Agriculture Reference
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against widely accepted nutritional goals for daily intake (see
table 7.1
). They cite
the latest evidence supporting the health-protective advantages of this targeted food
composition, as well as evidence of associations between diet-related disease and the
penalty when recommended intakes are exceeded for saturated faty acid, free sug-
ars, and red meat.
Table 7.1
Nutrient intake targets for a healthy diet
Note
a Figures given as per cent refer to that item's respective proportion of dietary energy intake
Source: Hawkesworth
et al.
(2010)
For three decades now, we have seen that the trend of intensive food producing
and processing using the heapest possible ingredients has harmed human health
(Alston
et al.
, 2008). Some writers have suggested that a decline in nutrition coin-
cided with the start of widespread availability of processed foods, mediated espe-
cially through high intake of sugar (Clayton and Rowbotham, 2008) The food ser-
vices sector plays a critical role in shaping consumer demand, but for a narrow
range of foods (Hawkes, 2008) rather than more desirable dietary diversity; it is now
thought that processed foods with their 'quik energy' displace a desire to eat plant
foods. Disturbingly, the annual growth in sales of processed foods is now muh high-
er in developing countries than in rih countries (Blouin
et al.
, 2009).
The scale of sub-optimal nutrition is large, increasing and has several forms. One
may be due to an insuicient intake of lavonoids and other anti-oxidants, whih are
found in many diverse diets. Another form may occur through the ingestion of ex-
cess saturated faty acids, though the efects of diferent forms of fats is increasingly
contested (Stamler, 2010), an example of 'nutritional cacophony' (Fishler, 1993). As a
result of the consumption of higher proportions of processed food, there is also wide
appreciation that many people (up to a billion or more) ingest excessive sodium - a
major cause of hypertension and ishaemic heart disease (Cordain
et al.
, 2005).
