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Tracing global flows of bioactive compounds from farm to fork in nutrient balance sheets can help guide intervention towards healthier food supplies

Nature Food volume 3, pages 703–715 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Adequate supplies of healthy foods available in each country are a necessary but not sufficient condition for adequate intake by each individual. Here we provide complete nutrient balance sheets that account for all plant-based and animal-sourced food flows from farm production through trade to non-food uses and waste in 173 countries from 1961 to 2018. We track 36 bioactive compounds in all farm commodities recorded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, accounting for nutrient-specific losses in processing and cooking as well as bioavailability. We compare supply with requirements given each country’s age–sex distribution and find that the adequacy of food supplies has increased but often remains below total needs, with even faster rise in energy levels and lower density of some nutrients per calorie. We use this nutrient accounting to show how gaps could be filled, either from food production and trade or from selected biofortification, fortification and supplementation scenarios for nutrients of concern such as vitamin A, iron and zinc.

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Fig. 1: Production and apparent intake of nutrients per capita, 1961 and 2018.
Fig. 2: Nutrient density of dietary energy produced and apparent intake, 1961 and 2018.
Fig. 3: Nutrient adequacy of food production and apparent intake, 1961 and 2018.
Fig. 4: Vitamin A adequacy of national food production and apparent intake, 1961 and 2018.
Fig. 5: Bioavailable iron adequacy of national food production and apparent intake, 1961 and 2018.
Fig. 6: Absorbed zinc adequacy of national food production and apparent intake, 1961 and 2018.

Data availability

All data used in this study are publicly available from open sources as indicated in the references in Methods. The NBS and NNRD will be made available at: https://sites.tufts.edu/willmasters. Inquiries related to the NBS should be made to K.L., keith.lividini@tufts.edu.

Code availability

All data analysis was carried out in Stata SE 15–17. All figures were produced in Stata. The code used for data analysis and figure production is available from the corresponding author upon request and will be made available at https://sites.tufts.edu/willmasters.

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Acknowledgements

This work was conducted as part of K.L.’s doctoral dissertation, under the advisement of W.A.M. We thank the other members of K.L.’s dissertation committee for their guidance: J. Coates, B. Rogers and M. Zeller. We are also grateful to M. R. Smith for his input and feedback on earlier versions of this study. This research was supported by funding for K.L. from the Wellcome Trust (grant number 210794/Z/18/Z).

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  1. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA

    Keith Lividini & William A. Masters

  2. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington DC, USA

    Keith Lividini

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W.A.M. and K.L. conceived the overall study. K.L. assembled the data and developed the model code for the analysis. K.L. drafted the manuscript, and W.A.M. reviewed and edited the manuscript. Both authors contributed to the revisions.

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Correspondence to Keith Lividini.

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Lividini, K., Masters, W.A. Tracing global flows of bioactive compounds from farm to fork in nutrient balance sheets can help guide intervention towards healthier food supplies. Nat Food 3, 703–715 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00585-w

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