Aquatic foods to nourish nations

Golden CD 1 , Koehn JZ 2 , Shepon A 3 , Passarelli S 3 , Free CM 4 , Viana DF 3 Show all authors , Matthey H 5 , Eurich JG 6 , Gephart JA 7 , Fluet-Chouinard E 8 , Nyboer EA 9 , Lynch AJ 10 , Kjellevold M 11 , Bromage S 3 , Charlebois P 12 , Barange M 12 , Vannuccini S 12 , Cao L 13 , Kleisner KM 14 , Rimm EB 3 , Danaei G 15 , DeSisto C 16 , Kelahan H 3 , Fiorella KJ 17 , Little DC 18 , Allison EH 19 , Fanzo J 20 , Thilsted SH 19

Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Nutrition, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA. golden@hsph.harvard.edu
  • 2 Center for Ocean Solutions, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
  • 3 Department of Nutrition, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
  • 4 Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
  • 5 Markets and Trade Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, Italy
  • 6 Marine Sciences Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
  • 7 Department of Environmental Science, American University, Washington, DC, USA
  • 8 Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
  • 9 Department of Biology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
  • 10 U.S. Geological Survey, National Climate Adaptation Science Center, Reston, VA, USA
  • 11 Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, Norway
  • 12 Fisheries and Aquaculture Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, Italy
  • 13 School of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
  • 14 Environmental Defense Fund, New York, NY, USA
  • 15 Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
  • 16 Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
  • 17 Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences and Master of Public Health Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
  • 18 Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK
  • 19 WorldFish, Bayan Lepas, Malaysia
  • 20 Bloomberg School of Public Health and Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, USA
Nature, 2021 Oct;598(7880):315-320.
PMID: 34526720 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03917-1

Abstract

Despite contributing to healthy diets for billions of people, aquatic foods are often undervalued as a nutritional solution because their diversity is often reduced to the protein and energy value of a single food type ('seafood' or 'fish')1-4. Here we create a cohesive model that unites terrestrial foods with nearly 3,000 taxa of aquatic foods to understand the future impact of aquatic foods on human nutrition. We project two plausible futures to 2030: a baseline scenario with moderate growth in aquatic animal-source food (AASF) production, and a high-production scenario with a 15-million-tonne increased supply of AASFs over the business-as-usual scenario in 2030, driven largely by investment and innovation in aquaculture production. By comparing changes in AASF consumption between the scenarios, we elucidate geographic and demographic vulnerabilities and estimate health impacts from diet-related causes. Globally, we find that a high-production scenario will decrease AASF prices by 26% and increase their consumption, thereby reducing the consumption of red and processed meats that can lead to diet-related non-communicable diseases5,6 while also preventing approximately 166 million cases of inadequate micronutrient intake. This finding provides a broad evidentiary basis for policy makers and development stakeholders to capitalize on the potential of aquatic foods to reduce food and nutrition insecurity and tackle malnutrition in all its forms.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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