixed food waste was investigated. Surfactants, such as Rhamnolipid, Sodium dodecyl sulfate; Glucopon and Triton X 100 were evaluated in this work. Among them, the maximum solubilization of chemical oxygen demand of 45.5 % and the highest release of soluble COD of 31 g/L were observed for ultrasonication assisted by Triton X 100 at a dose of 0.01 g/g TS in 30 min. The presence of a surfactant also reduced 27.5 % of energy demand when compared to ultrasonic pretreatment alone. Compared to the non-pretreated samples after anaerobic digestion, ultrasonication assisted by Triton X 100 led to 95 % increase of volatile fatty acid titers and 83 % increase of carbon conversion efficiency. Thus, sonication with the addition of Triton X 100 was proven to be highly effective toward increasing digestibility of and yield of volatile fatty acid from mixed food waste.

From Food to Gods to Food to Waste

The present global food waste problem threatens food systems sustainability and our planet. The generation of food waste stems from the interacting factors of the need for food production, food access and availability, motivations and ignorance around food purchase and consumption, and market constraints. Food waste has increased over time. This is related to the change in how humans value food through the generations and altered human food consumption and food discard behaviors. There is also a lack of understanding of the impacts of current food production, processing and consumption patterns on food waste creation. This review examines the cultural, religious, social and economic factors influencing attitudes to food and their effects on food waste generation. The lessons from history about how humans strove toward zero waste are covered. We review the important drivers of food waste: waste for profit, food diversion to feed, waste for convenience, labeling, food service waste and household food waste. We discuss strategies for food waste reduction: recovery of food and food ingredients, waste conversion to energy and food, reducing waste from production/processing and reducing consumer food waste, and emphasize the need for all stakeholders to work together to reduce food waste.

Domestic plant food loss and waste in the United States: Environmental footprints and mitigation strategies

The United States (U.S.) aims to reduce half of food loss and waste (FLW) by 2030. To achieve this goal, the public, academic, and political attentions on FLW have been increasing, and a series of actions have been implemented. However, the actions lack consideration on the categorical priority of FLW mitigation in relation to environmental footprints. In this article, we compare the FLW of three main plant food categories (i.e., grains, vegetables, and fruits) and their water and carbon footprints during 1970-2017. The vegetable FLW doubled during the period, reaching 3.39 × 10¹⁰ kg in 2017, which was 5- and 2-fold higher than the FLW of grains and fruits, respectively. The FLW of vegetables, grains, and fruits contributed 29%, 47%, and 24% to the total blue water wasted through FLW. The total carbon dioxide emissions generated by plant FLW were contributed by vegetables with 50%, grains with 31%, and fruits with 19%. Canonical correspondence analysis indicates that vegetable FLW had a higher positive correlation with urbanization, household incomes, gross domestic product, and high-income population than grain FLW, whereas fruit FLW was not influenced by these socioeconomic factors. Therefore, we suggest that the FLW mitigation should be prioritized on vegetables. Specific strategies include local food sourcing, shortening food miles, building food belts, and developing controlled-environment agriculture. Our data-based comparisons provide valuable insights into food policy improvement for achieving the 2030 reduction goal of the U.S., but the insights could be improved by considering the influences of foods imported from other nations.

Diet Sustainability Analyses Can Be Improved With Updates to the Food Commodity Intake Database

Diet sustainability analyses inform policymaking decisions and provide clinicians and consumers with evidence-based information to make dietary changes. In the United States, the Food Commodity Intake Database (FCID) provides a crosswalk for integrating nationally representative data on food intake from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) with data on sustainability outcomes from other publicly available databases. However, FCID has not been updated since 2010 and does not link with contemporary NHANES data, which limits further advancements in sustainability research. This study fills this research gap by establishing novel linkages between FCID and NHANES 2011-2018, comparing daily per capita food intake with and without these linkages, and making these data publicly available for use by other researchers. To update FCID, two investigators independently established novel data linkages, a third investigator resolved discrepancies, and a fourth investigator audited linkages for accuracy. Dietary data were acquired from nearly 45,000 adults from 2001 to 2018, and food intake was compared between updated vs. non-updated FCID versions. Total food intake from 2011 to 2018 was 5-23% higher using the updated FCID compared to the non-updated version, and intake was over 100% higher in some years for some food categories including poultry, eggs, legumes, starchy vegetables, and tropical oils (P < 0.001 for all comparisons). Further efforts may be needed to create new food composition data to reflect new products and reformulations that enter the food supply over time. This study removes a barrier to further diet sustainability analyses by establishing a data crosswalk between contemporary NHANES and other publicly available databases on agricultural resource use, environmental impacts, and consumer food expenditures.

Invited review: The consumer and dairy food waste: An individual plus policy, systems, and environmental perspective

An estimated 40% of food produced in the United States is wasted, which poses a significant barrier to achieving a sustainable future-so much so that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal no. 12, to "ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns," includes a goal to "halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer level, and reduce food losses along the production and supply chains by 2030." Annually, consumers waste approximately 90 billion pounds of food, equating to roughly 1 pound per person per day. More specifically, consumer waste is the largest contributor to the food waste problem when compared with other steps along the supply chain, such as production, post-harvest handling and storage, processing, and distribution. Furthermore, American families discard approximately 25% of the food and beverages they buy. When considering the type of waste coming from households, fresh fruits and vegetables rank highest at 22%, with dairy products, at 19%, following in close second. A variety of factors contribute to why consumers waste so much food. For dairy, commonly referenced reasons are related to the misunderstanding of date labels, poor planning of purchases, spoilage before consuming products, and improper storage. This wasted food accumulates in landfills and produces methane when decomposing, resulting in environmental consequences related to ozone depletion and climate change. Milk can have negative environmental impacts when disposed of down the drain. This review will discuss the food waste problem, causes, and potential solutions at the consumer level, with particular focus on dairy waste. An individual plus policy, system, and environment approach will also be integrated to provide a well-rounded view of the issue.

Ophthalmologists and climate change

It is indisputable that human activities have caused climate change and that, if left unchecked, these activities will lead to worsening of weather extremes including fire, drought, and flood with all their attendant human suffering. Reducing future climate change requires limiting cumulative emissions of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases including methane. We have written this evidence-based perspective to highlight interventions with the largest effect to help the average ophthalmologist make the changes with the highest impact in their day-to-day lives.

Development of an optimal grocery list based on actual intake from a cross-sectional study of First Nations adults in Ontario, Canada

A multi-stage sampling strategy selected 1387 on-reserve First Nations adults in Ontario. Foods from a 24-hour dietary recall were assigned to the 100 most common food groups for men and women. Nutrients from market foods (MF) and traditional foods (TF) harvested from the wild as well as MF costs were assigned based on the proportions of total grams consumed. Linear programming was performed imposing various constraints to determine whether it was possible to develop diets that included the most popular foods while meeting Institute of Medicine guidelines. Final models were obtained for both sexes with the top 100 food groups consumed while limiting the nutrient-poor foods to no more than the actual observed intake. These models met all nutrient constraints for men but those for dietary fibre, linoleic acid, phosphorus, and potassium were removed for women. MF costs were obtained from community retailers and online resources. A grocery list was then developed and MF were costed for a family of four. The grocery list underestimated the actual weekly food cost because TF was not included. Contemporary observed diets deviated from healthier historic First Nations diets. A culturally appropriate diet would include more traditional First Nations foods and fewer MF. Novelty ● Linear programming is a mathematical approach to evaluating the diets of First Nations ● The grocery list is representative of food patterns within Ontario First Nations and can be used as an alternative to the nutritious food basket used for public health food costing.

Consumer Seafood Waste and the Potential of a 'Direct-from-Frozen' Approach to Prevention

Few food waste interventions focus on drivers distinct to particular food groups, such as seafood. Given suggestive evidence that seafood may be wasted at exceptionally high rates, and given its environmental, economic and nutritional value, this research provides insights into seafood-specific consumer food waste interventions. We performed three complementary sub-studies to examine consumer and retailer views regarding seafood waste and frozen seafood as well as perceptions of an intervention providing chef-created recipes to promote cooking frozen seafood without defrosting. The findings indicated an openness to a direct-from-frozen intervention among many consumers and retailers, and suggested seven potential barriers to adoption, along with ways to address them. Underlying the potential for this intervention, and more broadly contributing to addressing consumer seafood waste, the research formed the basis of a new “4 Ps” concept model to characterize the drivers of discarded seafood: proficiency, perceptions/knowledge, perishability, and planning/convenience. These factors shape waste through pathways that include behavioral protocols; taste preferences; waste-prevention efforts; and food safety concerns, precautions, and errors. This research suggested the benefit of testing a larger-scale direct-from-frozen intervention using insights from the concept model and, more broadly, the benefits of exploring approaches to food waste prevention rooted in specific food groups.

Higher-diet quality is associated with higher diet costs when eating at home and away from home: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2005-2016

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate the association between diet quality and cost for foods purchased for consumption at home and away from home.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional analysis. Multivariable linear regression models evaluated the association between diet quality and cost for all food, food at home (FAH) and food away from home (FAFH).

SETTING

Daily food intake data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2005-2016). Food prices were derived using data from multiple, publicly available databases. Diet quality was assessed using the Healthy Eating Index-2015 and the Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010.

PARTICIPANTS

30 564 individuals ≥20 years with complete and reliable dietary data.

RESULTS

Mean per capita daily diet cost was $14·19 (95 % CI (13·91, 14·48)), including $6·92 (95 % CI (6·73, 7·10)) for FAH and $7·28 (95 % CI (7·05, 7·50)) for FAFH. Diet quality was higher for FAH compared to FAFH (P < 0·001). Higher diet quality was associated with higher food costs overall, FAH and FAFH (P < 0·001 for all comparisons).

CONCLUSIONS

These findings demonstrate that higher diet quality is associated with higher costs for all food, FAH and FAFH. This research provides policymakers, public health professionals and clinicians with information needed to support healthy eating habits. These findings are particularly relevant to contemporary health and economic concerns that have worsened because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Less Food Wasted? Changes to New Zealanders’ Household Food Waste and Related Behaviours Due to the 2020 COVID-19 Lockdown

Food waste is a crisis of our time, yet it remains a data gap in Aotearoa New Zealand’s (NZ’s) environmental reporting. This research contributes to threshold values on NZ’s food waste and seeks to understand the impact of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown on household food waste in NZ. The data presented here form part of the ‘Covid Kai Survey’, an online questionnaire that assessed cooking and food planning behaviours during the 2020 lockdown and retrospectively before lockdown. Of the 3028 respondents, 62.5% threw out food ‘never’/‘rarely’ before lockdown, and this number increased to 79.0% during lockdown. Participants who wasted food less frequently during lockdown were more likely to be older, work less than full-time, and have no children. During lockdown, 30% and 29% of those who ‘frequently’ or ‘sometimes’ struggled to have money for food threw out food ‘sometimes or more’; compared with 20% of those who rarely struggled to have money for food (p < 0.001). We found that lower levels of food waste correlated with higher levels of cooking confidence (p < 0.001), perceived time (p < 0.001), and meal planning behaviours (p < 0.001). Understanding why food waste was generally considerably lower during lockdown may inform future initiatives to reduce food waste, considering socio-economic and demographic disparities.

Risk of forced labour embedded in the US fruit and vegetable supply

Sustainable food consumption studies have largely focused on promoting human health within ecological limits. Less attention has been paid to social sustainability, in part because of limited data and models. Globally, agriculture has one of the highest incidences of forced labour, with exploitative conditions enabled by low margins, domestic labour scarcity, inadequate legal protections for workers and high labour requirements. Here we assess the forced labour risk embedded in the US retail supply of fruits and vegetables using distinct datasets and a new forced labour risk scoring method. We demonstrate that there is risk of forced labour in a broad set of fruit and vegetable commodities, with a small number of commodities accounting for a substantial fraction of total risk at the retail supply level. These findings signal potential trade-offs and synergies across dimensions of food system sustainability and the need for novel research approaches to develop evidence-based forced labour risk mitigation strategies.

Data Integration for Diet Sustainability Analyses

Diet sustainability analyses are stronger when they incorporate multiple food systems domains, disciplines, scales, and time/space dimensions into a common modeling framework. Few analyses do this well: there are large gaps in food systems data in many regions, accessing private and some public data can be difficult, and there are analytical challenges, such as creating linkages across datasets and using complex analytical methods. This article summarizes key data sources across multiple domains of food system sustainability (nutrition, economic, environment) and describes methods and tools for integrating them into a common analytic framework. Our focus is the United States because of the large number of publicly available and highly disaggregated datasets. Thematically, we focus on linkages that exist between environmental and economic datasets to nutrition, which can be used to estimate the cost and agricultural resource use of food waste, interrelationships between healthy eating and climate impacts, diets optimized for cost, nutrition, and environmental impacts, and others. The limitations of these approaches and data sources are described next. By enhancing data integration across these fields, researchers can be better equipped to promote policy for sustainable diets.

Inedible Food Waste Linked to Diet Quality and Food Spending in the Seattle Obesity Study SOS III

Americans waste about a pound of food per day. Some of this is represented by inedible food waste at the household level. Our objective was to estimate inedible food waste in relation to diet quality and participant socio-economic status (SES). Seattle Obesity Study III participants (n = 747) completed the Fred Hutch Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) and socio-demographic and food expenditure surveys. Education and geo-coded tax-parcel residential property values were measures of SES. Inedible food waste was calculated from diet records. Retail prices of FFQ component foods (n = 378) were used to estimate individual-level diet costs. The NOVA classification was used to identify ultra-processed foods. Multivariable linear regressions tested associations between inedible food waste, SES, food spending, Nutrient Rich Food (NRF_9.3) and Healthy Eating Index (HEI-2015) scores. Inedible food waste was estimated at 78.7 g/d, mostly from unprocessed vegetables (32.8 g), fruit (30.5 g) and meat, poultry, and fish (15.4 g). Greater inedible food waste was associated with higher HEI-2015 and NRF_9.3 scores, higher food expenditures and lower percent energy from ultra-processed foods. In multivariable models, more inedible food waste was associated with higher food expenditures, education and residential property values. Higher consumption of unprocessed foods were associated with more inedible food waste and higher diet costs. Geo-located estimates of inedible food waste can provide a proxy index of neighborhood diet quality.

Healthy diets can create environmental trade-offs, depending on how diet quality is measured

Background

There is an urgent need to assess the linkages between diet patterns and environmental sustainability in order to meet global targets for reducing premature mortality and improving sustainable management of natural resources. This study fills an important research gap by evaluating the relationship between incremental differences in diet quality and multiple environmental burdens, while also accounting for the separate contributions of retail losses, inedible portions, and consumer waste.

Methods

Cross sectional, nationally-representative data on food intake in the United States were acquired from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2005–2016), and were linked with nationally-representative data on food loss and waste from published literature. Survey-weighted procedures estimated daily per capita food retail loss, food waste, inedible portions, and consumed food, and were summed to represent Total Food Demand. Diet quality was measured using the Healthy Eating Index-2015 and the Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010. Data on food intake, loss, and waste were inputted into the US Foodprint Model to estimate the amount of agricultural land, fertilizer nutrients, pesticides, and irrigation water used to produce food.

Results

This study included dietary data from 50,014 individuals aged ≥2 y. Higher diet quality (HEI-2015 and AHEI-2010) was associated with greater per capita Total Food Demand, as well as greater retail loss, inedible portions, consumer waste, and consumed food (P < 0.001 for all comparisons). Consumed food accounted for 56–74% of agricultural resource use (land, fertilizer nutrients, pesticides, and irrigation water), retail loss accounted for 4–6%, inedible portions accounted for 2–15%, and consumer waste accounted for 20–23%. Higher diet quality was associated with lower use of agricultural land, but the relationship to other agricultural resources was dependent on the tool used to measure diet quality (HEI-2015 vs. AHEI-2010).

Conclusions

Over one-quarter of the agricultural inputs used to produce Total Food Demand were attributable to edible food that was not consumed. Importantly, this study also demonstrates that the relationship between diet quality and environmental sustainability depends on how diet quality is measured. These findings have implications for the development of sustainable dietary guidelines, which requires balancing population-level nutritional needs with the environmental impacts of food choices.

Food Sources and Expenditures for Seafood in the United States

The aim of this study was to explore United States (U.S.) seafood consumption patterns, food sourcing, expenditures, and geography of consumption. We analyzed seafood intake and food sourcing using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) cycles 2007-2008 to 2015-2016 for US adults ≥19 years old (n = 26,743 total respondents; n = 4957 respondents consumed seafood in the past 24 h). Seafood expenditures were extrapolated by combining NHANES with three other public datasets. U.S. adults consumed 63% of seafood (by weight) at home. The top sources of seafood (by weight) were food retail (56%), restaurants (31%), and caught by the respondent or someone they know (5%). Sixty-five percent of consumer expenditures for seafood were at restaurants and other "away from home" sources while 35% were at retail and other "at home" sources. Slightly less than half of overall U.S. food expenditures are "away from home," which is much lower than for seafood, suggesting that consumers have very different spending habits for seafood than for an aggregate of all foods.