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Current and recommended diets in the USA have embedded forced labour risk

Nature Food (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Research on sustainable diets has primarily focused on human and planetary health, neglecting workers in food value chains despite their high global employment and forced labour rates. Combining nationally representative food intake data and forced labour risk data for food commodities, we compared the risk of forced labour embedded in five diets in the USA—current diets, three US-specific recommended dietary patterns and the EAT–Lancet Planetary Health Diet. We find that forced labour risk is highest in the Mediterranean-Style and US-Style recommended patterns and lowest in the Planetary Health Diet pattern, with the biggest differences driven by intake of fruit, dairy and red meat. Protein foods account for nearly half of the risk in all patterns, except for the Healthy Vegetarian recommended pattern. These results point to potential synergies and trade-offs between human health, environmental sustainability and social well-being that should be considered in dialogue and action on sustainable diets.

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Fig. 1: Total forced labour risk in each dietary pattern by major food group.
Fig. 2: Total forced labour risk in each dietary pattern by food subgroup.
Fig. 3: Protein subgroup contributions to amount of food purchased and total forced labour risk across all dietary patterns.
Fig. 4: Distribution of commodity-level risk by food subgroup.
Fig. 5: Sensitivity analysis results for the minimum and maximum scenarios.

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Data availability

The detailed results and background data files are available for download via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16815633 (ref. 81). Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

Data processing and analysis were performed using R (v.4.4.0), Microsoft Excel (v.16.83), TableauPrep (v.2024.1) and TableauDesktop (v.2023.2.0). R scripts are available for download via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16815633 (ref. 81). The associated GitHub repository is located at https://github.com/brookembell/forced-labor.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge B. Harney for administrative support provided during the development of this paper. This research was supported by the Interdisciplinary Research Innovation Fund (RAFINS) at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University (B.M.B., K.B., N.T.B.). B.J. was funded by a Nottingham Research Fellowship, awarded by the University of Nottingham (2024–2027). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Edgar Rodríguez-Huerta, Brooke M. Bell.

  2. These authors jointly supervised this work: Bethany Jackson, Nicole Tichenor Blackstone.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rights Lab, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Edgar Rodríguez-Huerta & Bethany Jackson

  2. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA

    Brooke M. Bell, Kyra Battaglia, Jessica L. Decker Sparks, Alejandra Sofia Marquez, Julia Matteson & Nicole Tichenor Blackstone

  3. NewEarth B, York, ME, USA

    Catherine Benoit Norris

  4. Department of Health Sciences, William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA

    Zach Conrad

  5. Global Research Institute, William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA

    Zach Conrad

  6. School of Geography, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Bethany Jackson

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Contributions

Author contributions are listed alphabetically within each category. J.L.D.S. and N.T.B. conceptualized the study. B.M.B., B.J., E.R.-H., J.L.D.S. and N.T.B. designed the methodology. C.B.N. and Z.C. provided expert input on the methodology. B.M.B. and E.R.-H. developed the code. A.S.M., B.M.B., B.J., E.R.-H., J.L.D.S. and K.B. collected and analysed the data. B.M.B., B.J., E.R.-H., J.L.D.S. and N.T.B. wrote the original draft. All authors edited, reviewed and approved the final version of the paper. J.L.D.S., B.J. and N.T.B. supervised and administered the project. Both B.M.B. and E.R.-H. contributed equally to the work as first authors and have the right to list their name first on their CV. Both B.J. and N.T.B. contributed equally as senior authors and have the right to list their name last on their CV.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jessica L. Decker Sparks.

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Competing interests

C.B.N. declares that she was a Research Scientist in Social Responsibility with Amazon, Inc. for part of the time this research was in progress and began a role with Target as Senior Social Sustainability Manager when this project was close to completion. C.B.N. is also co-owner of NewEarth B and the Social Hotspots Database project. Data from the Social Hotspots Database were provided free of charge for academic use in this research. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Food thanks Elliot M. Berry, John Hoddinott and Agustín (R) Miranda for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Distribution of FCID-commodity intake (g), by food subgroup.

All data are presented as percentages. The bars in the top row show the US adult intake (grams) distribution of vegetable and fruit commodities. The bars in the middle row show the intake distribution of animal-based foods including meats, seafood, eggs, saturated fat and dairy. The bars in the bottom row show the intake distribution of plant-based foods including nuts and seeds, legumes, grains, unsaturated fats and added sugars. Contributions less than 2.5% of the total in each bar are not labelled.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Overall risk for each pattern, feed vs. without feed.

Each bar represents the total amount of forced labour risk, as measured in the units mrh-eq, for each dietary pattern. The left panel `Feed` shows total risk including the risk embedded in animal feed, whereas the right panel `Without Feed (WF)` shows total risk excluding the risk embedded in animal feed. WF, without feed.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Risk by food subgroup, feed vs. without feed.

Each bar represents the total amount of forced labour risk, as measured in the units mrh-eq, by food subgroup, for each dietary pattern. The different color segments correspond to the risk amounts attributable to each animal-based food subgroup. WF, without feed.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary methods, list of Extended Data Figs. 1–3 and list of Supplementary Tables 1–13.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Tables 1–13

Supplementary Tables 1–13.

Supplementary Data 1 and 2

Source data for Extended Data Figs. 1–3.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Statistical source data.

Source Data Fig. 2

Statistical source data.

Source Data Fig. 3

Statistical source data.

Source Data Fig. 4

Statistical source data.

Source Data Fig. 5

Statistical source data.

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Rodríguez-Huerta, E., Bell, B.M., Battaglia, K. et al. Current and recommended diets in the USA have embedded forced labour risk. Nat Food (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-025-01242-8

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