Are healthy foods optimally sustainable? A multi-dimensional analysis of 6,000 foods and beverages in the American diet

Kayla Hooker

doi:10.7273/000005338

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently proposed an update to the “healthy” food label claim to better align with current dietary research and guidelines. While it is important to guide consumers toward more nutritious food choices, a more holistic understanding of consumer food choice is vital for creating socially and environmentally conscious food programs and policies. Sustainable diets have been identified as having four dimensions: health, economics, environment, and society. The purpose of this study was to perform a preliminary application of the proposed updates to the “healthy” label claim, and determine how scores for nutrition, monetary cost, environmental impact, and social and cultural acceptability of foods and beverages vary across food groups and categorization as Healthy, by the FDA’s criteria, or Not Healthy. The Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS) was used to obtain a list of foods and beverages consumed in the American diet, along with nutrient profiles and frequency of consumption data. A nutrient density score was calculated for each item, and databases for environmental impact and cost were also linked to FNDDS. Frequency of consumption was calculated per 1,000 person-days. Nutritional quality, environmental impact, and cost were calculated per 100 kilocalories, and a sensitivity analysis was performed in which the three metrics were calculated per 100 grams. A sustainability index was devised to compare overall sustainability across items. A total of 5,964 foods and beverages from the FNDDS were included in the analysis. The majority of items (87%) were categorized as Not Healthy, while only 13% were Healthy. On a basis of 100 kilocalories, Healthy foods and beverages had significantly higher indicator scores for nutritional quality and cost (p < 0.001) compared to Not Healthy items. Frequency of consumption was significantly higher for Healthy items (p < 0.001). There were 165 items identified as optimally sustainable, of which 8% were Healthy. Protein Foods constituted 62% of all optimally sustainable items, and Dairy products made up less than 1%. In sensitivity analyses exploring indicator scores per 100 grams, Healthy items showed more favorable median scores and more foods and beverages were identified as optimally sustainable than when indicators were calculated per 100 kilocalories. In conclusion, this study assessed how the FDA’s updates to the “heathy” food label criteria relate to all four dimensions of sustainable diets and found that optimally sustainable foods and beverages do not tend to align with those that would be considered “healthy.” A more holistic understanding of foods and beverages is necessary so that consumers can make dietary choices appropriate for not only their nutritional requirements but also other needs, personal values, and preferences.

Are healthy foods optimally sustainable? A multi-dimensional analysis of 6,000 foods and beverages in the American diet

Files and links (1)

Abstract

Metrics

Details