“Food is there to profit, not to nourish you,” says Prof.Raj Patel in the podcast by Mark Bittman with Professors. Jennifer Clapp and Raj Patel. This quote is what I call one of the “Great Disconnects” that exist in the food system research/policy world. What I mean by “Great Disconnect” is several contrasting narratives or perceptions of how the global food system operates versus ground reality (from my perspective, and I could be wrong, please tell me). Here are some examples:

1. US food systems and trade are integral to global food systems through trade and food aid, especially in low-income countries. Yet, many of us working in the global nutrition/food systems world are not connected to what’s happening in US policy and aid (myself included).
   • Food aids affect consumer preferences. I talked about US food aid and from other countries previously and how it affects taste preferences and dietary intake of communities. For example, Japan AID essentially introduced rice to Tanzania communities during the famine and created a market for it after the famine. And US food aid shifted West African staples from sorghum/millet to wheat after the Sahel crisis. But here we are now facing a wheat crisis because of the war in Ukraine.
   • US trade affects the food environment and NCDs in low- and middle-income countries. Here’s an example of what’s traded between Peru and the US — “Peru’s major exports included gold, copper, fishmeal, petroleum, zinc, textiles, apparel, asparagus, and coffee, while its major imports included machinery, vehicles, processed food, petroleum, and steel.” (US-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, 2009)”. There was a paper by Krycia Cowling who looked at how US trade agreements affect processed food sales in other countries and basically found increased annual rates of ultra-processed and infant foods sales in countries when they entered into a US trade agreement. Further, it’s also difficult to regulate these unhealthy food products in LMIC, because regulation of these foreign products in those countries is discriminatory and essentially against the commitments of trade agreements, which state that both foreign and national products can compete equally. These regulations can be taken as a violation of the agreement and disputed and can be used as a technique to thwart NCD/food environment policies. One also wonders how food consumption changed in the US after joining the trade agreements. It seems like there is de-seasonalization (word?) of a lot of fruits and veggies in the US, but I imagine a lot of that is still going to waste. I also wonder, even if there is greater recognition and regulation of food environments in the LMIC world, once the taste preferences have changed, like eating more junk food, could we switch back through changes in the food environment?
2. The disconnects between common narratives on climate change and food systems from HIC vs. LMIC. The common narrative on climate change is that food systems are a huge contributor, i.e., focused on climate change causes (studies mainly from the HIC). While in LMIC, the narrative is focused on reducing climate change consequences such as floods, cyclones, droughts, rainfall, and temperature, which have more impact on the food systems. The per-capita ecological footprint of food consumption (production) is higher in HIC, once the trade is accounted for, i.e., land use changes that come with the export of beef or produce are attributed to the importing country’s domestic supply rather than to the country that exported. To me, when I think about the sustainability of food systems, I think about how urban folks in HIC and higher-income urban folks in LMIC are contributing to emissions, while sustainability in LMIC is more about the stability of access and sustainability of food-related practices. Both narratives are linked. No one narrative should dominate when we talk about climate change and food systems.
3. Nutritious food shouldn’t be cheap but should be affordable to the low-income population. Food is essentially cheap now (at least in HIC, where only 15% of income is spent compared to over 60% in LIC), and junk food is even cheaper. However, these are paid for by the farm workers, retail workers, and the environment (“externalities”, both in production, loss, and waste), which were also mentioned in that podcast. I do think we (govt?) should pay for laborers and retail workers liveable wages and for research/development of technology that reduces emissions, but these should be heavily subsidized for nutritious foods (produce, legumes, etc.) so it becomes affordable for the low-income population.
4. Language of communication for research vs. reality. This disconnect was raised by my colleague Dr.Swetha Manohar and refers to how the research currency in global food systems is peer-reviewed papers and reports, i.e., written work, whereas in other countries, food system practices are from an oral or practice-based culture that has not been documented in research like indigenous food systems or even agroecology practices – though these might be changing.
5. Working on inequities vs. inequality in the global nutrition/food systems world: I think most of us (including myself) who work on individuals (like low-income women/children) or household level intrinsically work on inequalities, i.e., just on outcomes, and how to improve them without acknowledging the drivers that affect the outcomes. On the other hand, to work on inequities in the food systems (or diets), there is an essential focus on changing the structure, i.e., capitalism, colonialism, poverty reduction efforts, and social systems to improve gender equity in opportunities, education, and wages (i.e.distal determinants of nutrition).
6. Food system transformation is a social system or socio-political transformation. Food is personal, social, familial, and political. It’s about values and what we want to change in the system of values – fundamentally, what are those values? From my perspective, those universal values are that food is for nourishing, not for profit, and nourishing food should be affordable but not cheap. Perhaps there are other universal values that we want – suggestions?

Two papers – this paper and this one by Dr.Chris Bene address many other “Great Disconnects” in the food system world, one of them being that narratives are often “dominated by nutritionists, and public and planetary health scientists (e.g., Willett et al., 2019), with very few social/political scientists invited to contribute to the debate.” I would also add economists to this list of disciplines dominating food systems narratives.

So if you’re a nutritionist or nutrition epidemiologist, read these two papers, listen to the podcast, and read widely about food systems and nutrition from perspectives of sociology, political economy, anthropology, geography, water world, feminist, and ecology. (You can read widely to understand the bigger picture and still remain “in your lane”).