Make sustainable and healthy food the easy choice, says the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors

The food we eat has major impacts on our health, on local ecosystems and on our planet as a whole. Our current food consumption habits are both contributing to worsening the climate and environmental crises and fueling a global public health crisis caused by malnutrition and obesity. Radical system-wide changes are urgently needed to correct this. It is crucial to support, as much as possible, the adoption of healthier and more sustainable diets and food cultures, contributing to a long-term solution to these crises. For these reasons, the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors has been mandated – in response to a request by the Commissioner for Health and Food Safety – to develop a scientific opinion that will recommend what tools could be used to overcome the barriers preventing consumers to adopt sustainable and healthy diets, fostering the necessary change towards sustainability in the food environment. The scientific opinion, based on a scientific evidence review (including social sciences) was launched on 28 June 2023. It presents a set of recommendations for a mix of policy interventions to overcome the barriers that are preventing consumers from eating in a healthier and more sustainable way, which would complement the current initiatives under the Farm to Fork strategy.

Further information:

• Read the scientific opinion
• Read the full news article from Directorate-General for Research and Innovation