{"id":12667,"date":"2021-08-27T11:36:04","date_gmt":"2021-08-27T08:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=12667"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:31:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:31:29","slug":"traffic-light-system-quantifies-foods-health-and-environmental-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2021\/08\/27\/traffic-light-system-quantifies-foods-health-and-environmental-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Traffic-light system\u2019 quantifies foods\u2019 health and environmental impact"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dietary choices affect both the environment and human health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Consuming too many unhealthy foods and too few healthy foods are leading causes of health burden in the United States. One&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736(19)30041-8\/fulltext\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">studyTrusted Source<\/a>&nbsp;found that in 2017, dietary factors contributed to 11 million deaths and 255 million disability-adjusted life years globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we eat also impacts the environment by influencing&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/nature10452\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">food productionTrusted Source<\/a>, which affects land use and greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Research has suggested that food systems have environmental limitations. One&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41893-019-0465-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">studyTrusted Source<\/a>&nbsp;found that, under current conditions, the planet\u2019s food system can only provide 43% of the world\u2019s population, or 3.4 billion people, with a balanced diet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-018-0594-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">studyTrusted Source<\/a>&nbsp;found that if we do not adopt technological changes and prevention strategies, our food system will exceed planetary boundaries safe for humanity by 2050.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Simultaneously quantifying the health and environmental risk factors of different foods could help policymakers, food producers, and consumers make dietary choices that benefit both human health and the environment.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a recent study, researchers from the University of Michigan and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/?term=Victor%20L%20Fulgoni%5BAuthor%5D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Victor L FulgoniTrusted Source<\/a>\u00a0from Nutrition Impact, LLC, created a scale that combines the environmental impact of foods alongside their health effects to help consumers improve their dietary health while protecting the environment. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.medicalnewstoday.com\/articles\/traffic-light-system-quantifies-foods-health-and-environmental-impact\">Read more>><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dietary choices affect both the environment and human health. Consuming too many unhealthy foods and too few healthy foods are leading causes of health burden in the United States. One&nbsp;studyTrusted&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}