La Dieta Sostenibile

The eating behaviors of populations and individuals depend on multiple geographic, climatic, cultural, ideological and religious factors that are difficult to change, but may be reconsidered in an "ecological" perspective. As reported by FAO, a “sustainable” diet should be nutritionally adequate, safe, culturally acceptable, but also it should allow and/or to optimize natural and human resources. A measure of the environmental impact of food production is its carbon footprint evaluated as greenhouse gas emission (GHGEs), with the contribution of the food chain ranging from 15% to 30% of total global GHGEs. In this regard, sugar has the lowest GHGEs. In addition, the common belief that plant-based diet is more ecofriendly than one of food of animal origin may be discussed on the basis of GHGEs net increase due to the replacement of meat with isocaloric amounts of vegetables and fruit. In brief the environmental impact of foods needs to be linked to nutrient density and in particular to the biological value of proteins. Therefore a “sustainable” diet could be proposed without the need to abolish food of animal origin which is an important source of essential nutrients.