FOOD COMPOSITION AND SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainable diets are diets with a low environmental impact that contribute to food and nutrition security and a healthy life for present and future generations. Currently, there are knowledge gaps that hinder the task of evaluating sustainable diets. Among these gaps, the lack of reliable global food composition data bases to determine whether diets have a nutritional and food profile in accordance with current recommendations is notable. Biodiversity is a significant element that is mentioned in the definition of sustainable diets. Certain indicators are needed for recognizing and explaining biodiversity, such as the nutritional composition of foods, i.e., the nutrient content and bioactive compounds in species, subspecies, cultivars and races, and food consumption identified in food surveys. The nutritional profile of certain foods varies according to the taxonomic classification below species and depends on the climate, geography and geochemistry, agricultural practices (e.g., the use of fertilizers), state of ripeness, growth stage, etc. Knowing the composition of traditional and local foods allows us to gain knowledge regarding our ecosystems, the value of their species and the within-species diversity. Considering the variation in the food composition in the diet of many communities, consumption of one plant variety over another can represent the difference between an inadequate or an adequate intake of one or more micronutrients or bioactive compounds by the population. The lack of an open-source reliable database of food composition and food consumption of the global food supply is a challenge in the development of sustainable foods and food patterns.