Toward healthy and sustainable diets in Switzerland

With this case study, we would like to illustrate how a reasearch team approached a concrete sustainability transformation and what results they produced.

Which transformation? – Healthy and sustainable diets

This project investigates how a transition to a healthy and more sustainable diet could be encouraged and how social resistance hindering such a transition can be addressed and mitigated.

Goals of the research project

The NRP 69 project aims at understanding the development of dietary practices and provides incentives for a transition toward healthy and sustainable nutrition in Switzerland by examining the following four components:

• Find out what diets are currently prescribed as healthy and sustainable and gain a better understanding of nutrition trends
• Analyse how these diets evolve as social practices from the perspective of eating habits, social dynamics and material aspects of consumption
• Study the impact of these diets on health and environment by adopting a novel life-cycle approach
• Explore opportunities and barriers associated with a transition to healthy and sustainable diets and identify tipping points for the adoption of dietary change

Approach

The research team was composed of members from the universities of Lausanne and Geneva, EPFL and Quantis, a company specialising in life cycle assessments. The researchers used specific methods for operationalising the research questions: Life cycle analysis was used to quantify both the health and environment impacts of various diets identified by menuCH, the first Swiss nutrition survey. Interviews and group discussions with consumers, interviews with experts, and a general public survey allowed identifying key factors influencing eating habits and implementation of dietary recommendation.

Transformation and transformative research

This research is situated at the intersection of transformation research and transformative research: On the one hand it produces knowledge about the factors influencing a transition towards more healthy and sustainable diets, which is a key element of transformation research. On the other hand, the research is transformative as it brings together arguments for ‘healthy nutrition’ and the arguments for ‘sustainable nutrition’ and identifies possible and encouraging ways for changing practices.

Findings

Varied recommendations with an emphasis on health

The findings show that existing recommendations mainly promote health but have less concern for environment-related effects. Data also illustrate that the large variety of overlapping and contradicting prescriptions have the potential to confuse consumers (see the most important dietary prescriptions in Switzerland grouped in seven categories in the graph below).

Effects on health and environment

Different diets have different effects on health and the environment. Compared with diets based on meat, vegetarian and vegan diets result in lower CO2 emissions – but all diets should be less dependent on fossil fuels for production and transports. For meat-based diets, the imported animal fodder from countries with high percentage of deforestation is a key issue.

Negative effects on health mainly result from overconsumption of processed meat and sodium and a lack of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.

Les contraintes de temps et la dynamique sociale influencent nos habitudes alimentaires

Les résultats soulignent l'importance du temps et de la mobilité dans la mise en œuvre des recommandations. Les rythmes de la vie quotidienne, tels que les trajets domicile-travail, mais aussi les différentes étapes de la vie (vivre seul, avoir des enfants, etc.) influencent les régimes alimentaires et la mise en œuvre des recommandations.

Recommandations pour faciliter une alimentation saine et durable

Sur la base des principaux résultats, l'équipe de projet formule trois recommandations essentielles à l'intention des décideurs politiques et des consommateurs.

• Tout d'abord, elle suggère la création d'un Forum suisse de politique alimentaire pour relier les différents secteurs du système alimentaire. Cette idée est née de discussions avec diverses parties prenantes et de la reconnaissance du fait que l'alimentation est un sujet transversal, qui touche à l'agriculture, à la mobilité, à la santé, etc.
• Deuxièmement, les politiques nutritionnelles devraient être guidées par les pratiques sociales et tenir compte de la complexité de la vie quotidienne, de ses rythmes et des événements de la vie.
• Troisièmement, il est jugé plus efficace de formuler les recommandations de manière positive, par exemple en encourageant les gens à manger des produits sains et respectueux de l'environnement plutôt qu'en interdisant les aliments moins sains et moins durables. Les régimes alimentaires sont également en transition, et l'adoption de régimes plus sains et plus durables est souvent un processus progressif, vers plus de céréales et de légumes et moins de viande, par exemple.