Diverse Diets Are Essential for Nourishing a Healthy Planet as Well as Healthy People

A Bangladeshi mother feeding her children nutrient-rich small fish, mola and leafy vegetables. Credit: Finn Thilsted / WorldFish

By Shakuntala Thilsted and Cargele Masso
CALI, Colombia, Nov 5 2024 (IPS)

It’s often said that we are what we eat. However, our diets are also a reflection on the health of our food systems, the environment and agricultural biodiversity.

In the same way that our bodies need a range of nutrients for optimum health, the environment also benefits from systems that produce a variety of foods, each of which makes different demands of, and contributions to, natural ecosystems.

Unfortunately, global diets are failing to strike a healthy balance of foods from both land and water systems. While more than 3,700 aquatic species offer a wide range of nutritional benefits, consumption is limited to a handful of fish, seafood and other aquatic species. Similarly, only six crops make up more than 75 per cent of total plant-derived energy intake.

Relying on the same few foods, whether crops, livestock or fish, not only limits the nutritional value provided, but it also erodes natural resources, from soil health to water quality. This hampers efforts to address global malnutrition and mounting pressure on the environment and farming systems.

After delegates gathered at the UN COP16 biodiversity talks to agree the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, this is a critical time to champion diverse diets for improved health and nutrition, agricultural biodiversity and data-informed decision-making within food systems.

From a human development perspective, diverse diets are essential to ensure that people get enough nutrients to meet their dietary needs. This means making full use of a wide variety of plant-based and animal-source foods from both land and water.

Inadequate diets are a leading driver of preventable deaths, contributing to 11 million deaths in 2017. At the same time, dietary diversity has been linked with a reduced risk of mortality as well as diet-related illnesses, including diabetes and heart disease.

Many under-utilised foods, including aquatic foods and especially indigenous small fish species, seaweeds and bivalves such as clams, scallops and mussels, can provide a rich variety of readily available nutrients, while improving health outcomes.

For example, in Bangladesh, micronutrient deficiencies such as anaemia pose significant public health challenges. To tackle this issue, researchers established community-based production of small fish chutney to supplement the diets of pregnant and breastfeeding women. The results showed that adding small fish chutney to meals reduced anaemia among these women by a third.

Integrating greater diversity across diets, including overlooked yet nutritious aquatic foods, is essential for improving global nutrition and health.

At the same time, diverse diets can also support the preservation of agricultural biodiversity and maintain healthy ecosystems by creating demand for a broad range of food types.

As a result of repeatedly growing genetically uniform crops, the world has lost 75 per cent of plant genetic diversity in the past century. This not only affects food system resilience but also increases crop vulnerability to pests, diseases, and climate-induced disasters.

Global reliance on rice, wheat and maize for energy intake means the world’s supply of food is significantly limited when these crops are adversely impacted by climate change such as drought or flooding. These cereal crops also place the same repeated demands on natural resources, which can impact soil and water quality and biodiversity. This ultimately results in supply vulnerability and compromises global food and nutrition security.

Instead, cultivating a range of foods that include indigenous crops, such as sorghum, millet and yams, and using principles of agroecology can better support food security goals. Initiatives such as the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS), supported by CGIAR, are harnessing the potential of indigenous and locally adapted crops to support agricultural biodiversity. For example, legumes can turn nitrogen in soils into ammonia and other compounds, which benefit non-legume crops grown alongside them.

Science and evidence can help governments, policymakers and other stakeholders in food systems to identify gaps in agricultural biodiversity to promote diverse diets and food production, and support biodiversity strategies.

For example, tools such as the Periodic Table of Food and Agrobiodiversity Index can help map food quality and improve existing knowledge on agricultural biodiversity by collecting relevant data to quantify the sustainability of global food systems.

These tools can inform national priorities for guaranteeing healthy, diverse foods from healthy, diverse environments. They can also facilitate the tracking of global commitments to protecting biodiversity, supporting the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework.

Meanwhile, the conservation of crop and animal genetic material in gene banks or biobanks is essential for safeguarding beneficial traits for future varieties better adapted to provide necessary nutrition and climate resilience.

Prioritising diverse diets can reap positive benefits for people and biodiversity, reducing reliance on foods that strain the environment and deliver limited nutritional value.

But this requires not only renewed commitments, but also effective actions, investment and targets for preserving genetic resources of all kinds of species needed for healthy, diverse diets.

Now that the UN biodiversity talks have concluded, we call on parties to commit to integrating nutrition-sensitive approaches in the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to support global biodiversity, food and nutrition security and health.

IPS UN Bureau