Tim Lang (Centre for Food Policy, City University London)
Seminar hosted by the SOAS Research Cluster on Food, Nutrition and Health in Development.
Abstract:
The term "Sustainable Diets" (SD) entered the public health lexicon in 1987, but its translation into reality is proving slow. In its most pared-down formulation, SD means good nutrition with low carbon emissions. In more complex forms, it means eating within environmental limits while eating well for health and in a manner appropriate to economic, social and cultural circumstances.
Whichever version of SD is adopted, policy-makers have been surprisingly reluctant to translate the term into public advice. This paper explores the advantages and threats posed by this obvious and rational direction for public health nutrition and for food systems re-design. It asks specifically whether developing countries could and should adopt the pursuit of new national sustainable dietary guidelines. It argues that the adoption of sustainable diets as and overarching population goal offers a combination of radical and reasonable drivers for development.
Speaker biography:
Tim Lang is Professor of Food Policy at City University London's Centre for Food Policy. He was a hill farmer in Lancashire in the 1970s. This formed his interest in the policy shapes it. He studies and engages with food policy debate at local, national and international levels. He was food commissioner on the Sustainable Development Commission 2006-11 and a member of the Council of Food Policy Advisors 2008-10. He's a member of the London Food Board advising the Mayor of London since 2009. His new book Sustainable Diets (Routledge) is due late 2016. He's co-author for Food Wars(Routledge, 2nd ed, 2015), Unmanageable Consumer (Sage, 3rd ed, 2015), Ecological Public Health (Routledge, 2012) and Food Policy (Oxford University Press, 2009) and the inevitable heap of articles, reports and chapters.
Speaker(s): Tim Lang (Centre for Food Policy, City University London) and Sara Stevano (SOAS)
Event Date:
15 November 2016
Released by:
SOAS Economics Podcast