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A method to rapidly match environmental impact data to > 60 dietary datasets

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: There is growing interest in assessing the environmental impacts of diets due to the awareness of the link with human and planetary health. Until now, a limiting factor in this field has been linking information on the environmental impacts of foods to detailed, individual-level dietary data that accurately reflects people’s food consumption habits. Here we present (i) a method to link environmental impact data to a food description and classification system (FoodEx2); (ii) a resulting dataset of environmental impact values matched to 4089 food descriptors; and (iii) an example of applying this data to assess the environmental footprints of diets from Brazil and the USA. Our methodology and dataset enhance the interoperability between environmental and nutritional data, facilitating the assessment of the environmental impact of dietary intakes from different countries. They can be used by researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and consumers to reduce the environmental impact of diets.

Source: Environmental Research Food Systems

DOI: 10.1088/2976-601x/ae08b9