Safe Food and Healthy Diets

Topic Description

Everyone needs food that is both safe to eat and able to provide the nutrients needed for a healthy life. These goals are closely connected. Food may provide important nutrients but still cause illness if it is contaminated by harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins or chemicals. At the same time, food can meet safety standards without providing a balanced and nutritious diet. Ensuring good nutrition therefore requires agrifood systems that make safe, nutritious and diverse foods available, affordable and accessible to everyone.

Food safety remains a major global public-health challenge. Food safety hazards can occur at many points between food production and consumption. Biological, chemical and physical hazards, including harmful microorganisms, naturally occurring toxins, environmental contaminants and pesticide or veterinary drug residues at unsafe levels, can pose risks to consumers. Food can also become unsafe through improper processing, poor hygiene, inadequate refrigeration during transportation, unsafe conditions in markets and restaurants, or improper storage and preparation in homes. Preventing foodborne illness therefore requires governments, producers and businesses to manage risks throughout the entire food chain, often described as “from farm to fork.” Effective food safety management relies on scientific evidence and risk analysis to identify priority hazards, assess risks and apply appropriate preventive and control measures.

But preventing contamination is only one part of the challenge. People also need diets that provide sufficient energy and a variety of nutrients. Malnutrition includes undernutrition and deficiencies in essential vitamins and minerals, as well as overweight and obesity. Many households may have enough food to avoid hunger but still be unable to afford a healthy diet. Fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and other nutritious foods may be unavailable, too expensive or less convenient than foods that provide calories but fewer essential nutrients.

Food safety and healthy diets intersect throughout agrifood systems. Efforts to increase access to nutritious foods must also ensure that those foods can be produced, transported, stored and prepared safely. Investments in irrigation, roads, refrigeration and storage, for example, can help nutritious foods reach consumers while also reducing spoilage and some food-safety risks. Importantly, food spoilage does not necessarily mean food is unsafe, just as unsafe food may show no visible signs of spoilage. Proper temperature control can help prevent the growth of harmful microorganisms while also reducing food loss. School meal programmes illustrate the connection particularly clearly: they can improve children’s nutrition and access to healthy food, but serving food to large numbers of children also requires strong standards for hygiene, storage, preparation, inspection and responding to outbreaks of foodborne illness.

Governments must therefore consider how agricultural production, food processing, transportation, markets and public policies can support both safety and nutrition. Measures may include science and risk-based food safety standards and regulations, preventive controls by food businesses, official food control and surveillance systems, consumer information and capacity development, nutrition guidelines and labelling, safer food handling, school meal standards, public purchasing policies, support for nutritious food production, and infrastructure that allows perishable foods to be transported and stored safely. Internationally agreed food standards, such as those developed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission with scientific advice from FAO and WHO, also support consumer protection and fair practices in international food trade.

The FAO Conference simulation should consider how countries can build agrifood systems that enable everyone to access safe, nutritious and affordable foods and healthy diets, while recognizing differences in national circumstances and capacities and the importance of international cooperation.