Foresight diet quality: current trends and future problems

Abstract Current evidence suggests that several aspects of diet quality is globally suboptimal. While increasing animal-based products could exert certain benefits against undernutrition in developing countries, the preference of mass-produced low-quality meat-products over other animal-based ones (i.e., milk, dairy, and eggs) and their overall excessive consumption in spite of plant-based ones has been deemed responsible, at least in part, of the rise of non-communicable diseases. The industry-led response to the growing need of animal-food alternatives may not necessarily meet the health objectives of a natural vegetable source against highly processed products rich in chemical additives. Research in this area is growing producing mixed results, while adoption of plant-based dietary patterns seems less and less equivalent to be synonymous of a healthy nor sustainable choice. In this presentation, data on the current state of evidence on global food consumption, dietary patterns, as well as the relation between level of food processing and health will be provided.