Assessing food-based dietary guidelines from a resource use perspective

Summary

Reducing animal-source food (ASF) consumption is often proposed as a strategy to both reduce environmental impacts of food systems and improve diet quality. Food-based dietary guidelines are a common starting point for dietary improvements. However, these guidelines are generally designed from a diet quality perspective, and hence not linked to environmental impacts of food production. Here, we assessed whether nationally recommended quantities of ASF can be produced based on low-opportunity cost feed. We investigated this in a scenario analysis using an optimisation model. In this model, feed resources are allocated to different animal production systems in order to maximise different nutritional outcomes for humans. In addition, we calculated the global warming potential of each scenarios. While recommended quantities of ASF could not be met, limiting ASF to the extent that could be produced with low-opportunity cost feed would avoid feed-food competition as well as reduce global warming potential.