{"id":442,"date":"2019-07-18T20:05:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-18T20:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/anna-whitton\/?p=442"},"modified":"2019-08-31T21:31:27","modified_gmt":"2019-08-31T21:31:27","slug":"the-ingredients-making-the-most-of-our-food-supplies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/anna-whitton\/2019\/07\/18\/the-ingredients-making-the-most-of-our-food-supplies\/","title":{"rendered":"The ingredients: making the most of our food supplies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Let\u2019s talk data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have mentioned a couple of times that in this project I\u2019ll be using national food balance sheets to assess countries\u2019 diet quality \u2013 or how aligned each country\u2019s national \u2018diets\u2019 are to a dietary ideal. For those in the business of assessing diet quality, this may induce a shudder, for reasons which I will get into in this post. In sum, we (and others before us) use food supply data as a proxy for diets at a global level because quite simply, there isn\u2019t (good) enough food consumption data available to compare across countries. Like cooking from the pantry, we have to use the best of what we\u2019ve got \u2013particularly when we don\u2019t have enough time or resources at our disposal to get new ingredients.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image credit: www.sistersinhealth.com\/wellness-wednesday-guide-to-measuring-your-food-portions-for-weight-loss\/ <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

What is used to measure diet quality?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In my second post <\/a>(during my early reading of the literature) I explored the broad field of dietary pattern analysis but I didn\u2019t really get into how researchers gather the information they use to characterise a dietary pattern and\/or measure adherence to dietary guidelines or diet quality indices.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s how I see the range of available dietary data\ncollection methods: at the top of the \u2018ladder\u2019 we have highly aggregated\nmeasures like food balance sheets which, with enough supporting information\n(and some assumptions), can be disaggregated in terms of food composition from\na commodity to a nutrient-level, but cannot be disaggregated by consumption of\nthe population; at the bottom we have pathological testing for nutrient intake\nor status in the body which can be aggregated (with enough data) for a\npopulation up to a national or global level, but cannot be aggregated by food\nor commodity. In the middle sit household and individual food consumption\nsurveys. These methods are at a food level, though individual studies may be supported\nby clinical or pathological testing and may be aggregated by population and\nwith supporting information, disaggregated by nutrient composition.      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My view of the key data sources for food consumption. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

According to Vandevijvere et\nal., 2013 across these three tiers of data, food supply data constitutes\nthe \u2018light touch approach\u2019. Alternatively, Micha (2008) referred to most\nprevious global analyses of dietary habits using \u2018crude national estimates\u2019\nfrom food balance sheets, or expenditure data such as Household Consumption and\nExpenditure Surveys. Unfortunately, there are problems with using food\nconsumption data at all levels. The quality of a single source, the quantity of\navailable quality sources, and how to standardise or compare their data can\neach, or together, be at issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question for us using food balance sheets then becomes \u2013 do we use these studies to develop a validation calculation, to draw down the estimate of actual consumption? Or, do we call it like it is and not claim to be assessing the quality of country dietary intake <\/em>at all? My preference at this point is for the latter. Even if we are to re-estimate consumption based on studies comparing dietary estimates between food balance sheets and surveys, there is so much heterogeneity, and unresolved issues with surveys anyway that it is perhaps best not to stack up estimates \u2013 and further obscure the complexity of food systems by trying to simplify them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image credit: www.italian-feelings.com\/global-food-security-industry-leaders-are-talking-about-it-at-expo-milano-2015\/ <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In this project then I would tend to call a spade a spade \u2013\nand use it for that purpose. We are using food supplies, so let\u2019s say that we\nare considering the \u2018quality\u2019 of food supplies or availability itself, not as a\nproxy for diets, but as a distinct component of food systems. From a policy\npoint of view this remains a valid exercise. The intent is that with this\nbenchmark, we can first consider the systems interventions that could help to\nbring food supplies (and environments) more in line with dietary ideals\u2014for\nhealth or sustainability\u2014or, where we find that these supplies are <\/em>aligned\nwith dietary ideals, we can better understand the influence of other factors in\ndriving un<\/em>ideal consumption. As Herforth and Ahmed (2015) put it \u2018broadly,\nwhat is available is consumed\u2019, and while the relationship between food availability\nand consumption is complex and bi-directional \u2013 food cannot be consumed if it\nisn\u2019t available. The kinds of foods that are produced and made available to\nconsume, and in what quantities, is measurable. While the data we have certainly\nisn\u2019t perfect, it\u2019s a good place to start.      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s talk data. I have mentioned a couple of times that in this project I\u2019ll be using national food balance sheets to assess countries\u2019 diet quality \u2013 or how aligned …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/anna-whitton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/anna-whitton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/anna-whitton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/anna-whitton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/anna-whitton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/anna-whitton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/anna-whitton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions\/447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/anna-whitton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/anna-whitton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/anna-whitton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/anna-whitton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}