Ebenezer Miezah Kwofie, Ph.D. - Sustainable Healthy Diets: Examining the Trade-offs of Processing, Nutrition and Environmental Sustainability

Production and consumption of sustainable healthy diets are the desired outcome of the food system. In the last decade, consumer demand for nutritious and environmentally sustainable diets has increased considerably. Navigating the health-environmental dynamics is becoming essential in consumer food choices because healthy foods may not necessarily be sustainable, and vice versa. For household meal preparation, the impact of processing significantly changes this environmental nutrition relationship. In low resource setting communities, the processing choices further complicate this relationship because of the socioeconomic implications. Examining the dynamics and the associated trade-offs of this complex network is critical and could be an important pathway for transitioning towards sustainable healthy diets. Using the common bean value chain as a case study, we will examine the impact of processing on nutritional and nutraceutical quality, and explore the dynamics of the trade-offs of processing, nutrition, environmental sustainability, and the socioeconomic implications of such processing choices in a low resource setting community.