Pulse Brain · Growing Health Evidence Index
Tier 3 — Observational / field trialPeer-reviewed

Quantifying nutrient density and environmental impact

Gehring, J. et al.

2022

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Summary

Published in Global Food Security (2022), this paper by Gehring et al. addresses the methodological and empirical challenge of jointly assessing nutrient density and environmental impact across foods or diets. The study likely proposes or applies a combined metric framework to identify foods or dietary patterns that deliver high nutritional value at relatively low environmental cost. The findings are likely to have implications for sustainable dietary guidelines and food system policy.

UK applicability

Although the scope appears global, the metric frameworks and trade-off analyses developed in this paper are directly relevant to UK food policy debates around sustainable healthy diets, including work by the National Food Strategy and WRAP on environmentally sustainable dietary guidance.

Key measures

Nutrient density scores (e.g. NRF or similar index); greenhouse gas emissions (kg CO2-eq); land use (m² or ha); water use (litres); environmental impact per nutrient unit

Outcomes reported

The study likely quantified nutrient density scores alongside environmental impact indicators (such as greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and water use) across a range of food products or dietary patterns, examining the relationship and potential trade-offs between nutritional quality and environmental sustainability.

Theme
Measurement & metrics
Subject
Sustainable diets & food metrics
Study type
Research
Study design
Observational cohort
Source type
Peer-reviewed study
Status
Published
Geography
Global
System type
Food supply chain
Catalogue ID
XL0227

Topic tags

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