Research projects describe dietary strategies for meeting nutrient requirements, improving diet quality and reducing environmental impacts in the Australian diet.
Studies include descriptive studies and dietary interventions in early childhood (1-8), young women (9-22), adults, 19 to 65 years (23-34) and older adults, >65 years (35-37); and life-cycle studies using Australian data, including dietary intakes and environmental indicators (38-50).
Balanced meals with no food waste to meet nutrient requirements
- Getting enough dietary iron and zinc is a challenge for babies, toddlers and young women and low iron and zinc status is common globally [1,2,11,12, 21, 22].
- Dietary interventions indicate dietary advice about eating recommended amounts of red meat improves iron status, helping to prevent iron deficiency during early childhood and in young women [3,9,10].
- Food-based, dietary diversification strategies are recommended to prevent iron deficiency during early childhood. In developing countries,complementary feeding strategies aim to increase access in households to acceptable, shelf stable meat products [7,8] and in developed countries, to serve food textures of a variety of nutritious foods from family meals to establish healthy eating habits and prevent obesity [5,6].
- Dietary interventions about weight management in overweight young women indicate including recommended amounts of lean red meat as part of an energy restricted, higher protein diet improves iron and zinc status [14,15].
- Practical information about eating protein-rich meals at least twice a day is recommended for older people in combination with twice weekly progressive resistance exercise [35]. Dietary interventions in adults over 65 years indicate including recommended amounts of lean red meat in a protein-enriched diet is effective for enhancing the effects of progressive resistance training on muscle health in adults over 65 years [36, 37].
Balanced meals with no food waste to reduce risk of chronic disease
- Associations reported between high red meat intake and risk of chronic diseases are inconsistent with no evidence of a dose response to guide dietary recommendations [23]. It is possible that the positive association reported in some studies may be explained by confounding where high red meat consumption is associated with unhealthy diets and lifestyles
- Dietary interventions designed to reduce risk factors of chronic diseases, including overweight and obesity, glucose, lipid and inflammatory markers, blood pressure and symptoms of depression highlight the importance of providing guidance on eating recommended amounts of red meat as part of a healthy diet, including nutritional and metabolic benefits [24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32].
- Practical information about eating recommended amounts of lean red meat with a variety of plant foods in balanced meals, particularly vegetables and legumes, which are typically eaten with red meat, is important for gut health [33]. Studies show that addressing the lack of and diversity of dietary fibre by eating a variety of plant food sources of dietary fibre is important for gut health [34].
Balanced meals with no food waste to reduce impact on the environment
Dietary modelling using Australian data indicate practical information about eating recommended foods and amounts in line with Australian Dietary Guidelines reduces impacts on the environment without compromising nutrient intakes and diet quality.
- Energy intake is a key factor that explains almost half of the environmental impact of the Australian diet [48]. The amount of food consumed explained the impact of the diet across several indicators, including climate, water and cropland scarcity and pesticide toxicity [39, 41, 44, 47].
- Using data from the 2011-13 Australian National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey, a high diet quality, low environmental impact dietary pattern (HQLI) was identified (38). Compared to the average adult diet, HQLI had 39% higher diet quality score, about 25% lower energy intake, were more nutrient dense, and had substantially lower environmental impacts, including 53% lower climate impact, 24% lower water scarcity impact, 29% lower cropland demand, and 34% lower pesticide toxicity footprint [49].
- Modelling indicates the impact of swapping higher environmental impact foods for lower impact alternatives is modest because there are few foods in the Australian diet that have low impacts across all environmental indicators [48[. For example, some foods have lower climate impacts but higher water or cropland scarcity footprints.
- Modelling also indicates eating a variety of food choices is important for achieving optimal nutrition in a lower environmentally impact diet [50].