News & Comment

This commentary examines a United States food policy which limits produce prescriptions to fresh fruits and vegetables within the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP). We explore potential unintended consequences of this restriction and argue for expanding eligible types of fruits and vegetables to include frozen, canned, and dried options. A strategic policy revision for transforming food systems is provided, with insights that can be applied globally.

The recently established Africa Food Safety Agency (AfFSA) will be a Specialized Technical Institution of the African Union, tasked with coordinating and harmonizing food safety policies and regulations, while providing for centralized risk assessment capacity and food safety data hub. It will promote experience and capacity sharing across African Union Member States and international partners. AfFSA will contribute to public health, food and nutrition security, and intra-Africa and global trade in safe foods. The statutory functions of AfFSA are relevant to stakeholders within Africa and globally who in turn could play key roles to enable it successfully deliver its functions.

As the FAO/WHO has completed the rigorous identification of food safety hazards of cell-based food, this article identifies remaining research gaps, particularly in the economic and social sciences, that need to be filled to better meet the expectations of cell-based food production.

In the European Union, the adequacy of the novel food framework to deal with cultivated meat has been questioned by several political initiatives at member state and Union levels. This contribution argues that the novel food framework is fit for regulating the entrance into the market of cultivated meat and that the use of the precautionary principle to ban cultivated meat production and commercialization is not justified. It then illustrates how existing regulatory provisions already provide the EU gastronomic heritage with adequate safeguarding, if and when cultivated meat will enter the EU market.

Most modern dietary guidelines recommend limiting lard and animal fats due to their potential link to metabolic diseases. Nevertheless, emerging evidence suggests that lard may not significantly contribute to diabetes and that moderate lard intake could even benefit lipid metabolism. This commentary suggests a reevaluation of lard’s classification as a “bad actor” in the context of diabetes, urging colleagues to give greater consideration to and empirically validate this intriguing hypothesis.

This commentary critiques current sugar intake guidelines, suggesting they oversimplify a complex issue and may lead to unintended outcomes. It advocates for reducing sugar-sweetened beverages, promoting healthy dietary patterns, and recognizing the diverse roles of sugars in foods. The piece calls for a more practical and sustainable approach to public health messaging, aiming for more effective dietary strategies that reflect the complexity of nutritional needs and food sources.

There is new attention to food safety resulting from the second White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, as well as new advisories from the World Health Organization calling for more research on sugar substitutes because of possible cancer risks. Together they point to a need for rethinking how we study sugar substitutes and taste enhancers as potentially contributing to adverse health changes. In addition to the need for more research on sweeteners and taste enhancers, including the use of sensitive bioassays, and epidemiological and human clinical trial studies, there should be a call for better truth in labeling, especially including single names for such dietary elements that would afford easier recognition and potential avoidance by those with sensitivities and allergies.

The production of sustainable plant-based foods is not simply a question of which process has the lowest environmental impact in the food chain. We have to consider that different degrees of processing might result in different degrees of plant protein nutritional quality in the final food product.

Digital twins can transform agricultural production systems and supply chains, curbing greenhouse gas emissions, food waste and malnutrition. However, the potential of these advanced virtualization technologies is yet to be realized. Here, we consider the promise of digital twins across six typical agrifood supply chain steps and emphasize key implementation barriers.

COVID-19 pandemic movement restrictions as part of the control measures put in place by countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has implications on food security, as movement restrictions coincided with planting periods for most of the staple crops. The measures are affecting important staple crops in SSA, and are likely to exacerbate food security challenges in many countries. Achieving adequate food supply in SSA requires developing better policies and packages to confronting the challenge of reducing hunger post COVID-19 pandemic. The lessons learned after COVID-19 crisis will be very important for African countries to rethink their strategies and policies for sustainable economic growth, as COVID-19 many have significant impacts on all sectors of their economies.

Olfactory and gustatory stimuli can elicit potent emotional responses and are essential in food perception. Yet, main theories of emotion often under-represent them, and our understanding of affective phenomena relies mostly on experimental studies conducted on visual and auditory stimuli. Although evidence is still accumulating today, recent findings suggest that the COVID-19 is associated with a loss in olfaction and/or taste. Here, I discuss how this unprecedented and uncommon spread of the loss of olfaction and/or taste worldwide may enlighten how emotional both these senses are and how much they influence food perception.