Principles for Framing a Healthy Food System
A healthy food system is one in which everyone has daily access to a diet that allows for a full life, that does not deplete natural resources and allows for a sustainable livelihood by those involved with all aspects of food production.
The author suggests seven principles that could be used in moving the United States toward a markedly improved food system. Those principles are that the food system would:
- Insure community food security for all residents. This principle incorporates elements of the other six.
- Be community based. Other community priorities can be interwoven with a community food system.
- Be locally integrated. There would be a dynamic blend of local, regional, national and global food sources.
- Be reasonably seasonal in nature. Sustainable technology can be employed to expand growing seasons.
- Present more opportunities than problems. For example, local sourcing creates local jobs.
- Connect “healthy” across the layers of the system. Health extends from people to families, communities, plants, animals and soil.
- Be diverse. Diversity encompasses scale of operation, range of foods, type of production strategy and background of farmers.
Special Supplement of the Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition
- 1. Aligning Food Systems Policies to Advance Public Health
- 2. Principles for Framing a Healthy Food System
- 3. Today's Food System
- 4. Food Systems and Public Health Disparities
- 5. Reshaping the Food System for Ecological Public Health
- 6. Identifying Innovative Interventions to Promote Healthy Eating Using Consumption-Oriented Food Supply Chain Analysis
- 7. US-Based Food and Agricultural Value Chains and Their Relevance to Healthy Diets
- 8. Economies of Size in Production Agriculture
- 9. Agriculture Policy is Health Policy
- 10. Recipe for a Better Tomorrow
- 11. Affordability and Obesity
- 12. Places to Intervene to Make Complex Food Systems More Healthy, Green, Fair, and Affordable
- 13. Research and Action Priorities for Linking Public Health, Food Systems, and Sustainable Agriculture