Tag: diets

Fruits, vegetables and bread. Photo: Ella Olsson (CC BY 2.0)

Fruits and vegetables are essential, but there are three reasons why it takes cereals to feed the world

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on January 17, 2022. Posted in Blogs.

Like many development research and funding organizations, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) is emphasizing a renewed commitment to a nutrition-sensitive approach to agricultural development projects.

As part of the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables, a recent blog proposed that one central issue of improved nutrition is consumption of more fruit and vegetables. We agree that a diverse diet including fruits and vegetables should be accessible to every person. Here we highlight the presence of a wider picture.

In the past decade, awareness has grown about the importance of diets that are rich in vitamins and minerals, and the need to combat micronutrient malnutrition which can lead to irreversible health outcomes impacting entire economies and perpetuating a tragic cycle of poverty and economic stagnation.

Lack of vitamins and minerals, often called “hidden hunger,” is not confined to lower-income food-insecure countries. In richer countries we clearly see a transition towards energy-rich, micronutrient-poor diets. In fact, populations throughout the world are eating more processed foods for reasons of convenience and price. To hit our global hunger and health targets we need to invest in nutrition-sensitive agricultural research and production as well as promoting affordable diets with varied and appealing nutrient-rich foods.

Alongside hunger, we have a pandemic of diet-related diseases that is partly caused by the over-consumption of energy-rich junk diets. This is because modern food formulations are often shaped towards addictive and unhealthy products. We see this in rising levels of obesity and diabetes, some cancers, heart diseases and chronic lung conditions.

Investing in agri-food research and improving nutrition will be much cheaper than treating these diet-related non-communicable diseases. Besides being healthier, many people will be much happier and able to live more productive lives.

Yet, the picture is bigger than micronutrient malnutrition. Even if new investments in research enable us to increase the production and delivery of fruits, vegetables and other nutrient-rich foods such as legumes and nuts, we will not have cracked the whole problem of food security, nutrition and health.

Besides “hidden hunger,” many hundreds of millions of people worldwide are hungry because they still lack the basic availability of food to live and work.

Women cook chapatis in Sani, Zanskar valley, India. Photo: SandeepaChetan's Travels (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) — Women cook chapatis in Sani, Zanskar valley, India. Photo: SandeepaChetan’s Travels (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Enter cereals. Wheat, maize and rice have been the major sources of dietary energy in the form of carbohydrates in virtually all societies and for thousands of years: recent research in the Middle East suggests that the original “paleo” diet was not just the result of hunting and gathering, but included cereals in bread and beer!

There are three reasons why cereals are essential to feeding the world:

First, nutritionists and medics tell us that cereals not only provide macronutrients — carbohydrates, proteins and fats — and micronutrients — vitamins and minerals. We now know that cereals are important sources of bioactive food components that are not usually classed as nutrients, but are essential to health all the same. These are compounds like carotenoids, flavonoids, phytosterols, glucosinolates and polyphenols, which are found naturally in various plant foods and have beneficial antioxidant, anticarcinogenic, anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties, likely to be important in mitigating and/or combating disease.
Second, whole-grain foods, especially wheat, are also a major source of dietary fibre, which is essential for efficient digestion and metabolism. Fibre from cereals also nourishes the human gut flora whose products such as short-chain fatty acids have many health benefits including combatting some cancers. Eating such carbohydrates also helps us recognise that we have eaten sufficiently, so that we know when “enough is enough.”
Third, cereal foods are relatively cheap to produce and to buy, and also easy to transport and preserve. Hence, supplies are relatively stable, and good nutrition from cereals is likely to remain accessible to less affluent people.

But all is not well with cereals these days. Cereals are under siege from climate change-related heat and drought, and new and more virulent forms of plant diseases, which threaten our agriculture and natural resources. There remains much research to undertake in this era of rapidly changing climatic conditions, and of economic and political stresses.

Here are a few strategies for agri-food research and its supporters:

We can further increase the nutritional content of cereal foods through biofortification during plant breeding.
We can produce disease- and heat-resilient varieties of grains that are efficient in the use of water and fertilizer, and whose production is not labor-intensive.
By working with communities, we can adapt new production technologies to local conditions, especially where women are the farmers.
We can enhance the quality of cereal foods through nutrient fortification during milling, and by better processing methods and food formulation.
Experts in all agri-food disciplines can work together to inform and “nudge” consumers to make healthy food purchasing decisions.

Cereals matter, but in an age of misinformation, we still have to be cautious: Some people are susceptible to certain components of cereals such as gluten. People who are medically diagnosed with cereal intolerances must shape their diets accordingly and get their carbohydrates and bioactive food components from other sources.

So, we cannot live on bread alone: We should aim for diets which are rich in diverse foods.

Such diets include fruits and vegetables that must be accessible to people in different regions, particularly to the most vulnerable, and that provide different macronutrients, micronutrients and essential bioactive components. For most of us, the health-promoting content of cereals means that they must remain a major part of the global diet.

Nigel Poole is Emeritus Professor of International Development at SOAS University of London and Consultant at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Rajiv Sharma is Senior Scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Alison Bentley is the Director of the Global Wheat Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Beneficial bioactives

Written by Emma Orchardson on May 27, 2021. Posted in Publications.

Popular starchy staples maize and wheat provide more than simple dietary energy, but they are often found at the center of debates around the excessive consumption of carbohydrates.

While the nutrient contribution of whole grains is commonly emphasized in dietary guidelines, the milling and subsequent processing of cereal products tends to reduce or remove much of the important protein, fat, vitamin and mineral content, and in recent years there has been increasing concern about the ultra-processing of cereal-based food products containing noxious dietary components that exacerbate the occurrence of non-communicable diseases.

For these reasons — and because of the focus on energy content — maize and wheat are not often considered to be among the categories of “nutrient-rich” foods that can contribute to reducing micronutrient malnutrition. Consequently, it is unsurprising that a popular perception that cereals make a limited contribution to nutritious diets persists. This view has not been successfully challenged by a necessarily nuanced understanding of the complex role of cereals, and particularly the carbohydrate fractions, in human nutrition.

“In addition to the hidden micronutrients, there is sound scientific and popular awareness of the importance of some dietary components such as dietary fiber,” says Nigel Poole, Emeritus Professor of International Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

“Though there is as yet imperfect scientific understanding and public awareness of the carbohydrates which make up dietary fiber,” he explains, “biomedical research continues to highlight the importance of carbohydrates in health and well-being. Moreover, there is a need for further knowledge on the nature and roles of many other bioactive food components that are not usually considered to be nutrients.”

These bioactives are substances such as carotenoids, flavonoids, and polyphenols. Most of the beneficial effects of the consumption of whole grain cereals on non-communicable diseases are currently attributed to the bioactive components of dietary fiber and the wide variety of phytochemicals.

A growing body of evidence from cereal chemistry, food science and metabolic studies shows that the bioactives in cereals are important for nutrition, health and well-being. In a new working paper authored in collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Poole demonstrates that there is considerable potential for plant breeding strategies to improve these elements of grain composition. This could be done through exploiting natural variation, genetic and genomic selection methods, and mutagenesis and transgenesis in order to modify cell wall polysaccharides, and specifically to improve the starch composition and structure in breeding material through natural and induced mutations.

Rebalancing the agri-nutrition research agenda, Poole argues, is necessary in order to explore, explain and exploit the contribution to diets of hitherto less-researched nutrient-dense crops and other foods. Nevertheless, because of the quantities in which cereals are consumed, the nutritional contribution of cereals in addition to energy complements the consumption of micronutrient-rich fruits, vegetables, nuts and pulses in diverse diets.

To leverage the bioactive content of cereals — including dietary fiber — as well as the macro- and micronutrient content, a comprehensive approach to food and nutrition systems from farm to metabolism is needed, spanning research disciplines and food systems’ stakeholders throughout the agri-food industries, and embracing policy makers, nutrition advocacy, and consumer education and behavior change.

Read the full working paper: Food security, nutrition and health: Implications for maize and wheat research and development

Nigel Poole conducted research for this paper during a year-long Visiting Fellowship at CIMMYT, with support from scientists at the institution.

‘Sharing’ or ‘sparing’ land?

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on February 14, 2020. Posted in Blogs. 4 Comments on ‘Sharing’ or ‘sparing’ land?

Any fifth grader is familiar with the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction, which saw dinosaurs — and three quarters of all species alive at that time — disappear from Earth, probably after it was struck by a very large asteroid. However, few people are aware the planet is currently going through a similar event of an equally large magnitude: a recent report from the World Wide Fund for Nature highlighted a 60% decline in the populations of over 4,000 vertebrate species monitored globally since 1970. This time, the culprit is not an asteroid, but human beings. The biggest threat we represent to other species is also the way we meet one of our most fundamental needs: food production.

As a response, scientists, particularly ecologists, have looked for strategies to minimize trade-offs between agriculture and biodiversity. One such strategy is “land sparing,” also known as the “Borlaug effect.” It seeks to segregate production and conservation and to maximize yield on areas as small as possible, sparing land for nature. Another strategy is “land sharing” or “wildlife-friendly farming,” which seeks to integrate production and conservation in the same land units and make farming as benign as possible to biodiversity. It minimizes the use of external inputs and retains unfarmed patches on farmland.

A heated debate between proponents of land sparing and proponents of land sharing has taken place over the past 15 years. Most studies, however, have found land sparing to lead to better outcomes than land sharing, in a range of contexts. With collaborators from CIFOR, UBC and other organizations, I hypothesized that this belief was biased because researchers assessed farming through a narrow lens, only looking at calories or crop yield.

Many more people today suffer from hidden hunger, or lack of vitamins and minerals in their diets, than lack of calories. Several studies have found more diverse and nutritious diets consumed by people living in or near areas with greater tree cover as trees are a key component of biodiversity. However, most of these studies have not looked at mechanisms explaining this positive association.

Forests for food

Studying seven tropical landscapes in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Nicaragua and Zambia, we found evidence that tree cover directly supports diets in four landscapes out of seven. This may be through the harvest of bushmeat, wild fruits, wild vegetables and other forest-sourced foods. The study further found evidence of an agroecological pathway — that forests and trees support diverse crop and livestock production through an array of ecosystem services, ultimately leading to improved diets — in five landscapes out of seven. These results clearly demonstrate that although land sparing may have the best outcomes for biodiversity, it would cut off rural households from forest products such as forest food, firewood and livestock feed. It would also cut off smallholder farms from ecosystem services provided by biodiversity, and smallholders in the tropics tend to depend more on ecosystem services than on external inputs.

In Ethiopia, previous research conducted by some of the same authors has demonstrated that multifunctional landscapes that do not qualify as land sparing nor as land sharing may host high biodiversity whilst being more productive than simpler landscapes. They are more sustainable and resilient, provide more diverse diets and produce cereals with higher nutritional content.

The debate on land sparing vs. sharing has largely remained confined to the circles of conservation ecologists and has seldom involved agricultural scientists. As a result, most studies on land sparing vs. sharing have focused on minimizing the negative impact of farming on biodiversity, instead of looking for the best compromises between agricultural production and biodiversity conservation.

To design landscapes that truly balance the needs of people and nature, it is urgent for agronomists, agricultural economists, rural sociologists and crop breeders to participate in the land sparing vs. sharing debate.

This study was made possible by funding from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the project Agrarian Change in Tropical Landscapes, and by the CGIAR Research Programs on MAIZE and WHEAT.

Freshly baked rye bread is displayed next to wheat spikes and grains. (Photo: Marco Verch/Flickr)

Healthy diets feature both whole- and refined-grain foods, new study shows

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on November 20, 2019. Posted in Press releases. 1 Comment on Healthy diets feature both whole- and refined-grain foods, new study shows

Grain-based foods — both whole-grain and refined, from which the bran has been removed — are a key part of healthy diets, according to a study published in the science journal Advances in Nutrition.

The study, co-authored by Julie Miller Jones of St. Catherine University, Carlos Guzman of the Universidad de Córdoba and Hans-Joachim Braun of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), reviewed findings of more than 100 research papers from nutrition and medical journals as well as national health recommendations. It presents evidence for positive health impacts from diverse diets that include not more than 50% carbohydrates and the right mix of grain-based foods.

“Epidemiological studies consistently show that eating three 30-gram portions of whole-grain foods — say, half a cup of oats — per day is associated with reduced chronic disease risk,” said Miller Jones, Professor Emerita at St. Catherine University and first author of the study. “But refined-grain foods — especially staple, enriched or fortified ones of the ‘non-indulgent’ type — also provide key vitamins and minerals that are otherwise lacking in people’s diets.”

“Cereal grains help feed the world by providing millions of calories per hectare and large amounts of plant-based protein,” said Braun, director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat. “They are affordable, shelf stable, portable, versatile, and popular, and will play a key role as the world transitions to plant-based diets to meet future food needs.”

Folate fortification of refined grains has helped reduce the incidence of spina bifida, anencephaly, and other birth defects, according to Miller Jones. “And despite contributing to high sugar intake, ready-to-eat breakfast cereals are typically consumed with nutritious foods such as milk, yogurt, and fruit,” she added.

All grain-based foods, refined and whole, are good sources of dietary fiber, which is essential for sound health but critically lacking in modern diets. “Only 4 percent of the U.S. population, for example, eats recommended levels of dietary fiber,” she said.

Obesity, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and other illnesses from unbalanced diets and unhealthy habits are on the rise in countries such as the U.S., driving up health care expenditures. The annual medical costs of obesity alone there have been estimated at nearly $150 billion.

“Dietary choices are determined partly by lifestyle but also co-vary with daily habits and personal traits,” Miller Jones explained. “People who eat more whole-grain foods are more likely to exercise, not smoke, and have normal body weights, as well as attaining higher levels of education and socioeconomic status.”

According to the study, recommendations for grain-based foods need to encourage a healthy number of servings and replacing half of refined-grain foods with whole-grain products, as well as providing clearer and unbiased definitions of both types of grain-based foods.

RELATED RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS:

Perspective: Whole and Refined Grains and Health — Evidence Supporting “Make Half Your Grains Whole”

INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:

Hans Braun – Director of the Global Wheat Program, CIMMYT

FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO ARRANGE INTERVIEWS, CONTACT THE MEDIA TEAM:

Marcia MacNeil, Communications Officer, CGIAR Research Program on Wheat, CIMMYT.
m.macneil@cgiar.org, +52 (55) 5804 2004 ext. 2070.

Rodrigo Ordóñez, Communications Manager, CIMMYT.
r.ordonez@cgiar.org, +52 (55) 5804 2004 ext. 1167.

ABOUT CIMMYT:

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. For more information, visit staging.cimmyt.org.

This research is supported by CGIAR Fund Donors.

CIMMYT scientists Natalia Palacios (left), Jason Donovan (center) and Santiago Lopez-Ridaura discuss the implications of a "planetary health diet" for producers and consumers in low- and middle-income countries. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)

The recipe for better food systems

Written by Matthew O'Leary on June 12, 2019. Posted in Features.

How food is produced, consumed, and how much is lost or wasted shapes the health of both people and planet. The EAT-Lancet Commission report, released in January 2019, brought together 30 interdisciplinary scientists from across the globe to propose a dietary pattern that meets nutritional requirements and promotes health but uses less environmental resources.

The report promotes diets consisting of a variety of plant-based foods, with low amounts of animal-based foods, refined grains, highly processed foods or added sugars, and with unsaturated rather than saturated fats.

The EAT Food Forum 2019 is taking place in Stockholm June 11-14, 2019. Natalia Palacios, maize quality specialist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), will participate in a panel of agricultural research experts organized by CGIAR which will explore the implications of the EAT-Lancet report in the Global South, particularly for small farmers.

Palacios and her CIMMYT colleagues Santiago Lopez Ridaura, agronomist, and Jason Donovan, socioeconomist, got together for a conversation with CIMMYT editors to analyze how EAT-Lancet recommendations adapt to smallholder farmers’ realities.

Can nutrition bring the food system together?

Santiago Lopez Ridaura: Nutrition is the perfect setting to create system approaches to food. Nutrition involves everything: production quality, the genetics of the seed, input supply, output demand, as well as the purchasing power of farmers, dietary and cooking habits. It truly requires an interdisciplinary approach to look at food systems through a nutrition lens.

Natalia Palacios: We must stop thinking about the crop and think about the diet. Interdisciplinary and inter-institutional research is key to improve nutrition and agricultural sustainability in the context of smallholder farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Lopez-Ridaura: An economic analysis, a soil fertility study, or pest and disease breeding alone does not give us a holistic view of the food system. However, nutrition gives us the opportunity to have an integrated view. Equally, sustainability and avoiding food loss relate to all parts of the food system.

It’s a synergy of things. CIMMYT has been advocating for a systems approach to maize and wheat farming and nutrition, and sustainability fits right in with this.

Jason Donovan: It’s time to develop that dialogue, including specialists from different fields such as nutritionists, economists, agronomists, breeders and gender specialists when we investigate and form research questions on the health benefits and sustainability of our food systems and take holistic view of how all these things come together.

Palacios: A shift in our priority research is needed. It is important to integrate resilient production with nutrition. Focus only on productivity should no longer be the driver. We might not need big changes in the technologies and interventions, but we need to make sure nutrition and consumer demands are included.

There is no silver-bullet solution. You need to take action from different points, whether it is biofortified crops, intercropping for diversified diets or access to markets.

Is the EAT-Lancet report a recipe for a planetary diet?

Palacios: The report takes a global focus and is overwhelmingly targeted at high income nations. However, if we look at its five strategies, they are actually applicable for low- and middle-income countries as well: Seek international and national commitment to shift toward healthy diets; reorient agricultural priorities from producing high quantities of food to producing healthy food; sustainably intensify food production to increase high-quality output; strong and coordinated governance of land and oceans; and halve food losses at the production side and food waste at the consumption side.

CIMMYT scientists Natalia Palacios (left), Santiago Lopez-Ridaura (center) and Jason Donovan discuss the implications of a "planetary health diet" for producers and consumers in low- and middle-income countries. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT) — CIMMYT scientists Natalia Palacios (left), Santiago Lopez-Ridaura (center) and Jason Donovan discuss the implications of a “planetary health diet” for producers and consumers in low- and middle-income countries. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)

Lopez-Ridaura: Rather than a recipe, the commission proposes a “reference healthy diet” that will need to be adapted to different regions and cultures. More importantly, the trajectories towards such diet will probably be very different, depending on the region and culture, the current dietary habits of the population, and the production systems they are based on.

In some cases, consumption of meat and sugars will need to decrease, but in other regions it might need to be increased. It all depends on the current situation.

Donovan: The report highlighted the sustainability issues around our food production. Although it was focused toward high-income countries who consume a lot of proteins. One of the big questions I had after reading it was the “how” question. In a lot of countries where we work — in Africa, Asia and Latin America — the consumption of meat is increasing at a rapid pace.

So, the question that struck me was how do these societies with fast rural and urban transformations, and an increasing taste for animal-based food products, fit into the context of the report? How can we promote plant-based diets in these contexts?

Adjusting their diets towards a universal healthy reference diet would be difficult as there is little room for maneuver.

Is adaptation the key to success?

Lopez-Ridaura: Yes, adaptation is needed and I think the EAT-Lancet Commission colleagues are well aware of that. The healthy reference diet needs to be seen as such, as a reference, with some basic principles regarding food quantity and quality as well as sustainable use of resources.

Each region, sub-region or even families and individuals will need to adapt their dietary habits and production systems in order to attain healthy diets and halt the degradation of the resource base.

Palacios: It is important to look at smallholder farmers in the context of diet and sustainable agriculture. We need to ask, what are they growing? How are they growing it? How are they eating it? What do they sell?

Quite often smallholder farmers are already using agricultural practices that improve their nutrition and benefit the environment. For example, look at the milpa farm system: it combines maize, beans, squash, chili, tomatoes and seasonal fruits to provide a diverse plant-based diet. The milpa system, combined with crop residue retention and other conservation agriculture techniques can improve soil fertility.

Latin American farmers also use the traditional nixtamalization technique to prepare maize grain for cooking, which improves its nutritional value. Farmers in Africa are adopting green manure cover crops grown with maize as a way to improve soil health, diversify household diets and provide a cash crop to be sold at markets.

It is important that these initiatives are promoted through national and local government policy and supported by the private sector if they are to have real impact on the health of people and the planet.

Donovan: Local policies to promote healthy diets and diversification in the field are being put in place — Latin America is a good example. However, this is not at a scale where it can have real impact on the health of people and environments. There is pressure on the private sector to respond, especially considering the increasing consumption of processed foods. It is important to engage with the private sector on issues of nutrition and sustainability.

Solutions will be at multiple levels when we look at nutrition and food systems. Too often the actors in a food system act alone, for example many NGOs, universities, and government programs. There needs to be unity in action — players need to work together as creators of holistic solutions. This is currently a gap, as many nutritionists do not look at agriculture or food systems. Addressing this can have a significant impact on the health of family farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

This story is part of our coverage of the EAT Stockholm Food Forum 2019.
See other stories and the details of the side event in which CIMMYT is participating.