Policy Insights from High-Income Countries to Guide Safe, Nutritious, and Sustainable Alternative Proteins for Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Vivica Kraak; Mansha Kapur; Veena Thamilselvan; Anna Lartey

doi:10.1016/j.cdnut.2023.101995

Policy Insights from High-Income Countries to Guide Safe, Nutritious, and Sustainable Alternative Proteins for Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Curr Dev Nutr. 2023 Sep 3;8(Suppl 1):101995. doi: 10.1016/j.cdnut.2023.101995. eCollection 2024 Feb.

Authors

Vivica Kraak¹, Mansha Kapur², Veena Thamilselvan³, Anna Lartey⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA, United States.
² The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States.
³ Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States.
⁴ University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana.

Abstract

The United Nations has encouraged governments to promote sustainable healthy diets to address undernutrition, obesity, and climate change. This perspective paper examines policy insights from selected high-income countries in Asia, Europe, and North America to understand how traditional and novel alternative proteins (AP) may support sustainable healthy diets in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) where populations experience malnutrition in all forms. AP products must be affordable, locally sustainable, and culturally acceptable to improve diet quality and health. Food-based dietary guidelines are a policy tool to guide AP product formulation, manufacturing, processing, labeling, and marketing to ensure that these products complement traditional plant- and animal-source proteins in sustainable healthy diets. This paper suggests that a new food categorization taxonomy is needed to guide AP product recommendations. Decision-makers must harmonize multisectoral policies to ensure LMIC populations have access to sustainable healthy diets to achieve a protein transition and food systems transformation by 2050.

Keywords: alternative proteins; animal-source proteins; plant-based proteins; policy; protein transition; sustainable healthy diets.