Dietary shifts are among the most important actions we can take to reduce the environmental impact of our food system and improve human health. However, implementing such changes requires that dietary recommendations be tailored to the cultural heritage, values and preferences of populations.

Not only does the problem persist, but it is also getting worse. Nature Food’s Collection ‘Loss and waste in food systems’ is a contribution to the debate on drivers, impacts and solutions.

Monitoring systems that incentivize, track and verify compliance with social and environmental standards are widespread in food systems. In particular, digital monitoring approaches using remote sensing, machine learning, big data, smartphones, platforms and blockchain are proliferating. The increasing use and availability of these technologies put us at a critical juncture to leverage these innovations

Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and temperature unevenly affect the two main rice subspecies, which is predicted to increase the yield gap between low-income and middle- to high-income countries later this century.

Protein content in wild-harvested meat can exceed that of domestic livestock3, is low in saturated and trans fats4, and high in bioavailable micronutrients5 important for reducing malnutrition6. Animal-based foods are the most expensive component of food budgets, representing 40% of income for a healthy diet that can be augmented through wildlife harvests. In Namibia, for example, the contribution

The association between adherence to healthy dietary patterns during pregnancy and higher exposure to certain chemicals highlights the need for an exposomics-based approach to better understand the impacts on maternal and child health.

Climate change and Russian invasion threaten Ukraine’s crop production. Data-informed climate adaptations and water management for sustainable irrigation expansion are recommended for post-invasion recovery in Ukraine and global food security.

Diets are not monitored towards global nutrition-related targets either, despite clear commitments to “ensure access by all people to safe, nutritious and sufficient food” explicit in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2. Current SDG 2 indicators, which capture undernourishment (that is, insufficient dietary energy supply at a national level), food insecurity, and nutritional status of children and

Mariculture, or aquaculture in marine coastal environments, can contribute towards projected food demand increases. Greenhouse gas emissions from mariculture, including methane and nitrous oxide, could be 40% lower than emissions from land-based aquaculture.

The complex realities of most countries grappling with zinc deficiency pose challenges to the implementation of highly compliant, mandatory, large-scale food fortification programmes.

Working conditions in food systems remain precarious across the globe. Little scientific guidance exists on what works where when it comes to initiatives aimed at addressing this issue. Investments in large-scale, nationally representative agricultural worker data are needed to properly document the scale and nature of working conditions and better guide policy design and implementation.

Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) play a crucial role in infant health. Yet their production on a large scale presents challenges. A diverse range of HMOs can be effectively produced through plant-based methods, opening up the possibility of using HMOs as prebiotic supplements in a sustainable and cost-effective manner.

Staying within the safe and just planetary boundary of phosphorus in China at the river-basin scale requires a systemic management strategy for the livestock sector.

Crop diversity and cropland area stabilize food production as much as irrigation, but larger countries are likely to benefit more. This relationship can guide policy development and nation-specific management strategies in the pursuit of stable food supplies.

Biological diversity and food availability are intrinsically linked, yet trade-offs between them often arise. Further research is needed on the specific issues faced in different contexts and what could help overcome them.

Circularity principles and tipping the ratio of animal- to plant-based proteins towards plant-based diets could largely reduce greenhouse gas emissions and land-use change impacts in the EU28, while avoiding micronutrient losses associated with lower animal-based protein intake.

Dietary patterns make a substantial contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Research is needed to investigate whether these dietary pattern-level GHG emission contributions can be disaggregated into food product-specific GHG emissions estimates and used to encourage citizens to switch from high- to low-emitting foods.

A sweet gel from the endocarp of cocoa pods and the concentrated juice of the cocoa fruit pulp can replace sugar in a chocolate recipe, reducing the environmental impact associated with its production and improving the nutritional value of chocolate.

Food systems are responsible for around one-third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and dish-level emissions are detailed end-use representatives of demand-side emissions. Low-carbon food consumption strategies are therefore linked to the Paris Agreement targets and might determine their achievement.