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(Image Credit: food.ndtv.com)
The United Kingdom must change what it eats and the way it grows food as the current eating habits are destroying the environment, which in turn endangers the country’s food security, a government commissioned report said.
In order to stop “terrible damage” to people’s health as well as the environment, the report recommends consumption of meals with more vegetables and fruits and less fat, sugar and salt.
The National Food Strategy’s report also suggests to introduce a sugar and salt reformulation tax, with the revenue to be used to expand free school meals.
“The way we produce food is doing terrible damage to the environment and to our bodies, and putting an intolerable strain on the National Health Service,” said the report’s author Henry Dimbleby, adding high obesity rate has been a major factor in the island country’s tragically high fatality rate. The author noted it is high time to seize the moment to build a better food system, Reuters reported.
The report, commissioned by the government in 2019, also recommends measures to safeguard Britain’s natural environment, by investing in sustainable farming techniques.
The report sets out how diets will need to change over the next ten years in order to meet the government’s existing goals on health, climate as well as nature.
By the year 2032, fruit and vegetable consumption will have to rise by about 30%. However, the consumption of food high in saturated fat, salt and sugar will have to go down by nearly 25%.
