Triggers of food transition in Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: a global scale review

Abstract Symptomatic of the social change brought by late globalization, the dietary patterns of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC) worldwide are changing, bringing consequences for people’s health and well-being. In this review we focused on food transition (FT) and the driving forces behind these changes. We aimed to diagnose, analyse, and quantify the key factors influencing FT in IPLC worldwide. For this purpose, we conducted a systematic literature review to analyse scientific discourse and synthesize key insights. We analysed 36 papers published between 1996 and 2022. The key factors leading FT (151) were identified in the papers and clustered by similarity into 21 categories. These categories were then grouped according to their: spatial scale: household, community, regional, national, and global; typology: driver (external to the system), fast and slow variables (internal to the system); and social, economic, and environmental dimensions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first diagnostic-orientated review of the key factors leading FT in IPLC. The categories with the highest number of key factors were those associated with the economic dimension. According to our review, economic key factors are the primary drivers of changes in community dynamics at household level, while social key factors, as a response to economic changes, contribute to transformations in lifestyle and dietary patterns. The environment plays also a central role in FT in IPLCs, determined by the availability of wild natural resources used as food. Drivers acting regionally are among the most frequent triggers of FT. We highlight the importance of identifying and monitoring key factors triggering FT to support and provide insights for further research, as well as propose effective public policies that guarantee food diversity, food security, and life quality for IPLC.