"The Importance of Animal-Sourced Foods for a Healthy Diet: A Comprehensive Analysis by FAO"

2023-04-28 17:25:00

Globally, more than one billion people depend on livestock value chains for their livelihood.

Photo: Oscar Perez

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) released a report this week stating that meat, eggs and milk are sources of essential nutrients that cannot be obtained in the same way through food consumption. of vegetable origin.

According to the study on the “contribution of food of terrestrial animal origin to a healthy diet to improve nutrition and health” These foods are “especially important” during fundamental stages of life such as pregnancy and lactation, childhood, adolescence and old age.

This is the most comprehensive analysis to date on the benefits and risks of consuming foods of animal origin. For its preparation, data and evidence from more than 500 scientific articles and some 250 regulatory documents were consulted.

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The aforementioned foods provide a series of important nutrients such as proteins, fats and carbohydrates, which “are not easily obtained from foods of vegetable origin in the necessary quality and quantity”.

Various foods derived from livestock production systems, including grazing systems and from hunting wild animals, provide high-quality protein, important fatty acids, and various vitamins and minerals, contributing to a healthy diet for improved nutrition and health.

Furthermore, livestock species are adapted to a wide range of environments, including areas that are unsuitable for crop production, and globally more than a billion people depend on livestock value chains for their livelihoods.

Small-scale ranchers and pastoralists make up a large proportion of livestock producers, so well-integrated livestock production increases the resilience of small-scale farming systems.

Livestock also provide other important ecosystem services in landscape management, provide energy and help improve soil fertility. These grasslands occupy about 40% of the world’s land area, ranchers raise grazing animals to transform grassland vegetation into food.

Some facts about the lack of essential nutrients

Globally, some 372 million children and 1.2 billion women of childbearing age lack at least one of these three nutrients: iron, vitamin A or zinc.
Three quarters of these children live in South and East Asia, the Pacific, and sub-Saharan Africa.
Correlations can be found between the lack of essential nutrients with the consumption of foods of terrestrial animal origin (including milk, eggs and meat), which varies from country to country.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, the average annual consumption of milk is only 160 grams per inhabitant, while in Montenegro it amounts to 338 kilograms.
An inhabitant of South Sudan consumes 2 grams of eggs on average per year and in Burundi (East Africa) the average annual consumption of meat is only 3 kilos per inhabitant, compared to 136 in Hong Kong.

FAO. 2023. Contribution of terrestrial animal foods to healthy diets to improve nutrition and health outcomes: an overview of evidence and policy on the state of knowledge and gaps. Rome.

Photo: Capture FAO Report

Challenges for the Sustainable Development Goals

According to the report, if consumed as part of a balanced diet, animal-sourced foods can help meet nutrition goals approved by the World Health Assembly and the Sustainable Development Goals related to:

Reduction of growth retardation.
Wasting (a life-threatening form of malnutrition, causes extreme thinness and weakness) in children under five years of age.
Low birth weight.
Anemia in women of reproductive age.
Obesity and noncommunicable diseases in adults.

“Livestock species and breeds contribute to a healthy diet, especially in areas that are little or not at all suitable for agricultural production,” say the Deputy Director General of FAO and the Organization’s chief economist in the report’s foreword.

However, Maria Helena Semedo and Máximo Torero Cullen explain that, in order to optimize this contribution to human and planetary health, the livestock sector must contribute to addressing a series of challenges related to:

The environment: deforestation, land use change, greenhouse gas emissions, unsustainable use of water and land, pollution, competition between food and feed
Herd management: low productivity, overgrazing, poor animal welfare
Animal health: diseases, antimicrobial resistance
The interaction between man and livestock: zoonotic diseases and foodborne diseases
Society: equity, for example

Risks of eating foods of animal origin

The study indicates that consumption of processed red meat, even in low amounts, it can increase the risk of mortality and chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and colorectal cancer.

However the Unprocessed red meat consumption in moderate amounts (between 9 and 71 g per day) it may entail minimal risk, but it is considered safe in terms of its incidence in the development of chronic diseases.

Meanwhile, there is no evidence conclusive of the relationship between milk consumption in healthy adults and diseases such as coronary heart disease, stroke, and hypertension. Neither there is significant evidence of the link between the consumption of eggs and poultry and said diseases.

Before the publication of the report, FAO highlighted that the Livestock Subcommittee of the Organization encouraged governments to update dietary guidelines nationals to specify how they contribute meat, eggs and milk to meet specific nutrient needs at different stages of human life.