HOW SUSTAINABILITY FITS INTO FOOD BASED DIETARY GUIDELINES

Dietary guidelines are official documents prepared and published by government agencies as the translation of nutrition science to guide public policy and to advise people on diets that promote health. Considering climate change and disruption in planetary systems, the need for transforming food systems and consumption patterns towards sustainability is considered as a key approach to reduce negative effects. In other words, if we are to achieve substantial reductions in food-related greenhousegas (GHG) emissions, then we will have to address not only how we produce and distribute our food, but also what we eat. Therefore, developing a better understanding of characteristics of a sustainable diet has become a priority for development of dietary guidelines.Sustainable Diets are defined as diets with low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations. Such diets are expected to be protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable; nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy; while optimizing natural and human resources. Based on this definition, nutritious dietary guidelines may not fulfill environment and other aspects of human health requirements. And, developing integral nutritional advice that takes into account climate impact, land use (LU), and health gains of diet is quite a challenge. In addition, prescriptions around healthy and sustainable food consumption should be placed in relation to social practices, thus it is tried to identify what elements of practice have had more influence on shifting the planning, preparing and eating a meal towards the normative goal of improved human health and reduced environmental impacts.This paper reviews the recent attempts by a number of countries on development of sustainable dietary guidelines and explores their environmental vs. health impacts. In other words, the main challenge of future dietary guidelines is integrating healthy and environmentally friendly diet recommendations. In this regards, the sustainability of the two official versions of Iran dietary guidelines have also been evaluated. Overall, this review shows that greatest reduction in GHG and LU can be obtained by reducing consumption, specifically the consumption of meat, dairy products, extras, and beverages.