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Welcome to Our Generation USA!

Nutrition
covers the foods and liquids we consume, including their nutritional value, as well as the dining experience: whether at restaurants or at home, including grocery shopping. For many, the opportunity to work  as a Chef through cooking schools as well as food TV networks. Also covers obesity, malnutrition and hunger, along with regulation of drugs and foods by the government.

​Also: go to any of the following Related Web Pages:
American Lifestyles
Health & Fitness

The following covers all forms of Human Nutrition including Cuisine as well as social issues for Obesity and Hunger in the United States

YouTube Video from the White House: Introducing the New Food Icon: MyPlate
(The Department of Agriculture introduces the new food icon, MyPlate, to replace the MyPyramid image as the government's primary food group symbol. An easy-to-understand visual cue to help consumers adopt healthy eating habits, MyPlate is consistent with the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.)

Human nutrition

Refers to the provision of essential nutrients necessary to support human life and health.

Generally, people can survive up to 40 days without food, a period largely depending on the amount of water consumed, stored body fat, muscle mass and genetic factors.

Poor nutrition is a chronic problem often linked to poverty, poor nutrition understanding and practices, and deficient sanitation and food security. Lack of proper nutrition contributes to lower academic performance, lower test scores, and eventually less successful students and a less productive and competitive economy.

Malnutrition and its consequences are immense contributors to deaths and disabilities worldwide. Promoting good nutrition helps children grow, promotes human development and advances economic growth and eradication of poverty.

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Cuisine:

Cuisine is a style of cooking characterized by distinctive ingredients, techniques and dishes, and usually associated with a specific culture or geographic region.

A cuisine is primarily influenced by the ingredients that are available locally or through trade. Religious food laws, such as Hindu, Islamic and Jewish dietary laws, can also exercise a strong influence on cuisine. Regional food preparation traditions, customs and ingredients often combine to create dishes unique to a particular region.

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Obesity in the United States:

Obesity in the United States has been increasingly cited as a major health issue in recent decades.

While many industrialized countries have experienced similar increases, obesity rates in the United States are among the highest in the world.

Obesity has continued to grow within the United States. Two out of every three Americans are considered to be overweight or obese. During the early 21st century, America often contained the highest percentage of obese people in the world. Obesity has led to over 120,000 preventable deaths each year in the United States.

An obese person in America incurs an average of $1,429 more in medical expenses annually. Approximately $147 billion is spent in added medical expenses per year within the United States.

The United States had the highest rate of obesity within the OECD grouping of large trading economies, until obesity rates in Mexico surpassed those of the United States in 2013. From 13% obesity in 1962, estimates have steadily increased.

The following statistics comprise adults age 20 and over living at or near the poverty level.

The obesity percentages for the overall US population are higher reaching:
  • 19.4% in 1997,
  • 24.5% in 2004,
  • 26.6% in 2007,
  • and 33.8% (adults) and 17% (children) in 2008.
  • In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported higher numbers once more, counting 35.7% of American adults as obese, and 17% of American children.
  • In 2013 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that 27.6% of American citizens were obese.

The organization estimates that 3/4 of the American population will likely be overweight or obese by 2020. The latest figures from the CDC show that more than one-third (34.9% or 78.6 million) of U.S. adults are obese and 17% for children and adolescents aged 2–19 years.

Obesity has been cited as a contributing factor to approximately 100,000–400,000 deaths in the United States per year and has increased health care use and expenditures, costing society an estimated $117 billion in direct (preventive, diagnostic, and treatment services related to weight) and indirect (absenteeism, loss of future earnings due to premature death) costs.

This exceeds health-care costs associated with smoking and accounts for 6% to 12% of national health care expenditures in the United States.

Click on any of the following about obesity in the United States:
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Hunger in the United States:

Hunger in the United States is an issue that affects millions of Americans, including some who are middle class, or who are in households where all adults are in work.

Research from the Food Safety and Inspection Service found that 14.9% of American households were food insecure during 2011, with 5.7% suffering from very low food security. Journalists and charity workers have reported further increased demand for emergency food aid during 2012 and 2013.
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The United States produces far more food than it needs for domestic consumption - hunger within the U.S. is caused by some Americans having insufficient money to buy food for themselves or their families.

Hunger is addressed by a mix of public and private food aid provision. Both types of aid have been expanding in the 21st century, with hunger relief efforts by the government growing faster than aid provided by civil society.

Historically, the U.S. has been a world leader in reducing hunger. While precise comparative figures are not available, studies suggest that in the 18th century there was far less hunger in the United States than in the rest of the world. In the 19th and early 20th century western Europe began to catch up. After the outbreak of World War I however, the U.S. was able to send tens of millions of tons of food to relieve severe hunger in Europe. This act was unprecedented in the world's history, and was the first of many substantial actions by the United States to relieve international hunger and poverty.

In the later half of the twentieth century, other advanced economies in Europe and Asia began to overtake the U.S. in terms of reducing hunger among their own populations. In 2011, a report presented in the New York Times found that among 20 economies recognized as advanced by the International Monetary Fund and for which comparative rankings for food security were available, the U.S. was joint worst.

Nonetheless, in March 2013, the Global Food Security Index commissioned by DuPont, ranked the U.S. number one for food affordability and overall food security.

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The Many Forms of Cuisine Found in the United States
YouTube Video: how to use Chop Sticks to eat Chinese Food
Pictured: a Presentation of Italian Cuisine

The cuisine of the United States reflects its history. The European colonization of the Americas yielded the introduction of a number of ingredients and cooking styles to the latter. The various styles continued expanding well into the 19th and 20th centuries, proportional to the influx of immigrants from many foreign nations; such influx developed a rich diversity in food preparation throughout the country.

Early Native Americans utilized a number of cooking methods in early American Cuisine that have been blended with early European cooking methods to form the basis of American Cuisine.

When the colonists came to the colonies, they farmed animals for clothing and meat in a similar fashion to what they had done in Europe. They had cuisine similar to their previous British cuisine.

The American colonial diet varied depending on the settled region in which someone lived. Commonly hunted game included deer, bear, buffalo, and wild turkey. A number of fats and oils made from animals served to cook much of the colonial foods. Prior to the Revolution,

New Englanders consumed large quantities of rum and beer, as maritime trade provided them relatively easy access to the goods needed to produce these items: rum was the distilled spirit of choice, as the main ingredient, molasses, was readily available from trade with the West Indies.

In comparison to the northern colonies, the southern colonies were quite diverse in their agricultural diet and did not have a central region of culture.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, Americans developed many new foods. During the Progressive Era (1890s–1920s) food production and presentation became more industrialized. One characteristic of American cooking is the fusion of multiple ethnic or regional approaches into completely new cooking styles.

A wave of celebrity chefs began with Julia Child and Graham Kerr in the 1970s, with many more following after the rise of cable channels such as Food Network.

Click on any of the blue hyperlinks below for further amplification:

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Different Restaurant Themes, including Fast Food
YouTube Video The Spago flagship restaurant in Beverly Hills*
*-  co-founders Wolfgang Puck and Barbara Lazaroff​
Click on the following blue hyperlinks to find the closest restaurant for: Red Lobster or O'Charleys
Pictured: The first McDonalds Fast Food Chain and  now a museum in Des Plaines, Illinois, U.S.
And the Hollywood "Hard Rock Cafe"

​Various types of restaurant fall into several industry classifications based upon menu style, preparation methods and pricing. Additionally, how the food is served to the customer helps to determine the classification.

Historically, restaurant referred only to places that provided tables where one sat down to eat the meal, typically served by a waiter. Following the rise of fast food and take-out restaurants, a retronym for the older "standard" restaurant was created, sit-down restaurant.

Most commonly, "sit-down restaurant" refers to a casual dining restaurant with table service, rather than a fast food restaurant or a diner, where one orders food at a counter. Sit-down restaurants are often further categorized, in North America, as "family-style" or "formal".

In Dishing It Out: In Search of the Restaurant Experience, Robert Appelbaum argues that all restaurants can be categorized according to a set of social parameters defined as polar opposites: high or low, cheap or dear, familiar or exotic, formal or informal, and so forth. Any restaurant will be relatively high or low in style and price, familiar or exotic in the cuisine it offers to different kinds of customers, and so on.

Context is as important as the style and form: a taqueria is a more than familiar site in Guadalajara, Mexico, but it would be exotic in Albania. A Ruth's Chris restaurant in America may seem somewhat strange to a first time visitor from India; but many Americans are familiar with it as a large restaurant chain, albeit one that features high prices and a formal atmosphere.

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History of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Nutrition Guides including a List of USDA Nutrition Guides along with the Nutrition Facts Label
YouTube Video: The Nutrition Facts Label: Look for It and Use It!
Pictured below: (TOP) The MyPlate nutrition guide; (BOTTOM): Nutritional Facts Label

The history of USDA nutrition guides includes over 100 years of American nutrition advice. The guides have been updated over time, to adopt new scientific findings and new public health marketing techniques.

The current guidelines are the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015 - 2020. Over time they have described from 4 to 11 food groups. Various guides have been criticized as not accurately representing scientific information about optimal nutrition, and as being overly influenced by the agricultural industries the USDA promotes.

MyPlate:
Main article: MyPlate

MyPlate is the current nutrition guide published by the United States Department of Agriculture, consisting of a diagram of a plate and glass divided into five food groups. It replaced the USDA's MyPyramid diagram on June 2, 2011, ending 19 years of food pyramid iconography. The guide will be displayed on food packaging and used in nutritional education in the United States.

Dietary Guidelines:
Main article: Dietary Guidelines for Americans
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​The Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion in the USDA and the United States Department of Health and Human Services jointly released a longer textual document called Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015 - 2020, to be updated in 2020.

The first edition was published in 1980, and since 1985 has been updated every five years by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. Like the USDA Food Pyramid, these guidelines have been criticized as being overly influenced by the agriculture industry. These criticisms of the Dietary Guidelines arose due to the omission of high-quality evidence that the Public Health Service decided to exclude.

The phrasing of recommendations was extremely important and widely affected everyone who read it. The wording had to be changed constantly as there were protests due to comments such as “cut down on fatty meats”, which led to the U.S Department of Agriculture having to stop the publication of the USDA Food Book.

Slight alterations of various dietary guidelines had to be made throughout the 1970s and 1980s in an attempt to calm down the protests emerged. As a compromise, the phrase was changed to “choose lean meat” but didn’t result in a better situation. In 2015 the committee factored in environmental sustainability for the first time in its recommendations.

The committee's 2015 report found that a healthy diet should comprise higher plant based foods and lower animal based foods. It also found that a plant food based diet was better for the environment than one based on meat and dairy.

In 2013 and again in 2015, Edward Archer and colleagues published a series of research articles in PlosOne and Mayo Clinic Proceedings demonstrating that the dietary data used to develop the US Dietary Guidelines were physiologically implausible (i.e., incompatible with survival) and therefore these data were "inadmissible" as scientific evidence and should not be used to inform public policy.

In 2016, Nina Teicholz authored a critique of the US Dietary Guidelines in the British Medical Journal titled The scientific report guiding the US dietary guidelines: is it scientific? Teicholz suggested that "the scientific committee advising the US government has not used standard methods for most of its analyses and instead relies heavily on systematic reviews from professional bodies such as the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology, which are heavily supported by food and drug companies."

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the History of the USDA Nutrition Guides: ___________________________________________________________________________

Nutrition Facts Label

The nutrition facts label (also known as the nutrition information panel, and other slight variations) is a label required on most packaged food in many countries. Most countries also release overall nutrition guides for general educational purposes. In some cases, the guides are based on different dietary targets for various nutrients than the labels on specific foods.
Nutrition facts labels are only one of many types of food label required by regulation or applied by manufacturers.

In the United States, the Nutritional Facts label lists the percentage supplied that is recommended to be met, or to be limited, in one day of human nutrients based on a daily diet of 2,000 calories.

With certain exceptions, such as foods meant for babies, the following Daily Values are used. These are called Reference Daily Intake (RDI) values and were originally based on the highest 1968 Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) for each nutrient in order to assure that the needs of all age and sex combinations were met.

These are older than the current Recommended Dietary Allowances of the Dietary Reference Intake. For vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and manganese, the current highest RDAs are up to 50% higher than the older Daily Values used in labeling, whereas for other nutrients the recommended needs have gone down.

A side-by-side table of the old and new adult Daily Values is provided at Reference Daily Intake. As of October 2010, the only micronutrients that are required to be included on all labels are vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and iron. To determine the nutrient levels in the foods, companies may develop or use databases, and these may be submitted voluntarily to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for review.

For more about the Nutrition Facts Label, click on any of the following blue hyperlinks:







Foods that We Consume including a List of Foods Humans Eat
YouTube Video about Food Safety (by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Pictured below: Eating with a Conscience — Beyond Pesticides

Click here for a List of Foods Humans Eat.​

Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for an organism. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organism's cells to provide energy, maintain life, or stimulate growth.

Historically, humans secured food through two methods: hunting and gathering and agriculture.

Today, the majority of the food energy required by the ever increasing population of the world is supplied by the food industry.

Food safety and food security are monitored by agencies like the International Association for Food Protection, World Resources Institute, World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization, and International Food Information Council. They address issues such as sustainability, biological diversity, climate change, nutritional economics, population growth, water supply, and access to food.

The right to food is a human right derived from the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), recognizing the "right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food", as well as the "fundamental right to be free from hunger".

Food Sources:

Most food has its origin in plants. Some food is obtained directly from plants; but even animals that are used as food sources are raised by feeding them food derived from plants. Cereal grain is a staple food that provides more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop. Corn (maize), wheat, and rice – in all of their varieties – account for 87% of all grain production worldwide. Most of the grain that is produced worldwide is fed to livestock.

Some foods not from animal or plant sources include various edible fungi, especially mushrooms. Fungi and ambient bacteria are used in the preparation of fermented and pickled foods like leavened bread, alcoholic drinks, cheese, pickles, kombucha, and yogurt. Another example is blue-green algae such as Spirulina. Inorganic substances such as salt, baking soda and cream of tartar are used to preserve or chemically alter an ingredient.

Plants:
See also: Herb and spice

Many plants and plant parts are eaten as food and around 2,000 plant species are cultivated for food. Many of these plant species have several distinct cultivars.

Seeds of plants are a good source of food for animals, including humans, because they contain the nutrients necessary for the plant's initial growth, including many healthful fats, such as omega fats. In fact, the majority of food consumed by human beings are seed-based foods.

Edible seeds include:
Oilseeds are often pressed to produce rich oils:
Seeds are typically high in unsaturated fats and, in moderation, are considered a health food.

However, not all seeds are edible. Large seeds, such as those from a lemon, pose a choking hazard, while seeds from cherries and apples contain cyanide which could be poisonous only if consumed in large volumes.

Fruits are the ripened ovaries of plants, including the seeds within. Many plants and animals have coevolved such that the fruits of the former are an attractive food source to the latter, because animals that eat the fruits may excrete the seeds some distance away. Fruits, therefore, make up a significant part of the diets of most cultures. Some botanical fruits, such as tomatoes, pumpkins, and eggplants, are eaten as vegetables. (For more information, see list of fruits.)

Vegetables are a second type of plant matter that is commonly eaten as food. These include root vegetables (potatoes and carrots), bulbs (onion family), leaf vegetables (spinach and lettuce), stem vegetables (bamboo shoots and asparagus), and inflorescence vegetables (globe artichokes and broccoli and other vegetables such as cabbage or cauliflower).

Animals:
Main articles: Animal source foods and Food chain

Animals are used as food either directly or indirectly by the products they produce. Meat is an example of a direct product taken from an animal, which comes from muscle systems or from organs.

Food products produced by animals include milk produced by mammary glands, which in many cultures is drunk or processed into dairy products (cheese, butter, etc.).

In addition, birds and other animals lay eggs, which are often eaten, and bees produce honey, a reduced nectar from flowers, which is a popular sweetener in many cultures.

Some cultures consume blood, sometimes in the form of blood sausage, as a thickener for sauces, or in a cured, salted form for times of food scarcity, and others use blood in stews such as jugged hare.

Some cultures and people do not consume meat or animal food products for cultural, dietary, health, ethical, or ideological reasons. Vegetarians choose to forgo food from animal sources to varying degrees. Vegans do not consume any foods that are or contain ingredients from an animal source.

​Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Foods consumed by Humans:






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Food Science
YouTube Video: Food Science – Learn the Science Behind the Food You Eat
(by Barnes-Jewish Hospital)
Pictured Below: Advances in Nutrition & Food Science is an international, peer-reviewed journal

Food science is the applied science devoted to the study of food. The Institute of Food Technologists defines food science as "the discipline in which the engineering, biological, and physical sciences are used to study the nature of foods, the causes of deterioration, the principles underlying food processing, and the improvement of foods for the consuming public". 

The textbook Food Science defines food science in simpler terms as "the application of basic sciences and engineering to study the physical, chemical, and biochemical nature of foods and the principles of food processing".

Activities of food scientists include the development of new food products, design of processes to produce these foods, choice of packaging materials, shelf-life studies, sensory evaluation of products using survey panels or potential consumers, as well as microbiological and chemical testing.

Food scientists may study more fundamental phenomena that are directly linked to the production of food products and its properties.

Food science brings together multiple scientific disciplines. It incorporates concepts from fields such as microbiology, chemical engineering, and biochemistry.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Science of Food:







Food Allergies including a List of Allergens
YouTube Video: Howard has an allergic reaction to peanuts!
(Big Bang Theory TV Sitcom)
Pictured below: 8 Most Common Food Allergies

Click here for a ​List of allergens (food and non-food)

A food allergy is an abnormal immune response to food. The signs and symptoms may range from mild to severe. They may include itchiness, swelling of the tongue, vomiting, diarrhea, hives, trouble breathing, or low blood pressure. This typically occurs within minutes to several hours of exposure.

When the symptoms are severe, it is known as anaphylaxis. Food intolerance and food poisoning are separate conditions.

Common foods involved include cow's milk, peanuts, eggs, shellfish, fish, tree nuts, soy, wheat, rice, and fruit. The common allergies vary depending on the country.

Risk factors include a family history of allergies, vitamin D deficiency, obesity, and high levels of cleanliness. Allergies occur when immunoglobulin E(IgE), part of the body's immune system, binds to food molecules. A protein in the food is usually the problem. This triggers the release of inflammatory chemicals such as histamine.

Diagnosis is usually based on a medical history, elimination diet, skin prick test, blood tests for food-specific IgE antibodies, or oral food challenge.

Early exposure to potential allergens may be protective. Management primarily involves avoiding the food in question and having a plan if exposure occurs. This plan may include giving adrenaline (epinephrine) and wearing medical alert jewelry.

The benefits of allergen immunotherapy for food allergies is unclear, thus is not recommended as of 2015. Some types of food allergies among children resolve with age, including that to milk, eggs, and soy; while others such as to nuts and shellfish typically do not.

In the developed world, about 4% to 8% of people have at least one food allergy. They are more common in children than adults and appear to be increasing in frequency. Male children appear to be more commonly affected than females.

Some allergies more commonly develop early in life, while others typically develop in later life. In developed countries, a large proportion of people believe they have food allergies when they actually do not have them. The declaration of the presence of trace amounts of allergens in foods is not mandatory in any country, with the exception of Brazil.

Signs and symptoms:

Food allergies usually have a fast onset (from seconds to one hour) and may include:
  • Rash
  • Hives
  • Itching of mouth, lips, tongue, throat, eyes, skin, or other areas
  • Swelling (angioedema) of lips, tongue, eyelids, or the whole face
  • Difficulty swallowing
  • Runny or congested nose
  • Hoarse voice
  • Wheezing and/or shortness of breath
  • Diarrhea, abdominal pain, and/or stomach cramps
  • Lightheadedness
  • Fainting
  • Nausea
  • Vomiting

In some cases, however, onset of symptoms may be delayed for hours.

Symptoms of allergies vary from person to person. The amount of food needed to trigger a reaction also varies from person to person.

Serious danger regarding allergies can begin when the respiratory tract or blood circulation is affected. The former can be indicated through wheezing and cyanosis. Poor blood circulation leads to a weak pulse, pale skin and fainting.

A severe case of an allergic reaction, caused by symptoms affecting the respiratory tract and blood circulation, is called anaphylaxis. When symptoms are related to a drop in blood pressure, the person is said to be in anaphylactic shock. Anaphylaxis occurs when IgE antibodies are involved, and areas of the body that are not in direct contact with the food become affected and show symptoms. Those with asthma or an allergy to peanuts, tree nuts, or seafood are at greater risk for anaphylaxis.

​Cause:

Although sensitivity levels vary by country, the most common food allergies are allergies to milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, seafood, shellfish, soy, and wheat. These are often referred to as "the big eight".

Allergies to seeds — especially sesame — seem to be increasing in many countries. An example an allergy more common to a particular region is that to rice in East Asia where it forms a large part of the diet.

One of the most common food allergies is a sensitivity to peanuts, a member of the bean family. Peanut allergies may be severe, but children with peanut allergies sometimes outgrow them. Tree nuts, including cashews, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, pecans, pistachios, pine nuts, coconuts, and walnuts, are also common allergens. Sufferers may be sensitive to one particular tree nut or to many different ones.

Also, seeds, including sesame seeds and poppy seeds, contain oils where protein is present, which may elicit an allergic reaction.

Egg allergies affect about one in 50 children but are frequently outgrown by children when they reach age five. Typically, the sensitivity is to proteins in the white, rather than the yolk.

Milk from cows, goats, or sheep is another common food allergen, and many sufferers are also unable to tolerate dairy products such as cheese. A small portion of children with a milk allergy, roughly 10%, have a reaction to beef. Beef contains a small amount of protein that is also present in cow's milk.

Seafood is one of the most common sources of food allergens; people may be allergic to proteins found in fish, crustaceans, or shellfish.

Other foods containing allergenic proteins include soy, wheat, fruits, vegetables, maize, spices, synthetic and natural colors, and chemical additives.

Balsam of Peru, which is in various foods, is in the "top five" allergens most commonly causing patch test reactions in people referred to dermatology clinics.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Food Allergies:







Food Preservation
YouTube Video: 10 Food Preservation Tips in 60 Seconds
YouTube Video: How to Freeze Dry Food at Home - Freeze Drying Overview
Pictured below: Home Food Preservation – 10 Ways to Preserve Food at Home

Food preservation prevents the growth of microorganisms (such as yeasts), or other microorganisms (although some methods work by introducing benign bacteria or fungi to the food), as well as slowing the oxidation of fats that cause rancidity.

Food preservation may also include processes that inhibit visual deterioration, such as the enzymatic browning reaction in apples after they are cut during food preparation.

Many processes designed to preserve food involve more than one food preservation method.

Preserving fruit by turning it into jam, for example, involves boiling (to reduce the fruit’s moisture content and to kill bacteria, etc.), sugaring (to prevent their re-growth) and sealing within an airtight jar (to prevent recontamination).

Some traditional methods of preserving food have been shown to have a lower energy input and carbon footprint, when compared to modern methods.

Some methods of food preservation are known to create carcinogens. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization classified processed meat, i.e. meat that has undergone salting, curing, fermenting, and smoking, as "carcinogenic to humans".

Maintaining or creating nutritional value, texture and flavor is an important aspect of food preservation.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Food Preservation Techniques:







Vegan Diet and Vegan Nutrition
YouTube Video: How Your Body Transforms On A Vegan Diet
YouTube Video: Over 10 Years, What a Vegan Diet Did for Me
YouTube Video: How to Prevent Deficiencies on a Vegan Diet
Pictured below:
(L) The right plant-based diet for you by Harvard Health Publishing
(R) 30-Day Go Vegan Challenge courtesy of Vegan ACT (Australia)

Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products, particularly in diet, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A follower of the diet or the philosophy is known as a vegan.

Distinctions may be made between several categories of veganism. Dietary vegans (or strict vegetarians) refrain from consuming animal products, not only meat but also eggs, dairy products and other animal-derived substances.

The term ethical vegan is often applied to those who not only follow a vegan diet but extend the philosophy into other areas of their lives, and oppose the use of animals for any purpose.

Another term is environmental veganism, which refers to the avoidance of animal products on the premise that the industrial farming of animals is environmentally damaging and unsustainable.

Some reviews have shown that some people who eat vegan diets have less chronic disease, including heart disease, than people who do not follow a restrictive diet. They are regarded as appropriate for all stages of life including during infancy and pregnancy by the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Dietitians of Canada, and the British Dietetic Association.

The German Society for Nutrition does not recommend vegan diets for children or adolescents, or during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Vegan diets tend to be higher in dietary fiber, magnesium, folic acid, vitamin C, vitamin E, iron, and phytochemicals; and lower in dietary energy, saturated fat, cholesterol, long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, calcium, zinc, and vitamin B12. Unbalanced vegan diets may lead to nutritional deficiencies that nullify any beneficial effects and may cause serious health issues.

Some of these deficiencies can only be prevented through the choice of fortified foods or the regular intake of dietary supplements. Vitamin B12 supplementation is especially important because its deficiency causes blood disorders and potentially irreversible neurological damage.

Donald Watson coined the term vegan in 1944 when he co-founded the Vegan Society in England. At first he used it to mean "non-dairy vegetarian", but from 1951 the Society defined it as "the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals". Interest in veganism increased in the 2010s, especially in the latter half. More vegan stores opened and vegan options became increasingly available in supermarkets and restaurants in many countries.

Click on any of the following for more about a Vegan Diet: ___________________________________________________________________________

Vegan Nutrition:

Vegan nutrition refers to the nutritional and human health aspects of vegan diets.
While a well-planned, balanced vegan diet is suitable to meet all recommendations for nutrients in every stage of human life, improperly planned vegan diets may be deficient in vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium, iodine, iron, zinc, riboflavin (vitamin B2), and the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA.

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Organic Foods and Whole Foods
YouTube Video: Why Organic, Sustainable Farming Matters | Portrait of a Farmer
YouTube Video: This is "The Whole Foods™ Diet" l Whole Foods Market 
Pictured below:
(Top) Will Organic Farming Replace Conventional Farming?
(Bottom) Fighting Cancer with Food and Activity (Slide Show)

Organic Foods:

Organic food is food produced by methods that comply with the standards of organic farming. Standards vary worldwide, but organic farming in general features practices that strive to cycle resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity.

Organizations regulating organic products may restrict the use of certain pesticides and fertilizers in farming. In general, organic foods are also usually not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents or synthetic food additives.

Currently, the European Union, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and many other countries require producers to obtain special certification in order to market food as organic within their borders. In the context of these regulations, organic food is produced in a way that complies with organic standards set by regional organizations, national governments and international organizations.

Although the produce of kitchen gardens may be organic, selling food with an organic label is regulated by governmental food safety authorities, such as the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) or European Commission (EC).

Fertilizing and the use of pesticides in conventional farming has caused, and is causing, enormous damage worldwide to local ecosystems, biodiversity, groundwater and drinking water supplies, and sometimes farmer health and fertility. These environmental, economic and health issues are all minimized or avoided completely in organic farming.

From a consumers perspective, there is not sufficient evidence in scientific and medical literature to support claims that organic food is safer or healthier to eat than conventionally grown food.

​While there may be some differences in the nutrient and antinutrient contents of organically- and conventionally-produced food, the variable nature of food production and handling makes it difficult to generalize results. Claims that organic food tastes better are generally not supported by tests.

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Whole Foods:
​
​Whole foods are plant foods that are unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible, before being consumed. Examples of whole foods include whole grains, tubers, legumes, fruits, vegetables.

There is some confusion over the usage of the term surrounding the inclusion of certain foods, in particular animal foods. The modern usage of the term whole foods diet is now widely synonymous with "whole foods plant-based diet" with animal products, oil and salt no longer constituting whole foods.

The earliest use of the term in the post-industrial age appears to be in 1946 in The Farmer, a quarterly magazine published and edited from his farm by F. Newman Turner, a writer and pioneering organic farmer. The magazine sponsored the establishment of the Producer Consumer Whole Food Society Ltd, with Newman Turner as president and Derek Randal as vice-president.

Whole food was defined as "mature produce of field, orchard, or garden without subtraction, addition, or alteration grown from seed without chemical dressing, in fertile soil manured solely with animal and vegetable wastes, and composts therefrom, and ground, raw rock and without chemical manures, sprays, or insecticides," having intent to connect suppliers and the growing public demand for such food.

Such diets are rich in whole and unrefined foods, like whole grains, dark green and yellow/orange-fleshed vegetables and fruits, legumes, nuts and seeds.

See also:







Gluten-related DisordersPictured below: Gluten-related disorders (by By Dr. Schär AG - Dr. Schär AG, Public Domain 
Gluten-related disorders is the term for the diseases triggered by gluten, including celiac disease (CD), non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS), gluten ataxia, dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) and wheat allergy.

The umbrella category has also been referred to as gluten intolerance, though a multi-disciplinary physician-led study, based in part on the 2011 International Coeliac Disease Symposium, concluded that the use of this term should be avoided due to a lack of specificity.

Gluten is a group of proteins, such as prolamins and glutelins, stored with starch in the endosperm of various cereal (grass) grains.

As of 2017, gluten-related disorders were increasing in frequency in different geographic areas. The increase might be explained by the popularity of the Western diet, the expanded reach of the Mediterranean diet (which also includes grains with gluten), the growing replacement of rice by wheat in many countries, the development in recent years of new types of wheat with a higher amount of cytotoxic gluten peptides, and the higher content of gluten in bread and bakery products, due to the reduction of dough fermentation time.

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​
Healthy Eating PyramidPictured below: New healthy eating pyramid now freely downloadable from Harvard School of Public Health
The Healthy Eating Pyramid (alternately, Healthy Eating Plate) is a nutrition guide developed by the Harvard School of Public Health, suggesting quantities of each food category that a human should eat each day. The healthy eating pyramid is intended to provide a sound eating guide than the widespread food guide pyramid created by the USDA.

The new pyramid aims to include more recent research in dietary health not present in the USDA's 1992 guide. The original USDA pyramid has been criticized for not differentiating between refined grains and whole grains, between saturated fats and unsaturated fats, and for not placing enough emphasis on exercise and weight control.

Food groups:

In general terms, the healthy eating pyramid recommends the following intake of different food groups each day, although exact amounts of calorie intake depends on sex, age, and lifestyle: See also:






​
Dieting, including a List of Diet Plans Pictured below: Low Carb Food List – An In-depth Breakdown
Dieting is the practice of eating food in a regulated way to decrease, maintain, or increase body weight, or to prevent and treat diseases such as diabetes and obesity. Dieting to lose weight is recommended for people with weight-related health problems, but not otherwise healthy people. 

As weight loss depends on calorie intake, different kinds of calorie-reduced diets, such as those emphasising particular macronutrients (low-fat, low-carbohydrate, etc), have been shown to be no more effective than one another. As weight regain is common, diet success is best predicted by long-term adherence. Regardless, the outcome of a diet can vary widely depending on the individual.

The first popular diet was "Banting", named after William Banting. In his 1863 pamphlet, Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public, he outlined the details of a particular low-carbohydrate, low-calorie diet that had led to his own dramatic weight loss.

Types:
Main article: List of diets (see below)

A restricted diet is more often pursued by those wanting to lose weight. Some people follow a diet to gain weight (usually in the form of muscle). Diets can also be used to maintain a stable body weight and improve health.

Low-fat:
Main article: Low-fat diet

Low-fat diets involve the reduction of the percentage of fat in one's diet. Calorie consumption is reduced because less fat is consumed. Diets of this type include NCEP Step I and II. A meta-analysis of 16 trials of 2–12 months' duration found that low-fat diets (without intentional restriction of caloric intake) resulted in average weight loss of 3.2 kg (7.1 lb) over habitual eating.

A low-fat, plant-based diet has been found to improve control of weight, blood sugar levels, and cardiovascular health.

Low-carbohydrate:
Main article: Low-carbohydrate diet

Low-carbohydrate diets are relatively high in protein and fats. Low-carbohydrate diets are sometimes ketogenic (i.e., they restrict carbohydrate intake sufficiently to cause ketosis).
"The glycemic index (GI) factor is a ranking of foods based on their overall effect on blood sugar levels.

The diet based around this research is called the Low GI diet. Low glycemic index foods, such as lentils, provide a slower, more consistent source of glucose to the bloodstream, thereby stimulating less insulin release than high glycemic index foods, such as white bread."

A randomized controlled trial comparing four diets concluded that the high-carbohydrate, low-glycemic index diet was the most favorable as it led to both high weight loss and a decline in low density lipoprotein.

The "glycemic load" is the glycemic index multiplied by the amount of carbohydrate. A meta-analysis by the Cochrane Collaboration concluded that low glycemic index or low glycemic load diets led to more weight loss and better lipid profiles but did not separate the effects of the load versus the index.

Low-calorie:
Main article: Calorie restriction

Low-calorie diets usually produce an energy deficit of 500–1,000 calories per day, which can result in a 0.5 to 1 kilogram (1.1 to 2.2 pounds) weight loss per week. One of the most commonly used low-calorie diets is Weight Watchers. The National Institutes of Health reviewed 34 randomized controlled trials to determine the effectiveness of low-calorie diets.

They found that these diets lowered total body mass by 8% in the short term, over 3–12 months. Women doing low-calorie diets should have at least 1,000 calories per day and men should have approximately 1,200 calories per day. These caloric intake values vary depending on additional factors, such as age and weight.

Very low-calorie:
Main article: Very low calorie diet

Very low calorie diets provide 200–800 calories per day, maintaining protein intake but limiting calories from both fat and carbohydrates. They subject the body to starvation and produce an average loss of 1.5–2.5 kg (3.3–5.5 lb) per week. "2-4-6-8", a popular diet of this variety, follows a four-day cycle in which only 200 calories are consumed the first day, 400 the second day, 600 the third day, 800 the fourth day, and then totally fasting, after which the cycle repeats.

There is some evidence that these diets results in considerable weight loss. These diets are not recommended for general use and should be reserved for the management of obesity as they are associated with adverse side effects such as loss of lean muscle mass, increased risks of gout, and electrolyte imbalances.

People attempting these diets must be monitored closely by a physician to prevent complications.

The concept of crash dieting is to drastically reduce calories, using a very-low-calorie diet. Crash dieting can be highly dangerous because it can cause various kind of issues for the human body. Crash dieting can produce weight loss but without professional supervision all along, the extreme reduction in calories and potential unbalance in the diet's composition can lead to detrimental effects, including sudden death.

Fasting:
Main articles: Fasting and Intermittent fasting

Fasting is when there is a long time interval between the meals. In dieting, long term (periodic) fasting is not recommended, instead, having small portions of food after small intervals is encouraged.

Lengthy fasting can also be dangerous due to the risk of malnutrition and should be carried out only under medical supervision. 

During prolonged fasting or very low calorie diets the reduction of blood glucose, the preferred energy source of the brain, causes the body to deplete its glycogen stores. Once glycogen is depleted the body begins to fuel the brain using ketones, while also metabolizing body protein (including but not limited to skeletal muscle) to be used to synthesize sugars for use as energy by the rest of the body.

Most experts believe that a prolonged fast can lead to muscle wasting, although some dispute this. The use of short-term fasting, or various forms of intermittent fasting, have been used as a form of dieting to circumvent the issues of long fasting.

Detox:
Main article: Detox diet

Detox diets are promoted with unsubstantiated claims that they can eliminate "toxins" from the human body. Many of these diets use herbs or celery and other juicy low-calorie vegetables.

Environmentally sustainable:
See also: Environmental vegetarianism

Another kind of diet focuses not on the dieter's health effects, but on its environment. The One Blue Dot plan of the BDA offers recommendations towards reducing diets' environmental impacts, by:
  1. Reducing meat to 70g per person per day.
  2. Prioritizing plant proteins.
  3. Promoting fish from sustainable sources.
  4. Moderate dairy consumption.
  5. Focusing on wholegrain starchy foods.
  6. Promoting seasonal locally sourced fruits and vegetables.
  7. Reducing high fat, sugar and salty foods overconsumption.
  8. Promoting tap water and unsweetened tea/coffee as the de facto choice for healthy hydration.
  9. Reducing food waste.

Effectiveness:

Several diets are effective for weight loss of obese individuals, with diet success most predicted by adherence and little effect resulting from the type or brand of diet. 

As weight maintenance depends on calorie intake, diets emphasizing certain macronutrients (low-fat, low-carbohydrate, etc.) have been shown to be no more effective than one another and no more effective than diets that maintain a typical mix of foods with smaller portions and perhaps some substitutions (e.g. low-fat milk, or less salad dressing).

A meta-analysis of six randomized controlled trials found no difference between low-calorie, low-carbohydrate, and low-fat diets, with a 2–4 kilogram weight loss over 12–18 months in all studies. Extreme diets may, in some cases, lead to malnutrition.

A major challenge regarding weight loss and dieting relates to compliance. While dieting can effectively promote weight loss in the short term, the intervention is hard to maintain over time and suppresses skeletal muscle thermogenesis.

Suppressed thermogenesis accelerates weight regain once the diet stops, unless that phase is accompanied by a well-timed exercise intervention, as described by the Summermatter cycle. As a result of this, some argue against using weight loss as a goal, preferring other measures of health such as improvements in cardiovascular biomarkers, sometimes called a Health at Every Size (HAES) approach.

Short-term dieting results on average in a meaningful long-term weight-loss, although more limited because of gradual 1 to 2 kg/year weight regain. For each individual, the result will be different, with some even regaining more weight than they lost, while a few others achieve a tremendous loss, so that the "average weight loss" of a diet is not indicative of the results other dieters may achieve. 

A 2001 meta-analysis of 29 American studies found that participants of structured weight-loss programs maintained an average of 23% (3kg) of their initial weight loss after five years, representing an sustained 3.2% reduction in body mass.

Dieting appears more effective than exercise for weight loss, but combining both provides even greater long-term results.

Adverse effects:

A number of studies have found that intentional weight loss is associated with an increase in mortality in people without weight-related health problems. A 2009 meta-analysis of 26 studies found that "intentional weight loss had a small benefit for individuals classified as unhealthy (with obesity-related risk factors), especially unhealthy obese, but appeared to be associated with slightly increased mortality for healthy individuals, and for those who were overweight but not obese."

Eating disorders:

In an editorial for Psychological Medicine, George Hsu concludes that dieting is likely to lead to the development of an eating disorder in the presence of certain risk factors. A 2006 study found that dieting and unhealthy weight-control behaviors were predictive of obesity and eating disorders five years later, with the authors recommending a "shift away from dieting and drastic weight-control measures toward the long-term implementation of heathy eating and physical activity".

Mechanism:

When the body is expending more energy than it is consuming (e.g. when exercising), the body's cells rely on internally stored energy sources, such as complex carbohydrates and fats, for energy. The first source to which the body turns is glycogen (by glycogenolysis).

Glycogen is a complex carbohydrate, 65% of which is stored in skeletal muscles and the remainder in the liver (totaling about 2,000 kcal in the whole body). It is created from the excess of ingested macronutrients, mainly carbohydrates.

When glycogen is nearly depleted, the body begins lipolysis, the mobilization and catabolism of fat stores for energy. In this process fats, obtained from adipose tissue, or fat cells, are broken down into glycerol and fatty acids, which can be used to generate energy. The primary by-products of metabolism are carbon dioxide and water; carbon dioxide is expelled through the respiratory system.

Set-Point Theory:
See also: Energy homeostasis § Imbalance

The Set-Point Theory, first introduced in 1953, postulated that each body has a preprogrammed fixed weight, with regulatory mechanisms to compensate. This theory was quickly adopted and used to explain failures in developing effective and sustained weight loss procedures.

A 2019 systematic review of multiple weight change procedures, including alternate day fasting and time-restricted feeding but also exercise and overeating, found systematic "energetic errors" for all these procedures. This shows that the body cannot precisely compensate for errors in energy/calorie intake, countering the Set-Point Theory and potentially explaining both weight loss and weight gain such as obesity.

This review was conducted on short-term studies, therefore such a mechanism cannot be excluded in the long term, as evidence is currently lacking on this timeframe.

Methods:

Meals timing:

Meals timing schedule is known to be an important factor of any diet. Recent evidence suggest that new scheduling strategies, such as intermittent fasting or skipping meals, and strategically placed snacks before meals, may be recommendable to reduce cardiovascular risks as part of a broader lifestyle and dietary change.

Food diary:

A 2008 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine showed that dieters who kept a daily food diary (or diet journal), lost twice as much weight as those who did not keep a food log, suggesting that if a person records their eating, they are more aware of what they consume and therefore eat fewer calories.

Water:
Main article: Weight loss effects of water

A 2009 review found limited evidence suggesting that encouraging water consumption and substituting energy-free beverages for energy-containing beverages (i.e., reducing caloric intake) may facilitate weight management. A 2009 article found that drinking 500 ml of water prior to meals for a 12-week period resulted in increased long-term weight reduction. (References given in main article.)

Society:

It is estimated that about 1 out of 3 Americans is dieting at any given time. 85% of dieters are women. Approximately sixty billion dollars are spent every year in the USA on diet products, including "diet foods," such as light sodas, gym memberships or specific regimes. 80% of dieters start by themselves, whereas 20% see a professional or join a paid program. The typical dieter attempts 4 tries per year.

Weight loss groups:

Some weight loss groups aim to make money, others work as charities. The former include Weight Watchers and Peertrainer. The latter include Overeaters Anonymous, TOPS Club and groups run by local organizations.

These organizations' customs and practices differ widely. Some groups are modelled on twelve-step programs, while others are quite informal. Some groups advocate certain prepared foods or special menus, while others train dieters to make healthy choices from restaurant menus and while grocery-shopping and cooking.

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List of diets:

An individual's diet is the sum of food and drink that she or he habitually consumes. Dieting is the practice of attempting to achieve or maintain a certain weight through diet.

People's dietary choices are often affected by a variety of factors, including ethical and religious beliefs, clinical need, or a desire to control weight.

Not all diets are considered healthy. Some people follow unhealthy diets through habit, rather than through a conscious choice to eat unhealthily. Terms applied to such eating habits include "junk food diet" and "Western diet". Many diets are considered by clinicians to pose significant health risks and minimal long-term benefit. This is particularly true of "crash" or "fad" diets – short-term, weight-loss plans that involve drastic changes to a person's normal eating habits.

Only diets covered elsewhere in Wikipedia are listed below.

​Belief-based diets:

Some people's dietary choices are influenced by their religious, spiritual or philosophical beliefs.
  • Buddhist diet: While Buddhism does not have specific dietary rules, some Buddhists practice vegetarianism based on a strict interpretation of the first of the Five Precepts.
  • Hindu and Jain diets: Followers of Hinduism and Jainism may follow lacto vegetarian diets (though most do not), based on the principle of ahimsa (non-harming).
  • Islamic dietary laws: Muslims follow a diet consisting solely of food that is halal – permissible in Islam. The opposite of halal is haraam, food that is Islamically Impermissible. Haraam substances include alcohol, pork, and any meat from an animal which was not killed through the Islamic method of ritual slaughter (Dhabiha).
  • I-tal: A set of principles which influences the diet of many members of the Rastafari movement. One principle is that natural foods should be consumed. Some Rastafarians interpret I-tal to advocate vegetarianism or veganism.
  • Kosher diet: Food permissible under Kashrut, the set of Jewish dietary laws, is said to be Kosher. Some foods and food combinations are non-Kosher, and failure to prepare food in accordance with Kashrut can make otherwise permissible foods non-Kosher.
  • Seventh-day Adventist: Seventh-day Adventists combine the Kosher rules of Judaism with prohibitions against alcohol and caffeinated beverages and an emphasis on whole foods. About half of Adventists are lacto-ovo-vegetarians.
  • Word of Wisdom: The name of a section of the Doctrine and Covenants, a book of scripture accepted by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Dietary advice includes (1) wholesome plants "in the season thereof", (2) eating meat sparingly and only "in times of winter, or of cold, or famine", and (3) grain as the "staff of life".
  • Remba/Lemba diet: Lemba people or Remba people are found in Southern Africa and their diet is based on their culture. Their day includes meats and carbohydrates but the meat is slaughtered in a specific way so as to drain maximum blood from the animal. They pay particular attention to cleanliness of the person handling and preparing as well as the utensils used for food. Their diet excludes pork.

Calorie and weight control diets:
Main article: Dieting

A desire to lose weight is a common motivation to change dietary habits, as is a desire to maintain an existing weight. Many weight loss diets are considered by some to entail varying degrees of health risk, and some are not widely considered to be effective. This is especially true of "crash" or "fad" diets.

Many of the diets listed below could fall into more than one subcategory. Where this is the case, it is noted in that diet's entry.

Low-calorie diets:
Main article: Calorie restriction

  • 5:2 diet: an intermittent fasting diet popularized by Michael Mosley in 2012.
  • Intermittent fasting: Cycling between non-fasting and fasting as a method of calorie restriction.
  • Body for Life: A calorie-control diet, promoted as part of the 12-week Body for Life program.
  • Cookie diet: A calorie control diet in which low-fat cookies are eaten to quell hunger, often in place of a meal.
  • The Hacker's Diet: A calorie-control diet from The Hacker's Diet by John Walker. The book suggests that the key to reaching and maintaining the desired weight is understanding and carefully monitoring calories consumed and used.
  • Nutrisystem diet: The dietary element of the weight-loss plan from Nutrisystem, Inc. Nutrisystem distributes low-calorie meals, with specific ratios of fats, proteins and carbohydrates.
  • Weight Watchers diet: Foods are assigned point values; dieters can eat any food with a point value provided they stay within their daily point limit.

Very low calorie diets:

A very low calorie diet is consuming fewer than 800 calories per day. Such diets are normally followed under the supervision of a doctor. Zero-calorie diets are also included.
  • Inedia (breatharian diet): A diet in which no food is consumed, based on the belief that food is not necessary for human subsistence.
  • KE diet: A diet in which an individual feeds through a feeding tube and does not eat anything.

Low-carbohydrate diets:
Main article: Low-carbohydrate diet

  • Atkins diet: A low-carbohydrate diet, popularized by nutritionist Robert Atkins in the late-20th and early-21st centuries. Proponents argue that this approach is a more successful way of losing weight than low-calorie diets; critics argue that a low-carb approach poses increased health risks. The Atkins diet consists of four phases (Induction, Balancing, Fine-Tuning and Maintenance) with a gradual increase in consumption of carbohydrates as the person goes through the phases.
  • Dukan Diet: A multi-step diet based on high protein and limited carbohydrate consumption. It starts with two steps intended to facilitate short term weight loss, followed by two steps intended to consolidate these losses and return to a more balanced long-term diet.
  • Kimkins: A heavily promoted diet for weight loss, found to be fraudulent.
  • South Beach Diet: Diet developed by the Miami-based cardiologist Arthur Agatston, M.D., who says that the key to losing weight quickly and getting healthy isn't cutting all carbohydrates and fats from your diet, but choosing the right carbs and the right fats.
  • Stillman diet: A carbohydrate-restricted diet that predates the Atkins diet, allowing consumption of specific food ingredients.

Low-fat diets:
Main article: Low-fat diet

  • McDougall's starch diet is a high calorie, high fiber, low fat diet that is based on starches such as potatoes, rice, and beans which excludes all animal foods and added vegetable oils. John A. McDougall draws on historical observation of how many civilizations around the world throughout time have thrived on starch foods.

Crash diets:

Crash diets are very-low-calorie diets used for the purpose of very fast weight loss. They describe diet plans that involve making extreme, rapid changes to food consumption, but are also used as disparaging terms for common eating habits which are considered unhealthy.

This diet is dangerous and can lead to sudden death when not done in a medically supervised setting. Several diets listed here are weight-loss diets which would also fit into other sections of this list. Where this is the case, it will be noted in that diet's entry.
  • Beverly Hills Diet: An extreme diet which has only fruits in the first days, gradually increasing the selection of foods up to the sixth week.
  • Cabbage soup diet: A low-calorie diet based on heavy consumption of cabbage soup. Considered a fad diet.
  • Grapefruit diet: A fad diet, intended to facilitate weight loss, in which grapefruit is consumed in large quantities at meal times.
  • Monotrophic diet: A diet that involves eating only one food item, or one type of food, for a period of time to achieve a desired weight reduction.
  • Subway diet: A crash diet in which a person consumes Subway sandwiches in place of higher calorie fast foods. Made famous by former obese student Jared Fogle, who lost 245 pounds after replacing his meals with Subway sandwiches as part of an effort to lose weight.

Detox diets:

Detox diets involve either not consuming or attempting to flush out substances that are considered unhelpful or harmful. Examples include restricting food consumption to foods without colorings or preservatives, taking supplements, or drinking large amounts of water.

The latter practice in particular has drawn criticism, as drinking significantly more water than recommended levels can cause hyponatremia:
  • Juice fasting: A form of detox diet, in which nutrition is obtained solely from fruit and vegetable juices. The health implications of such diets are disputed.
  • Master Cleanse: A form of juice fasting.

Diets followed for medical reasons:

People's dietary choices are sometimes affected by intolerance or allergy to certain types of food. There are also dietary patterns that might be recommended, prescribed or administered by medical professionals for people with specific medical needs.

  • DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension): A recommendation that those with high blood pressure consume large quantities of fruits, vegetables, whole-grains and low fat dairy foods as part of their diet, and avoid sugar sweetened foods, red meat and fats. Promoted by the US Department of Health and Human Services, a United States government organization.
  • Diabetic diet: An umbrella term for diets recommended to people with diabetes. There is considerable disagreement in the scientific community as to what sort of diet is best for people with diabetes.
  • Elemental diet: A medical, liquid-only diet, in which liquid nutrients are consumed for ease of ingestion.
  • Elimination diet: A method of identifying foods which cause a person adverse effects, by process of elimination.
  • Gluten-free diet: A diet which avoids the protein gluten, which is found in barley, rye and wheat. It is a medical treatment for gluten-related disorders, which include coeliac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity, gluten ataxia, dermatitis herpetiformis and wheat allergy.
  • Gluten-free, casein-free diet: A gluten-free diet which also avoids casein, a protein commonly found in milk and cheese. This diet has been researched for efficacy in treatment of autism spectrum disorder.
  • Healthy kidney diet: This diet is for those impacted with chronic kidney disease, those with only one kidney who have a kidney infection and those who may be suffering from some other kidney failure. This diet is not the dialysis diet, which is something completely different. The healthy kidney diet restricts large amounts of protein which are hard for the kidney to break down but especially limits: potassium and phosphorus-rich foods and beverages. Liquids are often restricted as well – not forbidden, just less of.
  • Ketogenic diet: A high-fat, low-carb diet, in which dietary and body fat is converted into energy. It is used as a medical treatment for refractory epilepsy.
  • Liquid diet: A diet in which only liquids are consumed. May be administered by clinicians for medical reasons, such as after a gastric bypass[ or to prevent death through starvation from a hunger strike.
  • Low-FODMAP diet: A diet that consists in the global restriction of all fermentable carbohydrates (FODMAPs).
  • Soft diet
  • Specific carbohydrate diet: A diet that aims to restrict the intake of complex carbohydrates such as found in grains and complex sugars. It is promoted as a way of reducing the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, coeliac disease, and autism.

Fad diets:

A fad diet is a diet that is popular for a time, similar to fads in fashion, without being a standard dietary recommendation, and often promising unreasonably fast weight loss or nonsensical health improvements. 

There is no single definition of what a fad diet is, encompassing a variety of diets with different approaches and evidence bases, and thus different outcomes, advantages and disadvantages, and it is ever-changing.

Generally, fad diets promise short-term changes with little efforts, and thus may lack educating consumers about whole-diet, whole lifestyle changes necessary for sustainable health benefices. Fad diets are often promoted with exaggerated claims, such as rapid weight loss of more than 1 kg/week or improving health by "detoxification", or even dangerous claims.

Since the "fad" qualification varies over time, social, cultural and subjective view, this list cannot be exhaustive, and fad diets may continue or stop being fads, such as the mediterranean diet. Some of them have therapeutic indications, such as epilepsy or obesity, and there is no one-size-fits-all diet that would be a panacea for everyone to lose weight or look better. Dieteticians are a regulated profession that can distinguish nutritionally sound diets from unhealthy ones.

​Food-specific diets:


Low-carbohydrate / high-fat diets:


High-carbohydrate / low-fat diets:


Liquid diets:


Fasting:


Detoxifying:


Other fad diets:


Vegetarian diets:
Main article: Vegetarianism

A vegetarian diet is one which excludes meat. Vegetarians also avoid food containing by-products of animal slaughter, such as animal-derived rennet and gelatin.
  • Fruitarian diet: A diet which predominantly consists of raw fruit.
  • Lacto vegetarianism: A vegetarian diet that includes certain types of dairy, but excludes eggs and foods which contain animal rennet. A common diet among followers of several religions, including Hinduism, Sikhism and Jainism, based on the principle of Ahimsa (non-harming).
  • Ovo vegetarianism: A vegetarian diet that includes eggs, but excludes dairy.
  • Ovo-lacto vegetarianism: A vegetarian diet that includes eggs and dairy.
  • Vegan diet: In addition to the abstentions of a vegetarian diet, vegans do not use any product produced by animals, such as eggs, dairy products, or honey. The vegan philosophy and lifestyle is broader than just the diet and also includes abstaining from using any products tested on animals and often campaigning for animal rights.

Semi-vegetarian diets:

  • Semi-vegetarianism: A predominantly vegetarian diet, in which meat is occasionally consumed.
  • Kangatarian: A diet originating from Australia. In addition to foods permissible in a vegetarian diet, kangaroo meat is also consumed.
  • Pescetarian diet: A diet which includes fish but not other meats.
  • Plant-based diet: A broad term to describe diets in which animal products do not form a large proportion of the diet. Under some definitions a plant-based diet is fully vegetarian; under others it is possible to follow a plant-based diet whilst occasionally consuming meat.
  • Pollotarian: Someone who eats chicken or other poultry, but not meat from mammals, often for environmental, health or food justice reasons.
  • Pollo-pescetarian: Someone who eats both poultry and fish/seafood, though no meat from mammals.

Other diets:

  • Alkaline diet: The avoidance of relatively acidic foods – foods with low pH levels – such as alcohol, caffeine, dairy, fungi, grains, meat, and sugar. Proponents believe such a diet may have health benefits; critics consider the arguments to have no scientific basis.
  • Clean eating
  • Climatarian diet: A diet focused on reducing the carbon footprint of the consumed food, particularly through the consumption of locally sourced food and the avoidance of beef and lamb meat.
  • Eat-clean diet: Focuses on eating foods without preservatives, and on mixing lean proteins with complex carbohydrates.
  • Gerson therapy: A form of alternative medicine, the diet is low salt, low fat and vegetarian, and also involves taking specific supplements. It was developed by Max Gerson, who claimed the therapy could cure cancer and chronic, degenerative diseases. These claims have not been scientifically proven, and they can cause serious illness and death.
  • The Graham Diet: A vegetarian diet which promotes whole-wheat flour and discourages the consumption of stimulants such as alcohol and caffeine. Developed by Sylvester Graham in the 19th century.
  • Hay diet: A food-combining diet developed by William Howard Hay in the 1920s. Divides foods into separate groups, and suggests that proteins and carbohydrates should not be consumed in the same meal.
  • High-protein diet: A diet in which high quantities of protein are consumed with the intention of building muscle. Not to be confused with low-carb diets, where the intention is to lose weight by restricting carbohydrates.
  • High residue diet: A diet in which high quantities of dietary fiber are consumed. High-fiber foods include certain fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains.
  • Macrobiotic diet: A diet in which processed food is avoided. Common components include grains, beans and vegetables.
  • Mediterranean diet: A diet based on habits of some southern European countries. One of the more distinct features is that olive oil is used as the primary source of fat.
  • MIND diet: combines the portions of the DASH diet and the Mediterranean diet. The diet is intended to reduce neurological deterioration such as Alzheimer's disease.
  • Montignac diet: A weight-loss diet characterised by consuming carbohydrates with a low glycemic index.
  • Negative calorie diet: A claim by many weight-loss diets that some foods take more calories to digest than they provide, such as celery. The basis for this claim is disputed.
  • Okinawa diet: A low-calorie diet based on the traditional eating habits of people from the Ryukyu Islands.
  • Omnivore: An omnivore consumes both plant and animal-based food.
  • Organic food diet: A diet consisting only of food which is organic – it has not been produced with modern inputs such as synthetic fertilizers, genetic modification, irradiation, or synthetic food additives.
  • Prison loaf: A meal replacement served in some United States prisons to inmates who are not trusted to use cutlery. Its composition varies between institutions and states, but as a replacement for standard food, it is intended to provide inmates with all their dietary needs.
  • Raw foodism: A diet which centers on the consumption of uncooked and unprocessed food. Often associated with a vegetarian diet, although some raw food dieters do consume raw meat.
  • Shangri-La Diet
  • Slimming World diet
  • Slow-carb diet
  • Smart For Life
  • Sonoma diet: A diet based on portion control and centered around consuming “power foods”
  • SparkPeople diet
  • Sugar Busters!: Focuses on restricting the consumption of refined carbohydrates, particularly sugars.
  • Tongue Patch Diet: Stitching a Marlex patch to the tongue to make eating painful.
  • Western pattern diet (WPDs)* 

* WPDs are the "Default" diet in many developed countries, especially the Anglosphere. The name is from “Western world” and is interchanged with “standard American diet” & “meat-sweet diet” due to the high amount of meat(total), red meats(particularly), dairy, sweets and refined cereals.

Subpar intake of whole grains, legumes, tree nuts, produce and seafood is the norm. WPDs are distinguished from other unbalanced diets by heavy inclusion of ‘junk food’ and other ultraprocessed foods that generally provide substantial; empty calories, net carbs, simple carbs, saturated fat, industrial trans fat, added sugar/free sugars, added salt, artificial flavor /sweetener & other processing ingredients.

Archetypal examples include; RTE cereals, white breads, fast food, other convenience meals, cured meat dishes, smoked/fried meats, fried dough foods, shallow/deep fried potatoes, other foods intensely fried in rendered fat/refined oil, sugary/fatty discretionary foods (eg, sauce, candy), colas and other sweetened soft drinks.
​
See also:







United States Department of Health and Human Services along with the Food and Drug Administration * -- Food availability and food safety are vitally important to our well-being, and the FDA is working hard to help ensure the foods you, your family, and your pets eat are safe and available during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Find out more @ htttps://www.fda.gov/consumers/consume...
Pictured below:
TOP:  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): The mission of HHS is to enhance and protect the health and well-being of all Americans.
BOTTOM: Pfizer seeks US FDA approval for COVID-19 vaccine’s emergency use
The United States Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), also known as the Health Department, is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government with the goal of protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services.

HHS' motto is "Improving the health, safety, and well-being of America". Before the separate federal Department of Education was created in 1979, it was called the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW).

HHS is administered by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who is appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The United States Public Health Service (PHS) is the main division of the HHS and is led by the Assistant Secretary for Health.

The United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, the uniformed service of the PHS, is led by the Surgeon General who is responsible for addressing matters concerning public health as authorized by the Secretary or by the Assistant Secretary of Health in addition to his or her primary mission of administering the Commissioned Corps.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the United States  Department of Health & Human Services: ___________________________________________________________________________

​Food and Drug Administration:

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or USFDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services (above). The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of  the following:
The FDA's primary focus is enforcement of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C), but the agency also enforces other laws, notably Section 361 of the Public Health Service Act, as well as associated regulations.

Much of this regulatory-enforcement work is not directly related to food or drugs, but involves such things as regulating lasers, cellular phones, and condoms, as well as control of disease in contexts varying from household pets to human sperm donated for use in assisted reproduction.

The FDA is led by the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Commissioner reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services (Opening topic above).

The FDA has its headquarters in unincorporated White Oak, Maryland. The agency also has 223 field offices and 13 laboratories located throughout the 50 states, the United States Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. 

In 2008, the FDA began to post employees to foreign countries, including China, India, Costa Rica, Chile, Belgium, and the United Kingdom.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Food & Drug Administration:






​
Restaurant Chefs including Celebrity Chefs; and an Overall List of Renown ChefsPictured below (L-R), well-known Chefs:
Top: Wolfgang Puck; Rachael Ray
Bottom: Emeril Lagasse; Paula Deen;
Click Here for a List of Renown Chefs beginning in the 20th Century.

A chef is a trained professional cook and tradesman who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation, often focusing on a particular cuisine. The word "chef" is derived from the term chef de cuisine (French pronunciation: ​[ʃɛf.də.kɥi.zin]), the director or head of a kitchen. Chefs can receive formal training from an institution, as well as by apprenticing with an experienced chef.

There are different terms that use the word chef in their titles, and deal with specific areas of food preparation. Examples include a sous-chef, who acts as the second-in-command in a kitchen, a chef de partie, who handles a specific area of production.

The kitchen brigade system is a hierarchy found in restaurants and hotels employing extensive staff, many of which use the word "chef" in their titles. Underneath the chefs are the kitchen assistants.

A chef's standard uniform includes a hat (called a toque), neckerchief, double-breasted jacket, apron and sturdy shoes (that may include steel or plastic toe-caps).

In English, the title "chef" in the culinary profession originated in the haute cuisine of the 19th century. The culinary arts, among other aspects of the French language introduced French loan-words into the English language.

Titles:
​​
Various titles, detailed below, are given to those working in a professional kitchen and each can be considered a title for a type of chef. Many of the titles are based on the brigade de cuisine (or brigade system) documented by Auguste Escoffier, while others have a more general meaning depending on the individual kitchen.

Chef de cuisine:
Main article: Chef de cuisine

Other names include executive chef, chef manager, head chef, and master chef. This person is in charge of all activities related to the kitchen, which usually includes menu creation, management of kitchen staff, ordering and purchasing of inventory, controlling raw material costs and plating design. 

Chef de cuisine is the traditional French term from which the English word chef is derived. Head chef is often used to designate someone with the same duties as an executive chef, but there is usually someone in charge of a head chef, possibly making the larger executive decisions such as direction of menu, final authority in staff management decisions, and so on.

This is often the case for executive chefs with multiple restaurants. Involved in checking the sensory evaluation of dishes after preparation and they are well aware of each sensory property of those specific dishes.

In the UK, the title executive chef normally applies to hotels with multi outlets in the same hotel. Other establishments in the UK tend to use the title head chef.

Sous-chef:
Main article: Sous chef

The Sous-Chef de Cuisine (under-chef of the kitchen) is the second-in-command and direct assistant of the Chef de Cuisine. Sous chef works under executive chef or head chef. This person may be responsible for scheduling the kitchen staff, or substituting when the head chef is off-duty. Also, he or she will fill in for or assist the Chef de Partie (line cook) when needed.

This person is accountable for the kitchen's inventory, cleanliness, organization, and the continuing training of its entire staff. A sous-chef's duties can also include carrying out the head chef's directives, conducting line checks, and overseeing the timely rotation of all food products. Smaller operations may not have a sous-chef, while larger operations may have more than one. 

The sous chef is also responsible when the Executive Chef is absent.

Chef de partie:
Main article: Chef de partie

A chef de partie, also known as a "station chef" or "line cook", is in charge of a particular area of production. In large kitchens, each chef de partie might have several cooks or assistants.

In most kitchens, however, the chef de partie is the only worker in that department. Line cooks are often divided into a hierarchy of their own, starting with "first cook", then "second cook", and so on as needed.

Commis (Chef) / Range chef :

A commis is a basic chef in larger kitchens who works under a chef de partie to learn the station's or range's responsibilities and operation. This may be a chef who has recently completed formal culinary training or is still undergoing training.

Brigade system titles:
Main article: Brigade de cuisine

Click here for Station-chef titles which are part of the brigade system

​Kitchen assistant:

Kitchen assistants are of two types, kitchen-hands and stewards/ kitchen porters. Kitchen-hands assist with basic food preparation tasks under the chef's direction. They carry out relatively unskilled tasks such as peeling potatoes and washing salad.

Stewards/ kitchen porters are involved in the scullery, washing up and general cleaning duties. In a smaller kitchen, these duties may be incorporated.

A communard is in charge of preparing the meal for the staff during a shift. This meal is often referred to as the staff or family meal.

The escuelerie (from 15th century French and a cognate of the English "scullery"), or the more modern plongeur or dishwasher, is the keeper of dishes, having charge of dishes and keeping the kitchen clean. A common humorous title for this role in some modern kitchens is "chef de plonge" or "head dishwasher".

Culinary education:
​
Education is available from many culinary institutions offering diploma, associate, and bachelor's degree programs in culinary arts. Depending on the level of education, this can take one to four years.

An internship is often part of the curriculum. Regardless of the education received, most professional kitchens follow the apprenticeship system, and most new cooks will start at a lower-level 2nd or 1st cook position and work their way up.

Like many skilled trades, chefs usually go through a formal apprenticeship which includes many years of on-the-job training. Culinary schools and restaurants offer these apprenticeships. To become an apprentice, one must be at least 18 years old and have a high school diploma or GED.

Apprenticeships usually take 3 to 4 years to complete and combine classroom instruction with on-the-job training. The training period for a chef is generally four years as an apprentice. A newly qualified chef is advanced or more commonly a toquecommis-chef, consisting of first-year commis, second-year commis, and so on. The rate of pay is usually in accordance with the chefs.

Like all other chefs except the executive-chef, trainees are placed in sections of the kitchen (e.g., the starter (appetizer) or entrée sections) under the guidance of a demi-chef de partie and are given relatively basic tasks. Ideally, over time, a commis will spend a certain period in each section of the kitchen to learn the basics. Unaided, a commis may work on the vegetable station of a kitchen.

The usual formal training period for a chef is two to four years in catering college. They often spend the summer in work placements. In some cases this is modified to 'day-release' courses; a chef will work full-time in a kitchen as an apprentice and then would have allocated days off to attend catering college. These courses can last between one and three years.

In the UK, most Chefs are trained in the work place, with most doing a formal NVQ level 2 or 3 in the work place.

Uniform:

The standard uniform for a chef includes a hat called a toque, necktie, double-breasted jacket, apron and shoes with steel or plastic toe-caps. A chef's hat was originally designed as a tall rippled hat called a Dodin Bouffant or more commonly a toque.

Neckties were originally worn to allow for the mopping of sweat from the face, but as this is now against health regulations, they are largely decorative. The chef's neck tie was originally worn on the inside of the jacket to stop sweat running from the face and neck down the body.

The jacket is usually white to show off the chef's cleanliness and repel heat, and is double-breasted to prevent serious injuries from burns and scalds. The double breast also serves to conceal stains on the jacket as one side can be rebuttoned over the other, which is common practice.

​An apron is worn to just below knee-length, also to assist in the prevention of burns because of spillage. If hot liquid is spilled onto it, the apron can be quickly removed to minimize burns and scalds.

Shoes and clogs are hard-wearing and with a steel-top cap to prevent injury from falling objects or knives. According to some hygiene regulations, jewelry is not allowed apart from wedding bands and religious jewelry.

If wound dressings are required they should be blue—an unusual color for foodstuffs—so that they are noticeable if they fall into food. Facial hair and longer hair are often required to be netted, or trimmed, for food safety. Bandages on the hands are usually covered with nylon gloves. Latex is not typically used for food preparation due to latex allergy.

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

A celebrity chef is a kitchen chef who has become a celebrity. Today, chefs often become celebrities by presenting cookery advice and demonstrations, usually through the media of television and radio, or in printed publications.

While television is ultimately the primary way for a chef to become a celebrity, some have achieved this through success in the kitchen, cook book publications, and achieving awards such as Michelin stars, while others are home cooks who won competitions.

Celebrity chefs can also influence cuisines across countries, with foreign cuisines being introduced in their natural forms for the first time due to the work of the chef to inform their viewers.

Sales of certain foodstuffs can also be enhanced, such as when Delia Smith caused the sale of white eggs across the UK to increase by 10% in what has since been termed the "Delia effect".

Endorsements are also to be expected from a celebrity chef, such as Ken Hom's range of bestselling woks in Europe, but can also lead to criticism over which endorsements are chosen such as when Marco Pierre White teamed up with Bernard Matthews Farms, or when Darren Simpson advised and endorsed fast-food restaurant KFC.

In South Korea, a celebrity chef is referred as a Cheftainer.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Celebrity Chefs:







American Culinary Federation (ACF)Pictured below: The Color-Coded FoodService System has received the American Culinary Federation’s (ACF) Seal of Approval. The ACF is the largest professional chefs’ organization in North America. The Seal of Approval is considered to be a benchmark of excellence.
​The American Culinary Federation (ACF) was established in 1929 in New York City and is the largest professional chefs' organization in North America. It was the progeny of the combined visions of three chefs' associations in New York City, the Société Culinaire Philanthropique, the Vatel Club and the Chefs de Cuisine Association of America.

ACF, now based in St. Augustine, Florida, comprises more than 17,500 members in over 150 chapters across the United States, and is known as the authority on cooking in America.

Its mission is to make a positive difference  for culinarians through education, apprenticeship and certification, while creating a fraternal bond of respect and integrity among culinarians everywhere. One of ACF's defining historical moments remains the ACF-led initiative that resulted in the upgrade of the definition of chef from domestic to professional in 1976. The ACF is a member of the World Association of Chefs Societies.

Today, ACF is the leader in offering educational resources, training, apprenticeship, competitions and programmatic accreditation designed to enhance professional growth for all current and future chefs and pastry chefs. In addition, ACF operates the most comprehensive culinary certification program in the world.

ACF is home to ACF Culinary Team USA, the official representative for the United States in major international competitions. ACF also publishes The National Culinary Review, a bi-monthly print and digital magazine featuring articles on food, drink and menu trends, product application, management and lifestyle issues, recipes and professional development.

​Education:

Through the American Culinary Federation Educational Foundation (ACFEF), ACF offers accreditation of secondary and post-secondary culinary education programs to ensure these programs meet the highest standards of education and professionalism.

ACF-accredited culinary programs can be found across the United States as well as in Guam, Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Philippines, Bulgaria, Italy, Peru, Russia, and Switzerland.

In addition to accrediting education programs, ACF also oversees apprenticeship programs that combine on-the-job training and classroom instruction for future chefs. ACF assists establishments in setting up their own apprenticeship programs for students and has created a set of national apprenticeship guidelines and standards that are registered with the U.S. Department of Labor.

In 2012, the ACF apprenticeship program received the 21st Century Registered Trailblazers and Innovators Award by the U.S. Department of Labor for its partnership with the U.S. Army.

Certification:

ACF offers 16 different professional certifications for chefs and culinary educators. Certification levels are based on a chef's educational and work experience. Culinary students may earn a basic level of certification through an ACF-accredited educational program or apprenticeship.

Higher levels of certification are achieved by passing written and practical exams and certification is maintained through earning continuing education hours. Continuing education hours are offered at ACF events such as local chapter meetings, regional conferences, the annual National Convention, or through the ACF Online Learning Center.

The highest level of certification that can be reached is Certified Master Chef (CMC). There are only 68 people in the world that currently hold this distinction. The practical exam for the CMC level is held every other year and is widely considered to be one of the most difficult examinations on Earth. The most recent CMC exam was held in March 2019, with five candidates participating and only one passing the exam to earn the title of Certified Master Chef.

Culinary competitions:

Culinary Competitions are a vital and evolving branch of the American Culinary Federation.

Some competitions are single events taking place at individual ACF chapters, while other student and professional competitions that include individual and team events engage in a rigorous qualifying process that begins at the local ACF chapter level, advances at the ACF Regional Conferences and culminates with the finals at the ACF National Convention.

Regardless of the level, the purpose is to continually raise the standards of culinary excellence in the United States while promoting camaraderie and educational opportunities among culinary professionals.

Some of the many ACF Culinary competitions include Chef of the Year, Pastry Chef of the Year, and Student Chef of the Year. These awards recognize chefs or students who have displayed a passion for the craft, a high level of professionalism, depth of knowledge, and a strong culinary skill set.

Advocacy and Philanthropy:

Scholarships:

The American Culinary Federation Education Foundation (ACFEF) provides scholarships for culinary students participating in apprenticeship programs, certificate programs, and post-secondary degree programs. Additionally, professional development grants are awarded on a competitive basis to exemplary working culinary professionals who wish to update their skills through continuing education. 

The Chef & Child Foundation:

Founded in 1989, The Chef & Child Foundation seeks to "foster, promote, encourage and stimulate an awareness of proper nutrition in preschool and elementary school children", as well as fight against childhood obesity.

Children benefit from the financial support which the foundation gives to other organizations which support childhood nutrition and obesity causes. They also support a yearly Chef & Child Day, where the ACF chapters from across the United States participate in local and national events to support children's causes.

Disaster Relief:

Funds from the ACFEF Disaster Relief Fund are available to assist ACF members, schools with ACFEF programmatic accreditation and their students, communities and individuals affected by catastrophic events and natural disasters. The fund aims to lift the financial burden of those without food, shelter, power or employment in the wake of a disaster.

Notable members:
ACF Culinary Team USA:

ACF Culinary Team USA, a program of the American Culinary Federation (ACF), is the official representative team of the United States in major national and international culinary competitions.

ACF Culinary Team USA comprises one national team of six members, two regional teams of five members each, and a youth team of five members less than 23 years old.

The regional teams, considered a training ground for the national team, work with and assist the national team when they are not competing. ACF Culinary Team USA competes in many competitions including three major international culinary competitions: International Exhibition of Culinary Art (IKA) also known as the "Culinary Olympics", The American Culinary Classic, and Culinary World Cup.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the American Cuisine Federation:







Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Food IndustryPictured below:  Research Reveals Impact of COVID-19 on U.S. Food and Beverage Industry: The Resilience360 report also shows that COVID-19-related disruptions have led to temporary food shortages, increased grocery prices and limited selections in supermarkets.
The COVID-19 pandemic affects the global food industry as governments close down restaurants and bars to slow the spread of the virus. Across the world, restaurants' daily traffic dropped precipitously compared to the same period in 2019.

Closures of restaurants caused a ripple effect among related industries such as food production, liquor, wine, and beer production, food and beverage shipping, fishing, and farming.

The issues were particularly disruptive in industrialized areas where large proportions of entire categories of food are typically imported using just-in-time logistics.

In June 2020, the United Nations warned that the world was facing the worst food crisis in half a century due to the recession caused by the pandemic: See Topic below.

Global Impact:

​Global food security expert Peter Alexander of the University of Edinburgh said that the free-market, just-in-time logistical systems common in industrialized areas are very good at dealing with disruptions in one place or sudden shortages of one commodity but are more vulnerable to systemic shock because there is no slack in the system and no supply reserves to fall back on.

In many places there was panic buying with resulting shortages. There were some supply chain disruptions for some products; for instance, many hand pumps for hand sanitizer bottles are imported into the US from China and were in shorter supply. 

For most food products in the US normal resupply happened, but panic buying causing empty shelves contributed to consumers' impulse to stock up and hoard. A US food retail trade group advised retailers to accelerate ordering and consider rationing in order to prevent empty shelves. 

Food retailers were "among the most affected by the coronavirus, but one of the few businesses that might actually benefit," at least in the short term according to the television channel Cheddar. Some areas saw price gouging.

Food traffic to restaurants and cafes declined by 75% in Latin America, where as North America and Middle East markets saw a decline of 90% by end of March. Later on, as demand for certain agricultural products fell due to lockdowns and closure of restaurants, farmers reported a glut in supply, such as potatoes in the Netherlands and milk in the U.S. state of Wisconsin.

Online grocery shopping has grown substantially during the pandemic. Small-scale farmers have been embracing digital technologies as a way to directly sell produce, and community-supported agriculture and direct-sell delivery systems are on the rise during the coronavirus pandemic.

​Hazard controls
Further information: Workplace hazard controls for COVID-19

For retail workers in food and grocery businesses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Occupational Safety and Health Administration have recommended specific COVID-19 hazard controls beyond general workplace recommendations.

For employees, these include encouraging touchless payment options and minimizing handling of cash and credit cards, placing cash on the counter rather than passing it directly by hand, and routinely disinfecting frequently touched surfaces such as workstations, cash registers, payment terminals, door handles, tables, and countertops.

Employers may place sneeze guards with a pass-through opening at the bottom of the barrier in checkout and customer service locations, use every other check-out lane, move the electronic payment terminal farther from the cashier, place visual cues such as floor decals to indicate where customers should stand during check out, provide remote shopping alternatives, and limit the maximum customer capacity at the door. 

Food workers experiencing clinical gastrointestinal or respiratory disease symptoms should not participate in food processing or preparation.

All types of food can potentially be contaminated though contact with any contaminated equipment, surfaces or environment. Proper cleaning and prevention of cross-contamination are critical in the control of foodborne illnesses.

Once pathogens are deposited on surfaces by a previously contaminated product (cross-contamination), aerosols or touch from contaminated hands or clothing, they can survive on inanimate objects such as knives, saws, transport containers and conveyor belts made of metal, plastic and wood. Coronaviruses have been shown to remain infectious for up to nine days on such surfaces!

Good hygiene practices are particularly important when handling fresh foods that may be consumed raw and/or without any further processing. Examples include fresh fruits and vegetables and ready-to-use foods for consumption without further heat treatment. These can be particularly susceptible to contamination from the environment and food handlers.

To minimize risk of exposure to any foodborne bacteria and viruses, it is important to keep food contact environments, equipment and tools clean, observe good handwashing practices, and separate raw and cooked foods and use clean water.

​United States:
Main article: Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the restaurant industry in the United States

​The 2020 coronavirus pandemic impacted the US food industry via government closures, resulting in layoffs of workers and loss of income for restaurants and owners. It impacted retail groceries with panic buying noted as early as 2 March in some areas.

The closures impacted the distribution for food and beverages. In early April, while grocery stores were experiencing shortages of dairy products, farmers whose main customers were in the food service supply chain were dumping their milk because of lack of demand. 

According to Cornell dairy industry economist Christopher Wolf, "If you have a factory that was set up to produce sour cream to sell at Mexican restaurants, you can't just decide that tomorrow you're gonna produce ice cream and send it to the grocery store." 

Meat processor Tyson Foods temporarily ceased operations in April because many of its workers had contracted coronavirus, and it was expected that farmers would simply slaughter many animals without having anywhere to sell them as meat.

According to NPR's Yuki Noguchi, "Just about every restaurant nationwide has been hit hard at once, making this disaster unique." Industry experts warned that many small businesses would not be able to recover from closures without help from the government. 

Impact on the greater economy was as of March 17 expected to be large as Americans have in recent years spent more at restaurants than at grocery stores. Lester Jones, chief economist of the National Beer Wholesalers Association, said “This is a very significant and traumatic event for the restaurants, bars, taverns and the industry in general." 

Chris Swonger, CED of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, said "The impact on our industry is going to be really, really difficult. It's going to be a real challenge economically for not only the distillers of the United States, but certainly small businesses, restaurants, and bars." 

Sean Kennedy of the National Restaurant Association on March 19 called the closures a "perfect storm" for the industry, saying the three primary challenges for restaurateurs are short-term access to cash, medium and long-term access to credit, and tax relief when the closures are ended. 

An investor in two New York City restaurants told the New York Post: "This situation is apocalyptic for the restaurant business. How sad would the city be if the only places that survived were chains? It makes me depressed to even think about it."— Mark Amadei

The New York Times on 20 March reported that industry analysts were predicting that two-thirds of restaurants would not survive, and as many as 75% of independents. On March 26, 11 percent of restaurants anticipated permanently closing within the next 30 days.

The US restaurant industry was projected at $899 billion in sales for 2020 by the National Restaurant Association, the main trade association for the industry in the United States.

An estimated 99% of companies in the industry are family-owned small businesses with fewer than 50 employees. The industry as a whole as of February 2020 employed more than 15 million people, representing 10% of the workforce directly. It is the nation's second largest private employer and the third largest employer overall. It indirectly employed close to another 10% when dependent businesses such as food producers, trucking, and delivery services were factored in, according to Ohio restaurateur Britney Ruby Miller. 

In Delaware and Massachusetts, one in ten workers is employed in the restaurant industry. In North Carolina, 11% of workers are employed by the industry. In Texas, 12% of workers were employed by the industry as of 2016.

Forbes on 19 March estimated the job losses in the restaurant industry to be in the millions. The National Restaurant Association estimated probable job losses to be five to seven million.

Industry experts on 18 March forecasted $225 billion in direct losses and a full economic impact of $675 billion because of additional revenues generated elsewhere in the economy when customers patronize restaurants.

In July, Dunkin' Donuts announced the permanent closure of 800 stores as pandemic related closures impacted the chain's business revenues. California Pizza Kitchen filed for bankruptcy. NPC International, CEC Entertainment, Le Pain Quotidien have also filed for bankruptcy.

Timeline:

In a 28 February story about how restaurants could prepare for the possibility of a pandemic, Restaurant Business quoted Roslyn Stone, COO of a firm that provides crisis response for restaurants, who said "The prospect of a global pandemic has already put a spotlight on restaurants and the tendency for employees to come in sick. Though more chains have started giving employees sick time as the supply of labor has tightened, it's increasingly important for companies to change their culture to ensure employees aren't working while sick."

A 3 March story in Nation's Restaurant News characterized the industry as being braced for impact from the virus.

On Sunday, 15 March, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Ohio Health Department director Amy Acton ordered the closure of all bars and restaurants to help slow the spread of the virus, saying the government "encouraged restaurants to offer carryout or delivery service, but they would not be allowed to have people congregating in the businesses."

DeWine said he'd made the decision "after being contacted by citizens around the state sharing photos and stories of crowded bars Saturday night, despite warnings of social distancing and the governor's edict limiting crowds to no larger than 100 people." The city of Los Angeles closed all restaurants and bars later that evening and New York City announced all restaurants and bars would close by the following Tuesday, both cities also allowing exceptions for takeout and delivery.

The next day, Illinois, New Jersey, New York state, Connecticut, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Washington DC followed suit. On March 18, the National Restaurant Association asked the federal government to provide relief to restaurants and restaurant workers. By March 21, at least 25 states had closed restaurants and bars. By March 22, the number had risen to 38. In other states, major cities had closed bars and restaurants to sit-down diners and limited to takeout orders and delivery.

Industry fallout and reactions:
Main article: Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the meat industry in the United States

The partial rather than full closings of restaurants meant that the closings failed to trigger business interruption insurance for many restaurants; other policies had clauses excluding coverage in the case of epidemics, action by civil authority, or requiring restaurants to have physical damage to property. 

Many employees were laid off, and more employees lacked sick leave in the sector compared to similar sectors. The New York Times characterized the closures as affecting "all strata of the industry, from the owners and their celebrity chefs to the waiters and waitresses, bar-backs and busboys, who effectively are facing layoffs and may be unable to pay their rent."

The virus has spread to hundreds of meat processing plants in the U.S., forcing some facilities to close, and causing tens of thousands of infections and dozens of deaths among meat processing workers. Smithfield Foods CEO Kenneth Sullivan said this created risks to the meat supply chain; the company closed at least three plants because of workers with the virus.

Directory and review site Yelp in July announced that 60% of US restaurants that closed down completely during the pandemic had marked those closures as permanent for a total of nearly 16,000 restaurants by July 24.

Government response:
Main article: Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on the US restaurant industry § Government response

Multiple state and local governments offered relief packages for workers and restaurants. US President Trump met via phone on March 19 with leaders of chain restaurant companies, but no independent franchises were included. Participants included Domino's Pizza, McDonald's, Wendy's, Yum Brands and Darden Restaurants and representatives from the International Franchise Association and the National Retail Federation.

In early May legislation was proposed in Congress to allow Americans to use SNAP benefits at restaurants. Currently, food assistance benefits can only be used at restaurants of the state participates in the "Restaurant Meals Program". The proposed SNAP CARRY Act includes provisions to expand access to the restaurant program during emergencies like the pandemic.

​Shopping and spread of the coronavirus:
See also: Online grocer

Individuals who have continued to shop during the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic are at an increased risk of contracting COVID-19. 

Amidst the pandemic, grocery stores and pharmacies continue to remain open and attract crowds of shoppers, thus creating the potential to further spread contagion. 

Some stores and pharmacies have set restrictions on shoppers to encourage social distancing such as a limit on capacity, required masks for customers and employees, taking temperatures before entrance or not allowing children under 16 inside the buildings.







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List of Michelin 3-Star RestaurantsPictured below: The Top Countries For Michelin 3-Star Restaurants
Michelin stars are a rating system used by the red Michelin Guide to grade restaurants on their quality. The guide was originally developed in 1900 to show French drivers where local amenities such as restaurants and mechanics were.

The rating system was first introduced in 1926 as a single star, with the second and third stars introduced in 1933. According to the Guide, one star signifies "a very good restaurant", two stars are "excellent cooking that is worth a detour", and three stars mean "exceptional cuisine that is worth a special journey". The listing of starred restaurants is updated once a year.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for ore about Michelin 3-Star Restaurants:







Outline of Food PreparationPictured below: Sometimes preparing food to either cook or bake can seem like a tedious job. Yes a job which takes up far too much time that you just don’t have. But there are ways to save time with your food prep so you can spend more time doing other things you like or want to get done. Check out these creative food preparation techniques to help you save time in the kitchen.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to food preparation:
Food preparation – art form and applied science that includes but is not limited to cooking:

What is food preparation?
  • Art – an art, one of the arts, is a creative endeavor or discipline.
  • Skill – learned capacity to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both.
  • Meal preparation – the process of planning meals.

Includes types of ingredients needed and the correct preparation of the ingredients for the food item being made.

Essence of food preparation:
  • Chef – a person who cooks professionally for other people. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who cooks for a living, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation.
  • Cooking – act of preparing food for eating. It encompasses a vast range of methods, tools and combinations of ingredients to improve the flavor or digestibility of food. It generally requires the selection, measurement and combining of ingredients in an ordered procedure in an effort to achieve the desired result.
  • Cuisine – specific set of cooking traditions and practices, often associated with a specific culture. It is often named after the region or place where its underlying culture is present. A cuisine is primarily influenced by the ingredients that are available locally or through trade.

Food preparation techniques:

Baking:
  • Baking – the technique of prolonged cooking of food by dry heat acting by convection, normally in an oven, but can also be done in hot ashes or on hot stones. Appliances like Rotimatic also allow automatic baking.
  • Blind-baking – baking pastry before adding a filling.
  • Boiling – the rapid vaporization of a liquid, which occurs when a liquid is heated to its boiling point, the temperature at which the vapor pressure of the liquid is equal to the pressure exerted on the liquid by the surrounding environmental pressure.
  • Blanching – cooking technique which food substance, usually a vegetable or fruit, is plunged into boiling water, removed after a brief, timed interval, and finally plunged into iced water or placed under cold running water (shocked) to halt the cooking process.
  • Braising – combination cooking method using both moist and dry heat; typically the food is first seared at a high temperature and then finished in a covered pot with a variable amount of liquid, resulting in a particular flavour.
  • Coddling – food is heated in water kept just below the boiling point.
  • Infusion – the process of soaking plant matter, such as fruits or tea leaves, in a liquid, such as water or alcohol, so as to impart flavor into the liquid.
  • Pressure cooking – cooking in a sealed vessel that does not permit air or liquids to escape below a preset pressure, which allows the liquid in the pot to rise to a higher temperature before boiling.
  • Simmering – foods are cooked in hot liquids kept at or just below the boiling point of water, but higher than poaching temperature.
    • Poaching – process of gently simmering food in liquid, generally milk, stock or wine.
  • Steaming – boiling water continuously so it vaporizes into steam and carries heat to the food being steamed, thus cooking the food.
    • Double steaming – Chinese cooking technique in which food is covered with water and put in a covered ceramic jar and the jar is then steamed for several hours.
  • Steeping – saturation of a food (such as an herb) in a liquid solvent to extract a soluble ingredient into the solvent. E.g., a cup of tea is made by steeping tea leaves in a cup of hot water.
  • Stewing – food is cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy.
  • Vacuum flask cooking –

Broiling:
  • ​Grilling – a form of cooking that involves dry heat applied to the surface of food, commonly from above or below.
  • Barbecuing – method of cooking meat, poultry and occasionally fish with the heat and hot smoke of a fire, smoking wood, or hot coals of charcoal.

Frying:
Microwaving:
  • Microwave oven – type of oven that heats foods quickly and efficiently using microwaves. However, unlike conventional ovens, a microwave oven does not brown bread or bake food. This makes microwave ovens unsuitable for cooking certain foods and unable to achieve certain culinary effects. Additional kinds of heat sources can be added into microwave ovens or microwave packaging so as to add these additional effects.

Roasting:
  • Roasting – cooking method that uses dry heat, whether an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting usually causes caramelization or Maillard browning of the surface of the food, which is considered by some as a flavor enhancement. Grilling – applying dry heat to the surface of food, by cooking it on a grill, a grill pan, or griddle.
  • Rotisserie – meat is skewered on a spit - a long solid rod used to hold food while it is being cooked over a fire in a fireplace or over a campfire, or while being roasted in an oven.
  • Searing – technique used in grilling, baking, braising, roasting, sautéing, etc., in which the surface of the food (usually meat, poultry or fish) is cooked at high temperature so a caramelized crust forms.

Hot Smoking:
  • Smoking – the process of flavoring, cooking, or preserving food by exposing it to the smoke from burning or smoldering plant materials, most often wood. Hot smoking will cook and flavor the food, while cold smoking only flavors the food.

Chemical techniques:
Mechanical techniques:
  • Basting –
  • Cutting
    • Dicing –cutting into cubes
    • Grating – The use of a grater to mash vegetables.
    • Julienning –cutting into very thin pieces such as the thin carrots in store bought salad mix
    • Mincing –cutting into very small pieces
    • Peeling –to take the outer skin/covering off of a fruit or vegetable
    • Shaving –
    • chiffonade; cutting in a ribbon like way
  • Kneading –
  • Milling –
  • Mixing ; incorporating different ingredients to make something new; such as how mixing water, sugar, and lemon juice makes lemonade
    • Blending ; using a machine called blender to grind ingredients
  • Vacuum Filling –

History of food preparation:
International cuisine:
​Main articles: Global cuisine and List of cuisines

A sample of some cuisines around the world:
​General food preparation concepts:
See also: ​






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Culinary Arts, including the Academy of Nutrition and DieteticsPictured below: Embracing the Mediterranean Diet by the Pennsylvania Academy of Nutrition & Dietics
Culinary arts, in which culinary means "related to cooking", are the cuisine arts of food preparation, cooking, and presentation of food, usually in the form of meals. People working in this field – especially in establishments such as restaurants – are commonly called "chefs" or "cooks", although, at its most general, the terms "culinary artist" and "culinarian" are also used. Table manners ("the table arts") are sometimes referred to as a culinary art.

Expert chefs are required to have knowledge of food science, nutrition and diet and are responsible for preparing meals that are as pleasing to the eye as they are to the palate. After restaurants, their primary places of work include delicatessens and relatively large institutions such as hotels and hospitals.

History:

The origins of culinary began with primitive humans roughly 2 million years ago. There are various theories as to how early humans used fire to cook meat. According to anthropologist Richard Wrangham, author of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, primitive humans simply tossed a raw hunk of meat into the flames and watched it sizzle.

Another theory claims humans may first have savored roasted meat by chance when the flesh of a beast killed in a forest fire was found to be more appetizing and easier to chew and digest than the conventional raw meat.

Culinary techniques improved with the introduction of earthenware and stoneware, the domestication of livestock, and advancements in agriculture. In early civilizations, the primary employers of professional chefs were kings, aristocrats, or priests. The divide between professional chefs cooking for the wealthy and peasants cooking for their families engendered the development of many cuisines.

A great deal of the study of culinary arts in Europe was organized by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a man famous for his quote "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are", which has since been mistranslated and oversimplified into "You are what you eat". Other people helped to parse out the different parts of food science and gastronomy. Over time, increasingly deeper and more detailed studies into foods and the culinary arts has led to a greater wealth of knowledge.

In Asia, a similar path led to a separate study of the culinary arts, which later essentially merged with the Western counterpart. In the modern international marketplace, there is no longer a distinct divide between Western and Eastern foods. Culinary arts students today, generally speaking, are introduced to the different cuisines of many different cultures from around the world.

The culinary arts, in the Western world, as a craft and later as a field of study, began to evolve at the end of the Renaissance period. Prior to this, chefs worked in castles, cooking for kings and queens, as well as their families, guests, and other workers of the castle.

As Monarchical rule became phased out as a modality, the chefs took their craft to inns and hotels. From here, the craft evolved into a field of study.

Before cooking institutions, professional cooks were mentors for individual students who apprenticed under them. In 1879, the first cooking school was founded in the United States: the Boston Cooking School. This school standardized cooking practices and recipes, and laid the groundwork for the culinary arts schools that would follow.

Tools and techniques:

​An integral part of the culinary arts are the tools, known as cooking or kitchen utensils, that are used by both professional chefs and home cooks alike. Professionals in the culinary arts often call these utensils by the French term "batterie de cuisine". These tools vary in materials and use.

Cooking implements are made with anything from wood, glass, various types of metals, to the newer silicone and plastic that can be seen in many kitchens today.

Within the realm of the culinary arts, there is a wide array of different cooking techniques that originate from various cultures and continue to develop over time as these techniques are shared between cultures and progress with new technology. Different cooking techniques require the use of certain tools, foods and heat sources in order to produce a specific desired result.

The professional kitchen may utilize certain techniques that a home cook might not, such as the use of an expensive professional grill but, cooking methods of various kinds can be found in any kitchen at virtually any point in modern human history.

Professional study:

Modern culinary arts students study many different aspects of food. Specific areas of study include the following:
Training in culinary arts is possible in most countries around the world usually at tertiary level (university) with institutions government funded, privately funded or commercial.

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

​The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is the United States' largest organization of food and nutrition professionals, and represents over 100,000 credentialed practitioners — registered dietitian nutritionists, dietetic technicians, registered, and other dietetics professionals holding undergraduate and advanced degrees in nutrition and dietetics.

After nearly 100 years as the American Dietetic Association, the organization officially changed its name to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in 2012. 

The organization's members are primarily registered dietitian nutritionists (RDNs) and nutrition and dietetic technicians, registered (NDTR) as well as many researchers, educators, students, nurses, physicians, pharmacists, clinical and community dietetics professionals, consultants and food service managers.

The Academy has faced controversy regarding corporate influence related to its relationship with the food industry and funding from corporate groups such as McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Mars, and others.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics:






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Food Systems, including Sustainable Food Systems Pictured below: All Food Systems are Sustainable: From Production to Consumption (United Nations)
The term food system is used frequently in discussions about nutrition, food, health, community development and agriculture.

A food system includes all processes and infrastructure involved in feeding a population: growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consumption, distribution and disposal of food and food-related items. It also includes the inputs needed and outputs generated at each of these steps.

A food system operates within and is influenced by social, political, economic, and environmental contexts. It also requires human resources that provide labor, research and education. Food systems are either conventional or alternative according to their model of food lifespan from origin to plate.

According to the IPCC, the global food system, including all of the various industries involved in sustainable and conventional food systems, provide employment for 1 billion people. This global food system is facing a number of challenges created by impeding global food security issues created by climate change and non-climate change stresses on the system. 

About 34% of total greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to the global food system, and in 2020 an EU evidence review found that this is on course to increase by 30–40% by 2050 due to population growth and dietary change. Transitioning to sustainable food systems (below) is critical for addressing these global challenges.

Around 14 percent of food produced is lost from post-harvest up to, but not including, the retail level. Out of the total food available to consumers in 2019, approximately 17 percent went to the waste bins of households, retailers, restaurants and other food services. 

During transportation, good physical infrastructure and efficient trade logistics are of key importance to prevent food losses. Processing and packaging can play a role in preserving foods, but losses can be caused by inadequate facilities as well as technical malfunction or human error.

Generally, levels of loss are higher for fruits and vegetables than for cereals and pulses. At the retail level, the causes of food waste are linked to limited shelf life, the need for food products to meet aesthetic standards in terms of colour, shape and size, and variability in demand. 

Consumer waste is often caused by poor purchase and meal planning, excess buying (influenced by over-large portioning and package sizes), confusion over labels (best before and use by) and poor in-home storing.

Conventional food systems:

Conventional food systems operate on economies of scale. These food systems are geared towards a production model that requires maximizing efficiency in order to lower consumer costs and increase overall production, and they utilize economic models such as vertical integration, economic specialization, and global trade.

The growing soil quality degradation, climate change and growing world population put pressure on agricultural land, leading to innovations to increase agricultural productivity on the limited available land and urban space. Though conventional farming practices have increased crop yield through use of climate-smart agriculture (CSA), smallholder farming systems and limited knowledge of CSA remains constraints for enjoying economies of scale and sustainable crop production and food security.

The term “conventional” when describing food systems is in large part due to comparisons made to it by proponents of other food systems, collectively known as alternative food systems.

History of conventional food systems:
See also: Timeline of agriculture and food technology

The development of food systems can be traced back to the origins of in-situ agriculture and the production of food surpluses. These surpluses enabled the development of settled areas and contributed to the development of ancient civilizations, particularly those in the Fertile Crescent. 

The system of trade associated with the exchange of foodstuffs also emerged in East Asia, North America, South America, and Sub-saharan Africa with common commodities of exchange such as salt, spices, fish, grains, etc. 

Through events in world history such as the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Crusades, the expansion of Islam, the journeys of Marco Polo, and the exploration and colonization of the Americas by Europeans led to the introduction and redistribution of new foods to the world at large, and food systems began to intermingle on a global scale.

After World War II, the advent of industrialized agriculture and more robust global trade mechanisms have evolved into the models of food production, presentation, delivery, and disposal that characterizes conventional food systems today.

Impacts of conventional food systems:
See also: § Effects on climate change

Lower food costs and greater food variety can be directly attributed to the evolution of conventional food systems. Agronomic efficiency is driven by the necessity to constantly lower production expenses, and those savings can then be passed on to the consumer. Also, the advent of industrial agriculture and the infrastructure built around conventional food systems has enabled the world population to expand beyond the "Malthusian catastrophe" limitations.

According to the IPCC, food supply per capita has increased by more than 30% since 1961.

However, conventional food systems are largely based on the availability of inexpensive fossil fuels, which is necessary for mechanized agriculture, the manufacture or collection of chemical fertilizers, the processing of food products, and the packaging of the foods. The increase in availability of food since 1961 has largely been driven by an 800% increase in use of nitrogen fertilizers (which are fossil fuel dependent) and high water usage (an increase of over 100% since 1961).

The impacts of these resource intense processes are many a varied: food processing began when the number of consumers started growing rapidly. The demand for cheap and efficient calories climbed resulting in nutrition decline; and industrialized agriculture, due to its reliance on economies of scale to reduce production costs, often leads to the compromising of local, regional, or even global ecosystems through fertilizer runoff, nonpoint source pollution, and greenhouse gas emission.

The need to reduce production costs in an increasingly global market can cause production of foods to be moved to areas where economic costs (labor, taxes, etc.) are lower or environmental regulations are more lax, which are usually further from consumer markets.

For example, the majority of salmon sold in the United States is raised off the coast of Chile, due in large part to less stringent Chilean standards regarding fish feed and regardless of the fact that salmon are not indigenous in Chilean coastal waters. 

The globalization of food production can result in the loss of traditional food systems in less developed countries, and have negative impacts on the population health, ecosystems, and cultures in those countries. As a result of these forces, 2018 estimates suggest that 821 million people are currently undernourished, and 2 billion adults are overweight and obese.

The issue of having minimal access to food, or access to primarily unhealthy food, are often described in terms of food security. The 1996 World Food Summit defined food security as a state in which "all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. " 

Many groups argue that food security is largely determined by a given person's socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, or other socially defined category, making food access a social justice issue. This has given rise to numerous social movements whose goal is to increase access to healthy and culturally appropriate foods, among a wide variety of groups.

These movements are often described as belonging to a larger food justice movement.
Scientists estimated the extensive pesticide pollution risks worldwide with a new environmental model and found that a third of global agricultural land is at high risk for such pollution of which a third are high-biodiversity regions.

Alternative food systems:

Alternative food systems are those that fall outside the scope of conventional agriculture, typically in order to create sustainable food systems.

Local food systems:
See also: International trade § International trade versus local production
​
​Local food systems are networks of food production and consumption that aim to be geographically and economically accessible and direct. They contrast to industrial food systems by operating with reduced food transportation and more direct marketing, leading to fewer people between the farmer and the consumer.

As a result, relationships that are developed in local food systems emerge from face-to-face interactions, potentially leading to a stronger sense of trust and social connectedness between actors. 

In addition to this, consumers can also encourage farmers to be environmentally friendly by teaching them about practices such as organic farming. As a result, some scholars suggest that local food systems are a good way to revitalize a community. The decreased distance of food transportation has also been promoted for its environmental benefits. Also, farmers can enjoy a better quality of life because producing healthier food will allow them to be paid more, and not live under the poverty line.

Both proponents and critics of local food systems warn that they can lead to narrow inward-looking attitudes or ‘local food patriotism’, and that price premiums and local food cultures can be elitist and exclusive. In contrast, many food sovereignty activists argue that local production of food is essential to achieving food security, especially among indigenous communities, and thus are crucial to the public health of those communities.

Examples of local food systems include community-supported agriculture, farmers markets and farm to school programs. They have been associated with the 100 Mile Diet and Low Carbon Diet, as well as the slow food movement.

The food sovereignty movement is also related to local food production. Food sovereignty activists argue that local communities should not only have access to nutritious and culturally appropriate foods, but that those communities should also be able to define the means by which their food is produced. 

Various forms of urban agriculture locate food production in densely populated areas not traditionally associated with farming. Garden sharing, where urban and suburban homeowners offer land access to food growers in exchange for a share of the harvest, is a relatively new trend, at the extreme end of direct local food production.

Organic food systems:

Organic food systems are characterized by a reduced dependence on chemical inputs and an increased concern for transparency and information. Organic produce is grown without the chemical pesticides and fertilizers of industrial food systems, and livestock is reared without the use of antibiotics or growth hormones.

The reduced inputs of organic agriculture can also lead to a greater reliance on local knowledge, creating a stronger knowledge community amongst farmers. The transparency of food information is vital for organic food systems as a means through which consumers are able to identify organic food. 

As a result, a variety of certification bodies have emerged in organic food systems that set the standards for organic identification. Organic agriculture is promoted for the ecological benefits of reduced chemical application, the health benefits of lower chemical consumption, the economic benefits that accrue to farmers through a price premium, and the social benefits of increased transparency in the food system.

Like local food systems, organic food systems have been criticized for being elitist and inaccessible. Critics have also suggested that organic agriculture has been conventionalized such that it mimics industrial food systems using pesticides and fertilizers that are organically derived. 

Cooperatives in food systems:
​
Cooperatives can exist both at the farmer end of food production and the consumer end. Farming cooperatives refer to arrangements where farmers pool resources, either to cultivate their crops or get their crops to market.

Consumer cooperatives often refer to food cooperatives where members buy a share in the store. Co-operative grocery stores, unlike corporate grocery stores, are socially owned and thus surpluses cannot be taken from the store as profit. As a result, food co-ops do not work for profit, potentially keeping prices more cost representative.

Other forms of cooperatives that have developed more recently include community-supported agriculture, where community members buy a share in a farm’s harvest, and may also be engaged in farm labor, operating at both the consumer and producer end of food systems. Garden sharing pairs individual landowners and food growers, while variations on this approach organize groups of food gardeners for mutual assistance.

The benefits of cooperatives are largely in the redistribution of risk and responsibility. For farming cooperatives that share resources, the burden of investment is disbursed to all members, rather than being concentrated in a single individual. A criticism of cooperatives is that reduced competition can reduce efficiency.

Fair Trade:
Main article: Fair trade
See also: Global supply chain management

Fair trade may require decisions that lead to relevant supply-chain management. Fair trade has emerged in global food systems to create a greater balance between the price of food and the cost of producing it. It is defined largely by more direct trading and communication systems whereby producers have greater control over the conditions of trade and garner a greater fraction of the sale price.

The main goal of Fair Trade is to "change international commercial relations in such a way that disadvantaged producers can increase their control over their own future, have a fair and just return for their work, continuity of income and decent working and living conditions through sustainable development"  Like organic food systems, fair trade relies on transparency and the flow of information. Well-known examples of fair trade commodities are coffee and cocoa.

Novel agricultural technologies:

Vertical farms, automation, solar energy production, novel alternatives to pesticides, online food delivery ICTs, and other technologies may allow to localize or modify food production alongside policies such as eco-tariffs, targeted subsidies and meat taxes.

Climate change:
Main article: Climate change and agriculture

Effects of climate change:

The IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land describes the current global food system as potentially having major food security risks due to changes created by climate change, including changing local weather conditions, socioeconomic effects of climate change, vulnerability of certain types of agriculture (such as pastoral) and changes in diets due to availability.

Effects on climate change:
​
The food system is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, attributable for between 21-37% of global emissions. In 2020, an evidence review for the European Union's Scientific Advice Mechanism found that, without significant change, emissions would increase by 30–40% by 2050 due to population growth and changing consumption patterns, and concluded that "the combined environmental cost of food production is estimated to amount to some $12 trillion per year, increasing to $16 trillion by 2050".

 Another 2020 study concluded that reducing emissions from the global food system to be essential for achieving the Paris Agreement's climate goals.

​The IPCC's and the EU's reports concluded that adapting the food system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions impacts and food security concerns, while shifting towards a sustainable diet, is feasible .

Public policy:
See also: Economic policy, Education policy, Science policy, and Eco-tariff

European Union:

The European Union's (EU) Scientific Advice Mechanism has published a systematic review of all European policies related to sustainable food systems, and their analyses in the academic literature.

In September 2019, the EU's Chief Scientific Advisors stated that adapting the European food system for the future should be a high priority for the EU.

Although availability of food is not perceived as an immediate, major concern in Europe, the challenge to ensure a long-term, safe, nutritious and affordable supply of food, from both land and the oceans, remains. A portfolio of coordinated strategies is called for to address this challenge.

In January 2020, the EU put improvements to the food system at the core of the European Green Deal. The European Commission's 'Farm to Fork strategy for a sustainable food system', due to be published in spring 2020, is expected to lay out how European countries will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect biodiversity, reduce food waste and chemical pesticide use, and contribute to a circular economy.

In April 2020, the EU's Scientific Advice Mechanism delivered to European Commissioners a Scientific Opinion on how to transition to a sustainable food system, informed by an evidence review report undertaken by European academies.

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A sustainable food system is a type of food system (above) that provides healthy food to people and creates sustainable environmental, economic and social systems that surround food.

Sustainable food systems start with the development of sustainable agricultural practices, development of more sustainable food distribution systems, creation of sustainable diets and reduction of food waste throughout the system. Sustainable food systems have been argued to be central to many or all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
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Moving to sustainable food systems is an important component of addressing the causes of climate change. A 2020 review conducted for the European Union found that up to 37% of global greenhouse gas emissions could be attributed to the food system, including crop and livestock production, transportation, changing land use (including deforestation) and food loss and waste. 

Sustainable food systems are frequently at the center of sustainability focused policy programs, such as proposed Green New Deal programs.

​Definitions:

There are many different definitions of a sustainable food system.

From a global perspective, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations describes a sustainable food system as follows:
  • A sustainable food system (SFS) is a food system that delivers food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for future generations are not compromised. This means that:

The American Public Health Association (APHA) defines a sustainable food system as
one that provides healthy food to meet current food needs while maintaining healthy ecosystems that can also provide food for generations to come with minimal negative impact to the environment.

A sustainable food system also encourages local production and distribution infrastructures and makes nutritious food available, accessible, and affordable to all. Further, it is humane and just, protecting farmers and other workers, consumers, and communities

The European Union's Scientific Advice Mechanism defines a sustainable food system as a system that:
  • provides and promotes safe, nutritious and healthy food of low environmental impact for all current and future EU citizens in a manner that itself also protects and restores the natural environment and its ecosystem services,
  • is robust and resilient,
  • economically dynamic,
  • just and fair,
  • and socially acceptable and inclusive.

It does so without compromising the availability of nutritious and healthy food for people living outside the EU, nor impairing their natural environment

Academic discipline:

The study of sustainable food applies systems theory and methods of sustainable design towards food systems. As an interdisciplinary field, the study of sustainable food systems has been growing in the last several decades.

Programs focused on sustainable food systems include:
Public policy:

European Union:

In September 2019, the European Union's Chief Scientific Advisors stated that transitioning to a sustainable food system should be a high priority for the EU:

Although availability of food is not perceived as an immediate, major concern in Europe, the challenge to ensure a long-term, safe, nutritious and affordable supply of food, from both land and the oceans, remains. A portfolio of coordinated strategies is called for to address this challenge.

In January 2020, the EU put the transition to a sustainable food system at the core of the European Green Deal. The European Commission's 'Farm to Fork strategy for a sustainable food system', due to be published in spring 2020, is expected to lay out how European countries will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect biodiversity, reduce food waste and chemical pesticide use, and contribute to a circular economy.

In April 2020, the EU's Scientific Advice Mechanism delivered to European Commissioners a Scientific Opinion on how to transition to a sustainable food system, informed by an evidence review report undertaken by European academies.

Problems with conventional food systems:
Main article: Food systems

Industrial agriculture causes environmental impacts, as well as health problems associated with obesity in the rich world and hunger in the poor world. This has generated a strong movement towards healthy, sustainable eating as a major component of overall ethical consumerism.

Conventional food systems are largely based on the availability of inexpensive fossil fuels, which is necessary for mechanized agriculture, the manufacture or collection of chemical fertilizers, the processing of food products, and the packaging of foods. Food processing began when the number of consumers started growing rapidly. The demand for cheap and efficient calories climbed resulting in nutrition decline. 

Industrialized agriculture, due to its reliance on economies of scale to reduce production costs, often leads to the compromising of local, regional, or even global ecosystems through fertilizer runoff, nonpoint source pollution, deforestation, suboptimal mechanisms affecting consumer product choice, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Based on the location a person may live at it will determine the amount and type of food resources accessible to them. Therefore, not everyone receives the same quality of food. In addition, conventional channels do not distribute food by emergency assistance or charity.

Residents from urban communities do not have to worry about their food system as it always
works for them. Urban residents receive a more sustainable food production from healthier and safer sources than low-income communities. Nonetheless, conventional channels are more sustainable than charitable or welfare food resources. Even though the conventional food system provides easier access and lower prices, their food may not be the best for our environment nor health.

Also, the need to reduce production costs in an increasingly global market can cause production of foods to be moved to areas where economic costs (labor, taxes, etc.) are lower or environmental regulations are more lax, which are usually further from consumer markets.

For example, the majority of salmon sold in the United States is raised off the coast of Chile, due in large part to less stringent Chilean standards regarding fish feed and regardless of the fact that salmon are not indigenous in Chilean coastal waters. The globalization of food production can result in the loss of traditional food systems in less developed countries, and have negative impacts on the population health, ecosystems, and cultures in those countries.

Furthermore, the conventional food system does not structurally facilitate sustainable patterns of food production and consumption. In decision-making associated with the conventional food system, responsibility is in practice largely thought to rest with consumers and private companies in that they are often anticipated to spend time to – voluntarily and/or without external benefit – seek to educate themselves on which and specific product-choices are sustainable, in cases where such product-information and education is publicly available, and to subsequently change their respective decision-making related to production and consumption due to prioritized assumed ethical values and sometimes health-benefits, despite substantial drawbacks to such being common.

For consumers, such drawback may include higher prices of organic foods, inappropriate relative monetary price gaps between animal-intensive diets and plant-based ones and inadequate consumer guidance by contemporary valuations.

In 2020, an analysis of external climate costs of foods indicates that external greenhouse gas costs are typically highest for animal-based products – conventional and organic to about the same extent within that ecosystem subdomain – followed by conventional dairy products and lowest for organic plant-based foods and concludes contemporary monetary evaluations to be "inadequate" and policy-making that lead to reductions of these costs to be possible, appropriate and urgent.

Sourcing sustainable food:
Main article: sustainable agriculture

At the global level the environmental impact of agribusiness is being addressed through sustainable agriculture and organic farming.

At the local level there are various movements working towards local food production, more productive use of urban wastelands and domestic gardens including: 
Sustainable seafood is seafood from either fished or farmed sources that can maintain or increase production in the future without jeopardizing the ecosystems from which it was acquired. The sustainable seafood movement has gained momentum as more people become aware about both overfishing and environmentally destructive fishing methods.

Local food systems:
Main article: local food

Local and regional food systems, commonly confused with direct marketing but both are distinct terms, come in multiple types and definitions. Local food demands from consumers within these systems include organic practices, greater nutritional value, better quality, and fresher product.

Sometimes sold at lower prices, local food supply from farmers can also come at higher costs due to the environmentally sustainable production practices and through direct marketing farmers can even receive benefits for business such as consumer desires through fast product feedback. Local and regional food systems also face challenges such as inadequate institutions or programs, geographic limitations, and seasonal fluctuations which can affect product demand within regions.

In addition, Direct marketing also faces challenges of accessibility, coordination, and awareness. Farmers markets, which have increased over the past two decades, are designed for supporting local farmers in selling their fresh products to consumers who are wishing to buy. Food hubs are also similar locations where farmers deliver products and consumers come to pick them up.

Consumers who wish to have weekly produce delivered can buy shares through a system called Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA). However, these farmer markets also face challenges with marketing needs such as starting up, advertisement, payments, processing, and regulations.

Debates over local food system efficiency and sustainability have risen as these systems decrease transportation which is a strategy for combating environmental footprints and climate change. A popular argument is the less impactful footprint of food products from local markets on communities and environment. 

Main factors behind climate change include land use practices and greenhouse emissions as global food systems produce approximately 33% of theses emissions. Compared to transportation in a local food system, a conventional system takes more fuel for energy and emits more pollution such as carbon dioxide.

This transportation also includes miles for agricultural products to help with agriculture and depends on factors such as transportation sizes, modes, and fuel types. Some airplane importations have shown to be more efficient than local food systems in some cases. Overall, local food systems support better environmental practices.

Food distribution:
Main article: Sustainable food distribution

Increasing food supply is a production problem as it takes time for products to get marketed and as they wait to get distributed the food goes to waste. Despite the fact that throughout all food production an estimated 20-30% of food is wasted, there have been efforts to combat this issue such as campaigns conducted to promote limiting food waste. 

However, due to insufficient facilities and practices as well as huge amounts of food not marketed or harvested due to prices or quality, food is wasted through each phase of its distribution. Another factor for lack of sustainability within food distribution includes transportation in combination with inadequate methods for food handling throughout the packing process.

Additionally, poor or long conditions for food in storage and consumer waste add to this list of factors for inefficiency found in food distribution.

Some modern tendencies in food distribution also create bounds in which problems are created and solutions must be met.

One factor includes growth of large-scale producing and selling units in bulk to chain stores which displays merchandising power from large scale market organizations as well as their mergence with manufactures. In response to production, another factor includes large scale distributing and buying units among manufacturers in development of food distribution which also affects producers, distributors, and consumers. 

Another main factor involves protecting public interest which means better adaptation for product and service which results in rapid development of food distribution. 

A further factor revolves around price maintenance which creates pressure for lower prices resulting in higher drive for lower cost throughout the whole food distribution process. 

An additional factor comprises new changes and forms of newly invented technical processes such as developments of freezing food discovered through experiments to help with distribution efficiency. In addition to this, new technical development in distributing machinery to meet the influence of consumer demands and economic factors. 

Lastly, another factor includes government relation to business those who petition against it in correlation with anti-trust laws due to large scale business organizations and the fear of monopoly contributing to changing public attitude.

Food security, nutrition and diet:
Main article: Sustainable diet

The environmental effects of different dietary patterns depend on many factors, including the proportion of animal and plant foods consumed and the method of food production. At the same time, current and future food systems need to be provided with sufficient nutrition for not only the current population, but future population growth in light of a world affected by changing climate in the face of global warming.

​Issues within food systems:

In the food industry, especially in agriculture there has been a rise of problems towards the production of some food products. For instance, growing vegetables and fruits has become more expensive. It is difficult to grow some agricultural crops because some have a preferable climate condition for developing.

There has also been an incline on food shortages as production has decreased. However, the world still produces enough food for the population but not everyone receives good quality food because it's not accessible to them since it depends on their location and/or income.

In addition, the amount of overweight people has increased and there are about 2 billion people that are underfed worldwide. This shows how the global food system lacks quantity and quality according to the food consumption patterns.

Food waste:
Main article: Food waste

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food waste is responsible for 8 percent of global human-made greenhouse gas emissions. The FAO concludes that nearly 30 percent of all available agricultural land in the world – 1.4 billion hectares – is used for produced but uneaten food.

The global blue water footprint of food waste is 250 km3, that is the amount of water that flows annually through the Volga or 3 times Lake Geneva.

There are several factors that explain how food waste has increased globally in food systems.
The main factor is population because as population increases more food production is being made but most food produce goes to waste. In addition, not all countries have the same resources to provide the best quality of food.

Therefore, all throughout the world there are different ways that food is being processed. With different priorities different choices are being made to meet their most important needs.

Money is another big factor that determines how long the process will take, who is working, and it is treated way differently than low income countries food systems. However, high income countries food systems still may deal with other issues; such as food security. This demonstrates how all food systems have their weaknesses and strengths. Climate change is affecting food waste to increase because the warm temperature causes crops to dry faster and have a higher risk for fires. Food waste can occur throughout any time of production.

According to the World Wild Life Organization,  since most food produced goes to landfills when it rots it causes methane to be produced. The disposal of the food has a big impact on our environment and health.



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Vegetarianism and Vegetarian CuisinePictured below: Vegetarian and vegan diet: five things for over-65s to consider when switching to a plant-based diet
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Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, and the flesh of any other animal), and may also include abstention from by-products of animal slaughter.

Vegetarianism may be adopted for various reasons. Many people object to eating meat out of respect for sentient life. Such ethical motivations have been codified under various religious beliefs, as well as animal rights advocacy. Other motivations for vegetarianism are health-related, political, environmental, cultural, aesthetic, economic, or personal preference.

There are variations of the diet as well: an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet includes both eggs and dairy products, an ovo-vegetarian diet includes eggs but not dairy products, and a lacto-vegetarian diet includes dairy products but not eggs.

A vegan diet excludes all animal products, including eggs and dairy. Avoidance of animal products may require dietary supplements to prevent deficiencies such as vitamin B12 deficiency, which leads to pernicious anemia. Psychologically, preference for vegetarian foods can be affected by one's own socio-economic status and evolutionary factors.

Packaged and processed foods, such as cakes, cookies, candies, chocolate, yogurt, and marshmallows, often contain unfamiliar animal ingredients, and so may be a special concern for vegetarians due to the likelihood of such additives. Feelings among vegetarians vary concerning these ingredients.

Some vegetarians scrutinize product labels for animal-derived ingredients, such as cheese made with rennet, while other vegetarians do not object to consuming them or are unaware of their presence.

Semi-vegetarian diets consist largely of vegetarian foods but may include fish or poultry, or sometimes other meats, on an infrequent basis. Those with diets containing fish or poultry may define meat only as mammalian flesh and may identify with vegetarianism. A pescetarian diet has been described as "fish but no other meat"

Etymology:

The first written use of the term "vegetarian" originated in the early 19th century, when authors referred to a vegetable regimen diet. Modern dictionaries explain its origin as a compound of vegetable (adjective) and the suffix -arian (in the sense of agrarian). 

The term was popularized with the foundation of the Vegetarian Society in Manchester in 1847, although it may have appeared in print before 1847. 

The earliest occurrences of the term seem to be related to Alcott House—a school on the north side of Ham Common, London—which was opened in July 1838 by James Pierrepont Greaves. From 1841, it was known as A Concordium, or Industry Harmony College, from which time the institution began to publish its own pamphlet entitled The Healthian, which provides some of the earliest appearances of the term "vegetarian".

History:
Main article: History of vegetarianism

​The earliest record of vegetarianism comes from the 7th century BCE, inculcating tolerance towards all living beings. Parshwanatha and Mahavira, the 23rd & 24th tirthankaras in Jainism respectively revived and advocated ahimsa and Jain vegetarianism in 8th to 6th century BC; the most comprehensive and strictest form of vegetarianism. 

In Indian culture, vegetarianism has been closely connected with the attitude of nonviolence towards animals (called ahimsa in India) for millennia and was promoted by religious groups and philosophers. The ancient Indian work of Tirukkural explicitly and unambiguously emphasizes shunning meat and non-killing. Chapter 26 of the Tirukkural, particularly couplets 251–260, deals exclusively on vegetarianism or veganism.

Among the Hellenes, Egyptians, and others, vegetarianism had medical or ritual purification purposes. Vegetarianism was also practiced in ancient Greece and the earliest reliable evidence for vegetarian theory and practice in Greece dates from the 6th century BC.

The Orphics, a religious movement spreading in Greece at that time, also practiced and promoted vegetarianism. Greek teacher Pythagoras, who promoted the altruistic doctrine of metempsychosis, may have practiced vegetarianism, but is also recorded as eating meat. 

A fictionalized portrayal of Pythagoras appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which he advocates a form of strict vegetarianism. It was through this portrayal that Pythagoras was best known to English-speakers throughout the early modern period and, prior to the coinage of the word "vegetarianism", vegetarians were referred to in English as "Pythagoreans". 

​Vegetarianism was also practiced about six centuries later in another instance (30 BCE–50 CE) in the northern Thracian region by the Moesi tribe (who inhabited present-day Serbia and Bulgaria), feeding themselves on honey, milk, and cheese.

In Japan in 675, the Emperor Tenmu prohibited the killing and the eating of meat during the busy farming period between April and September but excluded the eating of wild birds and animals. These bans and several others that followed over the centuries were overturned in the nineteenth century during the Meiji Restoration. 

In China, during the Song Dynasty, Buddhist cuisine became popular enough that vegetarian restaurants appeared where chefs used ingredients such as beans, gluten, root vegetables and mushrooms to create meat analogues including pork, fowl, eggs and crab roe and many meat substitutes used even today such as tofu, seitan and konjac originate in Chinese Buddhist cuisine.

Following the Christianization of the Roman Empire in late antiquity, vegetarianism practically disappeared from Europe, as it did elsewhere, except in India. 

Several orders of monks in medieval Europe restricted or banned the consumption of meat for ascetic reasons, but none of them eschewed fish. Moreover, the medieval definition of "fish" included such animals as seals, porpoises, dolphins, barnacle geese, puffins, and beavers. 

Vegetarianism re-emerged during the Renaissance, becoming more widespread in the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1847, the first Vegetarian Society was founded in the United Kingdom; Germany, the Netherlands, and other countries followed.

In 1886, the vegetarian colony Nueva Germania was founded in Paraguay, though its vegetarian aspect would prove short-lived. The International Vegetarian Union, an association of the national societies, was founded in 1908. In the Western world, the popularity of vegetarianism grew during the 20th century as a result of nutritional, ethical, and—more recently—environmental and economic concerns.

Varieties:
See also: Semi-vegetarianism § Comparison of vegetarian and semi-vegetarian diets

​There are a number of vegetarian diets that exclude or include various foods:
  • Buddhist vegetarianism. Different Buddhist traditions have differing teachings on diet, which may also vary for ordained monks and nuns compared to others. Many interpret the precept "not to kill" to require abstinence from meat, but not all. In Taiwan, su vegetarianism excludes not only all animal products but also vegetables in the allium family (which have the characteristic aroma of onion and garlic): onion, garlic, scallions, leeks, chives, or shallots.
  • Fruitarianism and Jain vegetarianism permit only fruit, nuts, seeds, and other plant matter that can be gathered without harming the plant. Jain vegetarianism also includes dairy.
  • Macrobiotic diets consist mostly of whole grains and beans.
  • Lacto vegetarianism includes dairy products but not eggs.
  • Ovo vegetarianism includes eggs but not dairy products.
  • Ovo-lacto vegetarianism (or lacto-ovo vegetarianism) includes animal products such as eggs, milk, and honey.
  • Sattvic diet (also known as yogic diet), a plant-based diet which may also include dairy and honey, but excludes eggs, red lentils, durian, mushrooms, alliums, blue cheeses, fermented foods or sauces, and alcoholic drinks. Coffee, black or green tea, chocolate, nutmeg, and any other type of stimulant (including excessively pungent spices) are sometimes excluded, as well.
  • Veganism excludes all animal flesh and by-products, such as milk, honey (not always), eggs, and items refined or manufactured through any such product, such as animal-tested baking soda or white sugar refined with bone char.
    • Raw veganism includes only fresh and uncooked fruit, nuts, seeds, and vegetables. Food must not be heated above 118 °F (48 °C) to be considered "raw". Usually, raw vegan food is only ever "cooked" with a food dehydrator at low temperatures.

Within the "ovo-" groups, there are many who refuse to consume fertilized eggs (with balut being an extreme example); however, such distinction is typically not specifically addressed.

Some vegetarians also avoid products that may use animal ingredients not included in their labels or which use animal products in their manufacturing. For example, sugars that are whitened with bone char, cheeses that use animal rennet (enzymes from animal stomach lining), gelatin (derived from the collagen inside animals' skin, bones, and connective tissue), some cane sugar (but not beet sugar) and beverages (such as apple juice and alcohol) clarified with gelatin or crushed shellfish and sturgeon, while other vegetarians are unaware of, or do not mind, such ingredients.

In the 21st century, 90% of rennet and chymosin used in cheesemaking are derived from industrial fermentation processes, which satisfy both kosher and halal requirements.

Individuals sometimes label themselves "vegetarian" while practicing a semi-vegetarian diet, as some dictionary definitions describe vegetarianism as sometimes including the consumption of fish, or only include mammalian flesh as part of their definition of meat, while other definitions exclude fish and all animal flesh. 

In other cases, individuals may describe themselves as "flexitarian". These diets may be followed by those who reduce animal flesh consumed as a way of transitioning to a complete vegetarian diet or for health, ethical, environmental, or other reasons. Semi-vegetarian diets include:
  • Pescetarianism, which includes fish and possibly other forms of seafood.
  • Pollo-pescetarianism, which includes poultry and fish, or "white meat" only.
  • Pollotarianism, which includes chicken and possibly other poultry.

​Semi-vegetarianism is contested by vegetarian groups, such as the Vegetarian Society, which states that vegetarianism excludes all animal flesh.

Health research:
​
In western countries, the most common motive for people to consider turning vegetarian has to do with health consciousness. Studies on the health effects of vegetarian diets observe mixed effects on mortality. One review found a decreased overall risk of all cause mortality, cancer (except breast) and cardiovascular disease; however, a meta-analysis found lower risk for ischemic heart disease and cancer but no effect on overall mortality or cerebrovascular disease. 

Possible limitations include varying definitions used of vegetarianism, and the observation of increased risk of lung cancer mortality in those on a vegetarian diet for less than five years. An analysis pooling two large studies found vegetarians in the UK have similar all cause mortality as meat eaters.

The American Dietetic Association has stated that at all stages of life, a properly planned vegetarian diet can be "healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may be beneficial in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases." By adequately planned, they meant eating a variety of foods (especially fruits and vegetables), and minimizing foods high in sodium, sweeteners, or fat. Vegetarian diets offer lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol and animal protein, and higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and phytochemicals.

Bones:

Studies have shown that a vegetarian diet may increase the risk of vitamin B 12 deficiency, calcium deficiency and low bone mineral density.

A 2019 study found that vegetarians have lower bone mineral density at the femoral neck and lumbar spine compared to omnivores.

A 2020 meta-analysis found that a vegan lifestyle may contribute to bone loss, low height and low weight. However, the same meta-analysis found that infants with a precise vegetarian diet containing milk and dairy products exhibit normal growth and development.

Dental:

A 2019 study found that a vegetarian diet may be associated with greater risk of dental erosion because vegetarians "tend to eat more fruits and vegetables than people following a nonvegetarian diet" and therefore "consumption of these acidic foods may lower the pH level in the oral cavity, which in turn may be related to the development of caries." The review, however, stated that its findings "should be interpreted with caution" because of the "limited comparability of the studies as well as limited (to no) correction for confounding in the studies." It characterized this as "a major flaw" of the research.
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Diabetes:

Vegetarian diets might reduce the risk of developing diabetes. There is evidence that a vegetarian diet may help people with type 2 diabetes achieve glycemic control.

Cardiovascular system:

A 2015 study found that vegetarian diets "effectively lower blood concentrations of total cholesterol, low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol, high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol, and non–high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol."

Mental health:

A 2020 study of vegan and vegetarian diets showed association with a higher risk of depression and anxiety, particularly among people under 26 years old. However, a different study published in the same year found no significant associations between a vegetarian diet and depression or anxiety.

Eating disorders:

The American Dietetic Association discussed that vegetarian diets may be more common among adolescents with eating disorders indicating that vegetarian diets do not cause eating disorders, but rather "vegetarian diets may be selected to camouflage an existing eating disorder".

Mortality risk:

A 1999 meta-analysis combined data from five studies from western countries, finding that mortality ratios – where lower numbers indicated fewer deaths – were 1.0 for regular meat eaters as a base mortality rate, 0.82 for fish eaters, and 0.84 for vegetarians. The study concluded that "...vegetarians had a 24% lower mortality from ischemic heart disease than non-vegetarians", results similar to those of a 2017 review.

Rheumatoid arthritis:

There is no good evidence that vegetarian diets reduce the risk or symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis.

​Diet composition and nutrition:
Main articles: Vegetarian nutrition and vegan nutrition

Western vegetarian diets are typically high in carotenoids, but relatively low in omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin B12. Vegans can have particularly low intake of vitamin B and calcium if they do not eat enough items such as collard greens, leafy greens, tempeh and tofu (soy).

High levels of dietary fiber, folic acid, vitamins C and E, and magnesium, and low consumption of saturated fat are all considered to be beneficial aspects of a vegetarian diet. A well planned vegetarian diet will provide all nutrients in a meat-eater's diet to the same level for all stages of life.

Protein:

Protein intake in vegetarian diets tends to be lower than in meat diets but can meet the daily requirements for most people. Studies at Harvard University as well as other studies conducted in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and various European countries, confirmed vegetarian diets provide sufficient protein intake as long as a variety of plant sources are available and consumed.

Iron:

Vegetarian diets typically contain similar levels of iron to non-vegetarian diets, but this has lower bioavailability than iron from meat sources, and its absorption can sometimes be inhibited by other dietary constituents. 

According to the Vegetarian Resource Group, consuming food that contains vitamin C, such as citrus fruit or juices, tomatoes, or broccoli, is a good way to increase the amount of iron absorbed at a meal. 

Vegetarian foods rich in iron include the following:
The related vegan diets can often be higher in iron than vegetarian diets, because dairy products are low in iron. Iron stores often tend to be lower in vegetarians than non-vegetarians, and a few small studies report very high rates of iron deficiency (up to 40%, and 58% of the respective vegetarian or vegan groups).

However, the American Dietetic Association states that iron deficiency is no more common in vegetarians than non-vegetarians (adult males are rarely iron deficient); iron deficiency anaemia is rare no matter the diet.

Vitamin B12:

Vitamin B12 is not generally present in plants but is naturally found in foods of animal origin. Lacto-ovo vegetarians can obtain B12 from dairy products and eggs, and vegans can obtain it from manufactured fortified foods (including plant-based products and breakfast cereals) and dietary supplements.

A strict vegetarian diet avoiding consumption of all animal products risks vitamin B12 deficiency, which can lead to hyperhomocysteinemia, a risk factor for several health disorders, including anemia, neurological deficits, gastrointestinal problems, platelet disorders, and increased risk for cardiovascular diseases. The recommended daily dietary intake of B12 in the United States and Canada is 0.4 mcg (ages 0–6 months), rising to 1.8 mcg (9–13 years), 2.4 mcg (14+ years), and 2.8 mcg (lactating female). 

While the body's daily requirement for vitamin B12 is in microgram amounts, deficiency of the vitamin through strict practice of a vegetarian diet without supplementation can increase the risk of several chronic diseases.

Fatty acids:

Plant-based, or vegetarian, sources of Omega 3 fatty acids include:
Purslane contains more Omega 3 than any other known leafy green. Olives (and olive oil) are another important plant source of unsaturated fatty acids.

Plant foods can provide alpha-linolenic acid which the human body uses to synthesize the long-chain n-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA. EPA and DHA can be obtained directly in high amounts from oily fish or fish oils. Vegetarians, and particularly vegans, have lower levels of EPA and DHA than meat-eaters. While the health effects of low levels of EPA and DHA are unknown, it is unlikely that supplementation with alpha-linolenic acid will significantly increase levels. 

Recently, some companies have begun to market vegetarian DHA supplements containing seaweed extracts. Whole seaweeds are not suitable for supplementation because their high iodine content limits the amount that may be safely consumed. However, certain algae such as spirulina are good sources of the following:
Calcium:

Calcium intake in vegetarians and vegans can be similar to non-vegetarians, as long as the diet is properly planned. Lacto-ovo vegetarians that include dairy products can still obtain calcium from dairy sources like milk, yogurt, and cheese.

Non-dairy milks that are fortified with calcium, such as soymilk and almond milk can also contribute a significant amount of calcium in the diet. The calcium found in broccoli, bok choy, and kale have also been found to have calcium that is well absorbed in the body. 

Though the calcium content per serving is lower in these vegetables than a glass of milk, the absorption of the calcium into the body is higher. Other foods that contain calcium include calcium-set tofu, blackstrap molasses, turnip greens, mustard greens, soybeans, tempeh, almonds, okra, dried figs, and tahini. 

Though calcium can be found in Spinach, swiss chard, beans and beet greens, they are generally not considered to be a good source since the calcium binds to oxalic acid and is poorly absorbed into the body. Phytic acid found in nuts, seeds, and beans may also impact calcium absorption rates. 

See the National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements for calcium needs for various ages, the Vegetarian Resource Group and the Vegetarian Nutrition Calcium Fact Sheet from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics for more specifics on how to obtain adequate calcium intake on a vegetarian or vegan diet.

Vitamin D:
Further information: Vitamin D

Vitamin D needs can be met via the human body's own generation upon sufficient and sensible exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light in sunlight. Products including milk, soy milk and cereal grains may be fortified to provide a source of Vitamin D. For those who do not get adequate sun exposure or food sources, Vitamin D supplementation may be necessary.

Vitamin D2:
  • Plants
    • Alfalfa (Medicago sativa subsp. sativa), shoot: 4.8 μg (192 IU) vitamin D2, 0.1 μg (4 IU) vitamin D3
  • Fungus, from USDA nutrient database:
    • Mushrooms, portabella, exposed to ultraviolet light, raw: Vitamin D2: 11.2 μg (446 IU)
    • Mushrooms, portabella, exposed to ultraviolet light, grilled: Vitamin D2: 13.1 μg (524 IU)
    • Mushrooms, shiitake, dried: Vitamin D2: 3.9 μg (154 IU)
    • Mushrooms, shiitake, raw: Vitamin D2: 0.4 μg (18 IU)
    • Mushrooms, portabella, raw: Vitamin D2: 0.3 μg (10 IU)
    • Mushroom powder, any species, illuminated with sunlight or artificial ultraviolet light sources

Vitamin D2, or ergocalciferol is found in fungus (except alfalfa which is a plantae) and created from viosterol, which in turn is created when ultraviolet light activates ergosterol (which is found in fungi and named as a sterol from ergot). Any UV-irradiated fungus including yeast form vitamin D2. 

Human bioavailability of vitamin D2 from vitamin D2-enhanced button mushrooms via UV-B irradiation is effective in improving vitamin D status and not different from a vitamin D2 supplement according to study. For example, Vitamin D2 from UV-irradiated yeast baked into bread is bioavailable. 

By visual assessment or using a chromometer, no significant discoloration of irradiated mushrooms, as measured by the degree of "whiteness", was observed, making it hard to discover if they have been treated without labeling.

Claims have been made that a normal serving (approx. 3 oz or 1/2 cup, or 60 grams) of mushrooms treated with ultraviolet light increase their vitamin D content to levels up to 80 micrograms, or 2700 IU if exposed to just 5 minutes of UV light after being harvested.

Choline:
Main article: Choline

Choline is a nutrient that helps transfer signals between nerve cells and is involved in liver function. It is highest in dairy foods and meat but it is possible to be obtained through a vegan diet.

Ethics and diet:

In General:
Main article: Ethics of eating meat

​With regard to the ethics of eating meat, scholars consider vegetarianism an ideology and a social movement. Ethical reasons for choosing vegetarianism vary and are usually predicated on the interests of non-human animals.

In many societies, controversy and debate have arisen over the ethics of eating animals. Some people, while not vegetarians, refuse to eat the flesh of certain animals due to cultural taboo, such as cats, dogs, horses or rabbits. Others support meat eating for scientific, nutritional and cultural reasons, including religious ones.

Some meat eaters abstain from the meat of animals reared in particular ways, such as factory farms, or avoid certain meats, such as veal or foie gras. Some people follow vegetarian or vegan diets not because of moral concerns involving the raising or consumption of animals in general, but because of concerns about the specific treatment and practices involved in the processing of animals for food.

​Others still avoid meat because meat production is claimed to place a greater burden on the environment than production of an equivalent amount of plant protein. Ethical objections based on consideration for animals are generally divided into opposition to the act of killing in general, and opposition to certain agricultural practices surrounding the production of meat.

Ethics of killing for food:
​Main article: Bioethics

Ethical vegetarians believe that killing an animal, like killing a human, especially one who has equal or lesser cognitive abilities than the animals in question, can only be justified in extreme circumstances and that consuming a living creature for its enjoyable taste, convenience, or nutrition value is not a sufficient cause. 

Another common view is that humans are morally conscious of their behavior in a way other animals are not, and therefore subject to higher standards. Jeff McMahan proposes that denying the right to life and humane treatment to animals with equal or greater cognitive abilities than mentally disabled humans is an arbitrary and discriminatory practice based on habit instead of logic. 

Opponents of ethical vegetarianism argue that animals are not moral equals to humans and so consider the comparison of eating livestock with killing people to be fallacious. This view does not excuse cruelty, but maintains that animals do not possess the rights a human has.

Dairy and eggs:

One of the main differences between a vegan and a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet is the avoidance of both eggs and dairy products such as milk, cheese, butter and yogurt. Ethical vegans do not consume dairy or eggs because they state that their production causes the animal suffering or a premature death.

​To produce milk from dairy cattle, farmers separate calves from their mothers soon after birth to retain cow milk for human consumption.

Treatment of animals:
Main article: Animal rights

Ethical vegetarianism has become popular in developed countries particularly because of the spread of factory farming, faster communications, and environmental consciousness.

Some believe that the current mass-demand for meat cannot be satisfied without a mass-production system that disregards the welfare of animals, while others believe that practices like well-managed free-range farming or the consumption of game (particularly from species whose natural predators have been significantly eliminated) could substantially alleviate consumer demand for mass-produced meat.

​Environment and diet:
Main article: Environmental vegetarianism
Further information: Food vs. feed

Environmental vegetarianism is based on the concern that the production of meat and animal products for mass consumption, especially through factory farming, is environmentally unsustainable.

According to a 2006 United Nations initiative, the livestock industry is one of the largest contributors to environmental degradation worldwide, and modern practices of raising animals for food contribute on a "massive scale" to air and water pollution, land degradation, climate change, and loss of biodiversity. The initiative concluded that "the livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global."

In addition, animal agriculture is a large source of greenhouse gases. According to a 2006 report it is responsible for 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions as estimated in 100-year CO2 equivalents. Livestock sources (including enteric fermentation and manure) account for about 3.1 percent of US anthropogenic GHG emissions expressed as carbon dioxide equivalents.[ 

This EPA estimate is based on methodologies agreed to by the Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC, with 100-year global warming potentials from the IPCC Second Assessment Report used in estimating GHG emissions as carbon dioxide equivalents.

Meat produced in a laboratory (called in vitro meat) may be more environmentally sustainable than regularly produced meat. Reactions of vegetarians vary. Rearing a relatively small number of grazing animals can be beneficial, as the Food Climate Research Network at Surrey University reports: "A little bit of livestock production is probably a good thing for the environment".

In May 2009, Ghent, Belgium, was reported to be "the first [city] in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week" for environmental reasons, when local authorities decided to implement a "weekly meatless day". Civil servants would eat vegetarian meals one day per week, in recognition of the United Nations' report.

Posters were put up by local authorities to encourage the population to take part on vegetarian days, and "veggie street maps" were printed to highlight vegetarian restaurants. In September 2009, schools in Ghent are due to have a weekly veggiedag ("vegetarian day") too.

Public opinion and acceptance of meat-free food is expected to be more successful if its descriptive words focus less on the health aspects and more on the flavor.

Labor conditions and diet:

Some groups, such as PETA, promote vegetarianism as a way to offset poor treatment and working conditions of workers in the contemporary meat industry. These groups cite studies showing the psychological damage caused by working in the meat industry, especially in factory and industrialized settings, and argue that the meat industry violates its laborers' human rights by assigning difficult and distressing tasks without adequate counselling, training and debriefing. 

However, the working conditions of agricultural workers as a whole, particularly non-permanent workers, remain poor and well below conditions prevailing in other economic sectors.[ 

Accidents, including pesticide poisoning, among farmers and plantation workers contribute to increased health risks, including increased mortality. According to the International Labour Organization, agriculture is one of the three most dangerous jobs in the world.

Economics and diet:

Similar to environmental vegetarianism is the concept of economic vegetarianism. An economic vegetarian is someone who practices vegetarianism from either the philosophical viewpoint concerning issues such as public health and curbing world starvation, the belief that the consumption of meat is economically unsound, part of a conscious simple living strategy or just out of necessity.

According to the Worldwatch Institute, "Massive reductions in meat consumption in industrial nations will ease their health care burden while improving public health; declining livestock herds will take pressure off rangelands and grainlands, allowing the agricultural resource base to rejuvenate.

As populations grow, lowering meat consumption worldwide will allow more efficient use of declining per capita land and water resources, while at the same time making grain more affordable to the world's chronically hungry." According to estimates in 2016, adoption of vegetarianism would contribute substantially to global healthcare and environmental savings.

Demographics:

Prejudice researcher Gordon Hodson argues that vegetarians and vegans frequently face discrimination where eating meat is held as a cultural norm.

Compared to omnivores, vegetarians were more open to new experiences but were also more neurotic and depressed.

Turnover:

Research suggests that, at least in the United States, vegetarianism has a high turnover rate, with less than 20% of adopters persisting for more than a year. A 2014 study found that 84% of Americans who started a vegetarian or vegan diet eventually abandoned it, with higher retention among individuals who stayed committed for over a year. Research shows various reasons contribute to lapsing, such as lacking social support.

Subsequent research supports the idea that social connection is negatively impacted by dietary restrictions. A 2019 analysis found that adhering to any kind of restricted diet (eg; gluten-free, vegetarian, kosher, teetotal) was associated with feelings of loneliness and increased social isolation.

Vegetarians or vegans who adopted their diet abruptly were significantly more likely to eventually abandon their diet when compared to individuals adopting their diet gradually with incremental changes.

Gender:

A 1992 market research study conducted by the Yankelovich research organization concluded that "of the 12.4 million people [in the US] who call themselves vegetarian, 68% are female, while only 32% are male". Subsequent research has consistently found that vegetarians are more likely to be female than male.

In 2019 the female-to-male ratio of vegetarians was similar to what was found in the 1992 study. Multiple causes may explain this, including gendered differences in values, attitudes towards dieting, gender roles and socialization and differences in health concerns.

Women are more likely than men to be vegetarian for prosocial and values-based reasons. They are also more likely to adhere to their vegetarian diets than men.

At least one study indicates that vegetarian women are more likely to have female babies. A study of 6,000 pregnant women in 1998 "found that while the national average in Britain is 106 boys born to every 100 girls, for vegetarian mothers the ratio was just 85 boys to 100 girls".

Age group:

In 2020 YouGov published the results of 2019 research surveying 1,491 Americans. The results showed 7.17% of respondents followed some type of meatless diet: 2.26% reported being vegan, 4.91% reported being vegetarian. In addition 2.58% reported being pescetarian.

A major finding in this study was that meat-consumption was positively correlated with higher age. The younger Americans were less likely to be meat-eaters; a total of 15 percent of adults under 39 say they are vegan or vegetarian. 

Other research has estimated a lower prevalence; one study found that 7.5% Millennials and Gen-Z were vegetarian/vegan, but this prevalence is still significantly higher than that of older generations.

Country-specific information:
Main article: Vegetarianism by country

The rate of vegetarianism by country can vary substantially from relatively low levels in countries such as the Netherlands (5%) to more considerable levels in India (20–40%). 

Estimates for the number of vegetarians per country can be subject to methodological difficulties, as respondents may identify as vegetarian even if they include some meat in their diet, and thus some researchers suggest the percentage of vegetarians may be significantly overestimated.

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