more responsible food is still needed
There loss of 80% of wealth and of the diversity of life on the Planet is attributable to what he eats, as well as a third of CO2 emissions and 70% of fresh water withdrawals. A food system that is very harmful to the environment but also to people’s health and our safety, as the last one shows “Living Planet Report 2022” published a few days ago by the WWF and the Zoological Society of London.
In World Food Day WWFthanks to the program Food4Futurere-launches the invitation to institutions and the entire supply chain to transform themselves into a system that is now unsustainable and sends a message to all consumers to adopt even more responsible food for our health and the environment.
In Italy we have the best possible diets, the Mediterranean Diet, a model recognized in the world. But the data are that Italians (especially young people) no longer follow this healthy and sustainable style and they are increasingly overweight and malnourished, due to incorrect eating habits and an increasingly sedentary life.
It would be enough recover the habits of our grandparentsthe diet he had on little meat, with large portions of cereals, legumes and fruit and vegetables that the seasons followed. If in Italy we followed the Mediterranean diet, the daily emissions per capita 2.3 kg of CO2e, in line with the planetary objectives. The transition from other European and American diets to the Mediterranean food model involves a land savings of 10-18 m2 per capita per day and a water saving of 100-240 liters per capita per day.
Wars and conflicts, climate change and the cost of living are the main causes that push populations towards the malnutrition and food insecurity. In the world we continue to a lot of food and we waste at least a third of it. Four out of ten people in the world, 3 billion in all, do not have the opportunity to have a healthy diet and at the same time another 2 billion are obese or overweight.
There malnutrition it is not only of the poorest, it increases in developed countries. Even the numbers of malnutrition in Italy they are alarming: L‘obesity interest one in ten adults and one third of children in the 6-9 year-old age group he is obese or overweight, a figure that confirms the Italian primacy at European level.
“Hunger and obesity are paradoxically two sides of the same coin. We need to improve the nutrition status of the planet, eradicating all forms of malnutrition in the world – concludes Eva Alessi, Head of Sustainability at WWF Italy. “