Opportunities within the Agri-food System to Encourage a Nutritionally Balanced Diet – Part I

ABSTRACT

To meet their growing interest and to counteract the increase of diet-related diseases worldwide, the field-to-fork concept comprises opportunities for providing consumers with nutritious and health-beneficial food. Although health-beneficial effects have been ascribed to specific food compounds, most often in vivo human evidence and/or accepted health/nutrient claims are lacking. Part I of this review gives an overview of possible sources of macronutrients, micronutrients and other compounds (e.g. secondary metabolites) with proven in vivo human health-beneficial effects and/or health/nutrition EFSA claims. More importantly, it focuses on opportunities within the primary production to obtain/increase/maintain sufficient amounts of such compounds: (i) crop choice, breeding, crop husbandry and environment, harvesting/storage for plant-derived products, (ii) breeding stock selection, feeding strategies and animal husbandry for animal-derived products. However, providing food commodities/products with sufficient amounts of such nutrients is one thing, but aspects like, for example, bioavailability and interindividual variability play a role as well. As such, a balanced diet should be aimed at by means of differentiation within the dietary pattern while considering foods as a whole rather than a sum of compounds. Within this concept, all factors/actors of the agriculture-food-health trichotomy should be integrated as much as possible to provide consumers with health-beneficial food commodities/products.

KEYWORDS:

• Agri-food system
• health-beneficial
• micronutrient
• macronutrient
• health/nutrition claims
• primary production

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Marijke Aluwé, Marc De Loose, Karen Goossens, Ludwig Lauwers, Bart Sonck and Johan Van Huylenbroeck for their scientific input/guidance and participation in discussions concerning the topics addressed in this review article.

Notes

¹ http://www.fao.org/infoods/infoods/en/

² (http://www.fao.org/docrep/u8480e/U8480E07.HTM)