Making a Sustainable Diet Acceptable: An Emerging Programming Model With Applications to Schools and Nursing Homes Menus

Adolescents' Perceptions About Healthy and Sustainable Diets: A Qualitative School-Based Study in Portugal

In this qualitative study, we explored Portuguese adolescents' perceptions of diet, sustainability, and health through six focus group discussions (FGDs). Fifty-five adolescents (10-18 years) participated. FGDs focused on sustainability in food choices and its health impact, with our primary interest in their perceptions. Results showed a limited comprehension of "sustainable/sustainability," especially among younger participants. Those aware of sustainability recognized its diverse aspects, including health, economic, and ecological domains. Some adolescents recognized the link between health and sustainability in their diets, emphasizing the need for food literacy. These findings emphasize the importance of public health and sustainable policies among Portuguese adolescents.

Optimized menu formulation to enhance nutritional goals: design of a mixed integer programming model for the workers' food program in Brazil

BACKGROUND

In Brazil, institutional foodservices are required to meet the recommendations of the Workers? Food Program (WFP), a national public policy used to plan collective menus. The current study aimed to propose a mathematical model to generate a one-month menu that meets the nutritional recommendations of the WFP, with low cost and good quality.

METHODS

We considered aspects related to the eating habits of the Brazilian population, spacing of repetitions between the dishes, texture combination, and monotonicity of colors of the dishes served. A mixed integer programming model was built to formulate daily menus for an institutional foodservice for one month. The menu consisted of a base dish, a base dish option, salads (2 options), a protein dish, a protein dish option, a side dish, and a dessert.

RESULTS

The model ensured compliance with the recommendations proposed by the WFP and the provision of healthy and nutritionally balanced meals. The menu generated met the recommendations of the WFP, with an average of 716.97 kcal/meal, including on average 58.28% carbohydrates, 17.89% proteins, and 24.88% total fats/meal.

CONCLUSION

The model used can help in the menu elaboration dynamics of institutional foodservices, optimizing the work of the nutritionist in charge.

The carbon footprint of Italian schools meals: An optimal choice of dishes in vegan, vegetarian, and omnivorous menus

This study aims to assess the carbon footprint associated with vegan, vegetarian, and omnivorous menus for primary school lunches in Italy. For this purpose, healthy and acceptable menus with minimal greenhouse gas emissions have been designed by a binary linear programming model. The results show that the adoption of a specific diet may help in reducing the carbon footprint of menus, but it is the optimal selection of dishes that ultimately makes the difference. Interestingly enough, the optimal choice of dishes and the restriction of meat consumption in omnivorous menus can lead up to a 40% emission reduction compared to the current school lunch menu of the municipality of Rome. Moreover, the optimal choice of dishes in vegan menus provides the menu with the lowest carbon footprint among all kinds of diets.

Health and Sustainable Nutritional Choices from Childhood: Dietary Pattern and Social Models

BACKGROUND

The role of diet in the pediatric age for optimal development, achievement, and maintenance of a healthy status is well recognized. Increasing attention is nowadays also paid to reducing the burden of human nutrition on the planet's health for present and future generations.

SUMMARY

Beyond environmental sustainability, the transition to diets rich in animal and processed foods contributes to an overall unhealthy nutritional status leading to an increased prevalence of obesity- and diet-related noncommunicable diseases. Childhood overweight and obesity are a growing public health crisis worldwide. The aim of this narrative review was to summarize evidence of the nutritional status and dietary habits in children and the link with environmental sustainability.

KEY MESSAGE

Optimizing nutrition in infancy and establishing healthy lifestyles from the preschool years might help to reduce the risk of overweight, and all the disorders related, respecting the sustainability dimension.

Pre-Pandemic Dietary Assessment of Elderly Persons Residing in Nursing Homes—Silesia (Poland)

Background. Residents of nursing homes (NHs) are one of the most vulnerable social groups to SARS-CoV-2 infection. It seems obvious that all preventive methods, including nutrition, should be a priority for these homes. Objective. The aim of this study was to evaluate the menus of elderly people residing in nursing homes and to compare them with the recommendations and especially with the scientific literature that proves the protective effect of nutrition on the course of COVID-19 disease. Material and methods. The material investigated in the research were decade menus selected at several nursing homes between 2017 and 2020. The total number of 4640 daily menus from 58 NHs located in Silesia (Poland) were analyzed in the research. Data analysis included mathematical tools of Kruskal–Wallis and U Mann–Whitney tests for multiple comparisons in scarcely observed samples (p = 0.05). Results. It has been noted that the energy value provided with food scored 1780.22 kcal, which denoted 102.72% of the daily standard for females and 98.23% for males. The investigated menus differed in terms of energy and nutrition value. The mean content of proteins totaled 47.95 g/day, which covered 93.83% of the daily requirements for this nutrient. When it came to fat content, a level of 109.12 g/day was observed; this covered 160.47% of the daily requirement for females and 143.58% for males. Absorbable carbohydrates constituted 116.60% of the daily standard, i.e., 151.59 g/day. It was stated that values for vitamin D reached 7.01 (±0.63) µg per day, which can be interpreted as 41.00% of the recommended intake for females and 42.00% for males. It was also noted that the values for vitamins A and E were respectively two and fifteen times lower than the recommendations. Conclusions. The evaluated menus must not be an aid in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. The content of energy from food, fats, and carbohydrates substantially exceeded recommended standards, whereas the content of proteins, vitamins A, E, D, zinc and calcium did not meet requirements regarding nutrition standards for the analyzed group.

Dietary Patterns at the Individual Level through a Nutritional and Environmental Approach: The Case Study of a School Canteen

The public catering sector has important responsibilities in seeking a change toward more sustainable choices for many aspects related to the environmental impacts of their services. The environmental impact of production processes can be studied through life cycle assessment (LCA), which allows a greater awareness of choices and has rarely been applied to catering. In this work, we studied the impacts of two dishes (braised meat and cauliflower meatballs) in a school canteen, their impacts were studied using the daily energy requirement (expressed in kcal) as a functional unit. Global warming potential (GWP) and nonrenewable energy (NRE) were calculated starting from the supply of raw materials up to distribution. Electricity and the act of cooking the meatballs accounted for more than 60% of the measured impact in terms of GWP, whereas, less markedly, they dominated in terms of nonrenewable energy used. In the case of braised meat, the total impact was, however, attributable to the life cycle of the meat (between 60% and 76%) and the consumption of electricity (between 19% and 27%), whereas for all other factors, the contribution was never particularly high. Additionally, a discussion on the correct functional unit to be used proposed the environmental impact of different recipes as an additional criterion for nutritionists during the composition of the menu. An integrated system appears important for changing policies and behaviors and the application of LCA can be a tool capable of contributing to the construction of a holistic instrument of sustainability.

Advantages and limitations of the methodological approaches used to study dietary shifts towards improved nutrition and sustainability

Acting on diet is one of the changes required - in combination with actions on food production, transformation, and waste - to address the challenges of reducing the environmental impact of our food systems and eliminating all forms of malnutrition. The number of studies exploring how to move towards a more sustainable diet has exploded over the past decades, but there is a need to facilitate their understanding and use by policy makers and all other stakeholders possibly influencing diet sustainability. The aim of the present article is to propose a categorization of studies into 4 approaches, based on the type of methodology used to explore diet sustainability, and to highlight the principles, advantages, and limitations of each approach in order to help study users in their interpretation. The 4 approaches are: assessment of sustainability characteristics of hypothetical diets (approach 1) or existing diets (approach 2), identification of existing "positive deviants" (approach 3), and design of more sustainable diets with constrained optimization (approach 4). Specificities and key findings drawn from each approach are described, and challenges for future studies are discussed.

The Promotions of Sustainable Lunch Meals in School Feeding Programs: The Case of Italy

School is considered a privileged environment for health education and school feeding represents an opportunity for promoting sustainable foods to young generations. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that is possible to select, from existing school menus, recipes that combine healthy foods with low environmental impact. A national sample of Italian school menus was collected and a total number of 194 recipes were included on a database containing 70 first courses, 83 s courses, 39 side dishes, 1 portion of fruit, and 1 portion of bread. A mathematical model was conceived to combine nutritional adequacy and acceptability criteria while minimizing GHGs emissions. The result is a four-week menu characterized by large vegetable components that were used not only as side dishes but also as ingredients in the first and second courses. Legumes and pasta are often included, and white meat is selected instead of red meat. The findings presented in this paper demonstrated that it is possible to design environmental-friendly meals from existing school menus. The mathematical model developed in this work has the potentiality of being completely scalable, easily updatable, and widely utilizable in different settings either for design or monitoring purposes as well as for research data collection.