Ensuring optimal diets and nutrition for the global population is a grand challenge fraught with many contentious issues. To achieve food security for all and protect health, we need functional, equitable, and sustainable food systems. Food systems are highly complex networks of individuals and institutions that depend on governance and policy leadership. This book explains how interconnected food systems and policies affect diets and nutrition in high-, middle-, and low-income countries. In tandem with food policy, food systems determine the availability, affordability, and nutritional quality of the food supply, which influences the diets that people are willing and able to consume. Readers will become familiar with both domestic and international food policy processes and actors, and they will be able to critically analyze and debate how policy and science affect diet and nutrition outcomes.

"From well-known cultures to those just being rediscovered ... [this book] explores the history of different dishes, cultural traditions, and even a few great recipes ... Discover the role cuisine plays in the fabric of unique cultures from around the world"--

Americans would swear that the Maryland blue crab, Maine lobster, morel mushroom, or perhaps shrimp DeJonghe are delicacies out of this world because they are surprisingly unique and tasty. But have you ever heard of delicacies such as hakari, smalohove, casu marzu, stracatto dasino, and lutefisk? Meanwhile, others talk about lox, tete de veau, and balutthe list goes on. Welcome aboard to the Global Delicacies gravy trip around the world. Fasten your belts and relax. Our chefs and waitresses are going to serve you with some global delicacies on our expedition. Each and every delicacy will be explained to you, including the source of the foodmammal, reptile, insect, fish, plant, or seaweedand the location that the delicacy comes from. You will be provided with recipes, medicinal properties, and nutritional values of each delicacy. Be warned, however, that you may find some delicacies offensive and distasteful. You may choose what you want to eat and discard what you do not want to eat. This is a learning curve on your part about global delicacies. This might bring cultural relativism at your doorstep.

The true cost of what the global food industry throws away. With shortages, volatile prices and nearly one billion people hungry, the world has a food problem—or thinks it does. Farmers, manufacturers, supermarkets and consumers in North America and Europe discard up to half of their food—enough to feed all the world's hungry at least three times over. Forests are destroyed and nearly one tenth of the West's greenhouse gas emissions are released growing food that will never be eaten. While affluent nations throw away food through neglect, in the developing world crops rot because farmers lack the means to process, store and transport them to market. But there could be surprisingly painless remedies for what has become one of the world's most pressing environmental and social problems. Waste traces the problem around the globe from the top to the bottom of the food production chain. Stuart’s journey takes him from the streets of New York to China, Pakistan and Japan and back to his home in England. Introducing us to foraging pigs, potato farmers and food industry CEOs, Stuart encounters grotesque examples of profligacy, but also inspiring innovations and ways of making the most of what we have. The journey is a personal one, as Stuart is a dedicated freegan, who has chosen to live off of discarded or self-produced food in order to highlight the global food waste scandal. Combining front-line investigation with startling new data, Waste shows how the way we live now has created a global food crisis—and what we can do to fix it.

Nourished Planet illustrates what our global food system can be - a collection of the smartest ideas to nourish us all. From urban farmers in Kenya to American doctors to government officials in Egypt, its voices demonstrate how diverse perspectives are coming together to feed the world sustainably.--back cover.

With the global population projected to reach 9 billion by the year 2050, the need for nations to secure food supplies for their populations has never been more pressing. Finding better supply chain solutions is an essential part of achieving a secure and sustainable diet for a rapidly increasing population. We are now in a position, through methods including life cycle assessment (LCA), carbon footprinting and other tools, to accurately measure and assess our use – or misuse – of natural resources, including food. The impact of new technologies and management systems can therefore improve efficiencies and find new ways to reduce waste. Global Food Security and Supply provides robust, succinct information for people who want to understand how the global food system works. The book demonstrates the specific tools available for understanding how food supply works, addresses the challenges facing a secure and safe global food supply, and helps readers to appreciate how these challenges might be overcome. This book is a concise and accessible text that focuses on recent data and findings from a range of international collaborations and studies. The author provides both a snapshot of global food supply and security today, and a projection of where these issues may lead us in the future. This book will therefore be of particular interest to food policy leaders, commercial managers in the food industry, and researchers and students seeking a better understanding of a rapidly evolving topic.

This book looks at food security from a socio-economic perspective. It offers a detailed and systematic examination of food security from its historical backgrounds, concepts and measurements, to the determinants and approaches to achieve food security. The book also introduces the key challenges and root causes of food insecurity. Through country-specific cases, the book highlights instances of both successful and disastrous national food security management and their outcomes. The invaluable learning experiences of these countries shed light on food security practices, and the straightforward demand-supply framework effectively guides readers in understanding food security issues. This is an essential resource for anyone who is keen to learn more about food security, particularly researchers and university students who are new to the field. The book endeavours to help us reflect on the current phenomenon and strategize better for the future.