How to Obtain Forty Percent Less Environmental Impact by Healthy, Protein-Optimized Snacks for Older Adults

Innovation in Healthy and Sustainable Food Product Development for Health and Aged Care: A Scoping Review

Population ageing and climate change are issues of global concern. Subsequently, the need for healthy and sustainable food systems to meet the increasing demands for health and aged care is evident. This review aimed to systematically identify studies reporting new or innovative foods, drinks and snack products in health and aged care, and describe health and environmental sustainability considerations where reported. Methods were guided by the Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines for scoping reviews and reported against the PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Eligible studies were conducted in an inpatient healthcare setting or aged care facility where a new or innovative food, drink or snack product was evaluated with outcomes of product use, acceptability, cost, appropriateness for the population, and clinical or environmental sustainability outcomes in the last decade. Three databases were searched using a replicable strategy, with five publications of four studies included in the final library. Product innovations were led at the facility level and included testing dewaxed brown rice, talbinah, and an apple/pear juice fibre solution. Results suggest that food industry suppliers are operating in parallel with foodservices within hospital and aged care. Future intersection would be transformative for both industry sectors.

Addressing Sustainability within Public Procurement of Food: A Systematic Literature Review

Public procurement has been recognized as a tool to promote more sustainable production and consumption practices. As such, an increasing body of literature has become available in recent years focusing on the sustainable public procurement of food. This article reviews the literature on the sustainable public procurement of food with the aim to analyze how sustainability is framed. This is done by analyzing what aspects of sustainability are emphasized and what practices are identified as sustainable. A systematic literature review was conducted between the years 2000 and 2020, identifying 103 articles. Results from the literature review indicate that the focus has primarily been on studies to evaluate and explore policy and good practices for procuring sustainable foods. A dominant focus on specific foods types and origins, e.g., those locally sourced and organic foods, is highlighted by a large share of the literature to address all three sustainability pillars. We observed that most articles focus on all three pillars of sustainability (environmental, social, and economic), addressing different aspects and types of foods, although the focus varied depending upon geographic location. Despite many studies identifying opportunities and potential, few articles assess the sustainability or outcomes of procurement processes through quantitative or qualitative methods or how actors in the procurement process can improve procurement toward more sustainable foods. This indicates a need for further case studies and guidelines to measure the development, progress, and performance of public food procurement.

Health and Sustainability in Public Meals-An Explorative Review

The world is facing a number of challenges related to food consumption. These are, on the one hand, health effects and, on the other hand, the environmental impact of food production. Radical changes are needed to achieve a sustainable and healthy food production and consumption. Public and institutional meals play a vital role in promoting health and sustainability, since they are responsible for a significant part of food consumption, as well as their “normative influence” on peoples’ food habits. The aim of this paper is to provide an explorative review of the scientific literature, focusing on European research including both concepts of health and sustainability in studies of public meals. Of >3000 papers, 20 were found to satisfy these criteria and were thus included in the review. The results showed that schools and hospitals are the most dominant arenas where both health and sustainability have been addressed. Three different approaches in combining health and sustainability have been found, these are: “Health as embracing sustainability”, “Sustainability as embracing health” and “Health and sustainability as separate concepts”. However, a clear motivation for addressing both health and sustainability is most often missing.