RBA4SDS – Risk–benefit assessment for sustainable dietary shifts

Diets are evolving to cope with the ecological transition and reduce the environmental impact of agri-food systems. The alternatives currently available will influence the nutritional content of diets and will also change consumers' exposure to microbiological and chemical hazards. Health impacts need to be considered to suggest safe, nutritious and sustainable alternatives. Quantifying this overall health impact is now possible using methods of food risk-benefit assessment (RBA), a recognised and well-established approach that integrates scientific knowledge on nutrition, toxicology, microbiology and human epidemiology. The Risk-Benefit Assessment for Sustainable Dietary Shift (RBA4SDS) project aimed to train a fellow to analyse the overall health impacts of dietary transitions towards more climate-friendly diets. This included performing RBA and applying the necessary quantitative tools to evaluate nutritional, microbiological and toxicological risks and benefits. The present project focused on a practical case considering the substitution of meat by insects and plant-based alternatives including lentil and red kidney bean for Croatia, France and Greece. As part of the programme, the fellow was involved in the following activities: (i) understanding key steps of food health RBA, with a focus on nutrition, microbiology and toxicology; (ii) defining and characterising various sustainable diet alternatives, including meat, insect-based and plant-based options; (iii) identifying available and missing data inputs needed for RBA of selected alternative scenarios; (iv) applying RBA methods to assess a chosen alternative scenarios; (v) identifying strategies for further development of RBA methodologies. Within the research group, multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) tool was used to rank sustainable options for alternative scenarios. The project enabled the fellow to define different sustainable food alternatives and to identify both available and missing inputs required to perform RBA and to suggest strategies to develop further RBA methodology.