Rights statement: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Science of the Total Environment. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Science of the Total Environment, 779, 2021 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146497
Accepted author manuscript, 1 MB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC-ND
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - The potential benefits of dietary shift in China
T2 - Synergies among acceptability, health, and environmental sustainability
AU - Yin, J.
AU - Zhang, X.
AU - Huang, W.
AU - Liu, L.
AU - Zhang, Y.
AU - Yang, D.
AU - Hao, Y.
AU - Chen, Y.
N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Science of the Total Environment. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Science of the Total Environment, 779, 2021 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146497
PY - 2021/7/20
Y1 - 2021/7/20
N2 - The transition to a healthier diet recommended by national dietary guidelines in China may not achieve sufficient environmental benefits. This study assesses China's potential of transforming into a sustainable diet and the trade-offs among reducing food-related environmental impacts, improving nutritional quality and respecting eating habits. We used multi-objective optimization to build optimized scenarios, with the lowest environmental footprint and greatest acceptability (i.e., with the minimum departure from the currently observed diet) as optimization goals, and adequate macro- and micronutrient intake levels as constraints. In doing so, we assessed the actual benefits and synergies of reducing carbon footprint (CF), water footprint (WF), and ecological footprint (EF) and improving health and respecting dietary acceptance under the corresponding scenarios. The results show that CF, WF and EF can be reduced by up to 19%, 15% and 30% respectively, while satisfying nutritional constraints and achieving the minimum deviation from the current food combination. The greatest synergistic benefits for CF, WF and EF are achieved when the minimum CF is the optimization goal; the maximum synergistic benefits for the environment, health and acceptability are achieved when the CF is reduced by 10%. Our findings identify the trade-offs and synergies dietary changes considering nutritional benefits, environmental sustainability and acceptability, and reveal the challenges and opportunities for achieving such synergies. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.
AB - The transition to a healthier diet recommended by national dietary guidelines in China may not achieve sufficient environmental benefits. This study assesses China's potential of transforming into a sustainable diet and the trade-offs among reducing food-related environmental impacts, improving nutritional quality and respecting eating habits. We used multi-objective optimization to build optimized scenarios, with the lowest environmental footprint and greatest acceptability (i.e., with the minimum departure from the currently observed diet) as optimization goals, and adequate macro- and micronutrient intake levels as constraints. In doing so, we assessed the actual benefits and synergies of reducing carbon footprint (CF), water footprint (WF), and ecological footprint (EF) and improving health and respecting dietary acceptance under the corresponding scenarios. The results show that CF, WF and EF can be reduced by up to 19%, 15% and 30% respectively, while satisfying nutritional constraints and achieving the minimum deviation from the current food combination. The greatest synergistic benefits for CF, WF and EF are achieved when the minimum CF is the optimization goal; the maximum synergistic benefits for the environment, health and acceptability are achieved when the CF is reduced by 10%. Our findings identify the trade-offs and synergies dietary changes considering nutritional benefits, environmental sustainability and acceptability, and reveal the challenges and opportunities for achieving such synergies. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.
KW - Diet optimization
KW - Environmental footprint
KW - Environmental-health-acceptability nexus
KW - Integrative benefits
KW - Sustainable diet
KW - Synergy and trade-offs
KW - Carbon footprint
KW - Commerce
KW - Economic and social effects
KW - Environmental impact
KW - Multiobjective optimization
KW - Sustainable development
KW - Ecological footprint
KW - Environmental footprints
KW - Environmental sustainability
KW - Trade off
KW - Water footprint
KW - Nutrition
U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146497
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146497
M3 - Journal article
VL - 779
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
SN - 0048-9697
M1 - 146497
ER -