Sustainable nutrition encompasses food systems’ capacity to furnish ample energy and essential nutrients for maintaining population health, while safeguarding the ability of future generations to fulfill their nutritional requirements. Sustainable food systems, with minimal environmental impact, uphold food and nutrition security, promoting healthy lives for present and future generations. Moreover, they safeguard biodiversity and ecosystems, ensuring cultural acceptability, accessibility, affordability, nutritional adequacy, safety, and healthiness.

In this vein, PUA’s Faculty of Applied Health Sciences Technology elucidated a framework for achieving such sustainability. Efforts to enhance the sustainability of food systems vis-à-vis health and nutrition revolve around several axes. Firstly, curtailing food waste and pursuing sustainable protein sources are paramount. Addressing food waste involves strategies like minimizing waste in production, reusing when feasible, and recycling. Secondly, emphasis is placed on adopting more sustainable protein sources, given the resource-intensive nature of animal farming. This entails a shift towards plant-based protein sources such as legumes, although animals still play a role in sustainable systems by utilizing non-arable land and recycling food waste streams.