Jes­si­ca John 

RD, MSc 

eat­drinkbe­healthy­con­sul­tan­cy@gmail.com 

Oc­to­ber 16 was World Food Day and this year’s theme was “In­no­vate to­day. Nour­ish to­mor­row.” Ac­cord­ing to UN­ESCO, in­no­va­tion is “the process of cre­at­ing, im­prov­ing, or im­ple­ment­ing new ideas, meth­ods, or prod­ucts to solve prob­lems or en­hance ef­fi­cien­cy.”  

So why is in­no­va­tion sur­round­ing food deemed ur­gent and crit­i­cal? There are four main rea­sons: 

The world al­ready pro­duces enough food to nour­ish every­one but mil­lions world­wide, in­clud­ing Caribbean peo­ple, still ex­pe­ri­ence hunger. The is­sue isn’t just the quan­ti­ty of food that peo­ple eat/don’t eat, but al­so the qual­i­ty.  

Healthy di­ets are es­sen­tial to good health, but bil­lions of peo­ple world­wide can­not af­ford them. In fact, the Caribbean is among the glob­al re­gions where a healthy di­et is most ex­pen­sive. This has im­pli­ca­tions for our im­me­di­ate and long-term health and well-be­ing. 

Non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble chron­ic dis­eases (NCDs) are a ma­jor health and eco­nom­ic chal­lenge world­wide. In the Caribbean, they ac­count for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 75 per cent of deaths and cost up to eight per cent of gross do­mes­tic prod­uct. But the true cost goes be­yond the econ­o­my, af­fect­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty well-be­ing. 

Cli­mate change af­fects food sys­tems and food se­cu­ri­ty by dam­ag­ing crops, dis­rupt­ing fish­ing and live­stock farm­ing, and in­ter­rupt­ing food sup­plies. As the Caribbean de­pends heav­i­ly on im­port­ed food, these dis­rup­tions can lead to short­ages and high­er prices, mak­ing nu­tri­tious food hard­er to af­ford and in­creas­ing the risk of hunger and mal­nu­tri­tion, es­pe­cial­ly among vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions. 

Ac­cord­ing to the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion, in­no­va­tion trans­forms agri­cul­ture and food sys­tems by com­bin­ing sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and tra­di­tion­al knowl­edge, im­prov­ing how food is pro­duced, dis­trib­uted and ac­cessed. This re­quires col­lab­o­ra­tion and in­vest­ment from gov­ern­ments, busi­ness­es, re­searchers, pro­duc­ers and com­mu­ni­ties to build re­silient, sus­tain­able food sys­tems equipped to nour­ish peo­ple to­day and in the fu­ture.  

But in­di­vid­u­al­ly, how can Caribbean con­sumers ‘in­no­vate to­day to nour­ish to­mor­row’, i.e. im­prove their eat­ing habits and im­ple­ment nov­el healthy be­hav­iours to have a bet­ter life in the fu­ture?

To an­swer, here are five ques­tions every Caribbean con­sumer should ask be­fore buy­ing or eat­ing some­thing: 

1. What should I do dif­fer­ent­ly? 

In­stead of striv­ing for the per­fect di­et, iden­ti­fy small, re­al­is­tic changes that can bet­ter meet your body’s needs.

In­no­va­tion here be­gins with un­der­stand­ing and ac­cept­ing your health sta­tus, then seek­ing tai­lored guid­ance from a qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­al, such as a reg­is­tered di­etit­ian who can help you make mean­ing­ful and last­ing changes through med­ical nu­tri­tion ther­a­py that can help pre­vent, man­age or treat health con­di­tions, in­clud­ing NCDs. 

2. Is it nour­ish­ing me? 

Fill­ing your stom­ach isn’t al­ways the same as nour­ish­ing your body. A meal can sat­is­fy hunger with­out pro­vid­ing the nu­tri­ents nec­es­sary for growth, en­er­gy, im­mu­ni­ty and long-term health.

In­no­va­tion here means re­think­ing fa­mil­iar foods and meals to make them more nu­tri­tious and bal­anced, es­pe­cial­ly if you are at risk of, or al­ready man­ag­ing, an NCD. For ex­am­ple, mix ground oats in­to the pota­to and re­place half the minced meat with lentils in shep­herd’s pie. These sim­ple swaps in­crease fi­bre and re­duce the dish’s sat­u­rat­ed fat con­tent. 

3. Can I af­ford to eat this reg­u­lar­ly? 

Every food choice has a health or mon­e­tary cost; nu­tri­tious choic­es can be viewed as an in­vest­ment in health, while the health cost of con­sis­tent­ly poor di­etary pat­terns (high salt, fat, and sug­ar) can mean in­creased risk of dis­ease, re­duced well-be­ing and po­ten­tial­ly high­er health­care ex­pens­es.

In­no­va­tion here means think­ing be­yond the price tag and mak­ing more in­formed, nour­ish­ing choic­es as a long-term health div­i­dend—one meal, one choice and one habit at a time.  

4. How can I make my di­et more sus­tain­able as the cli­mate changes? 

Our re­gion’s im­pact on cli­mate change may seem small com­pared with that of high­ly in­dus­tri­alised coun­tries, but our food choic­es still mat­ter.

In­no­va­tion here for us starts with un­der­stand­ing that our food choic­es can sup­port both hu­man and plan­e­tary health. Eat­ing more plant-based pro­teins, such as legumes, can im­prove di­et qual­i­ty and re­duce NCD risk, low­er green­house gas emis­sions and con­serve land and wa­ter. By mod­el­ling healthy, sus­tain­able eat­ing habits, es­pe­cial­ly for chil­dren, we can sup­port both hu­man health and a health­i­er plan­et. 

5. What hap­pens to un­used food? 

Food that is pro­duced but not eat­en rep­re­sents a loss of nu­tri­ents that could sup­port health­i­er di­ets and a loss of the land, wa­ter, en­er­gy and labour re­sources used to pro­duce and trans­port it. Al­so, as food de­com­pos­es in land­fills, it re­leas­es methane, a pow­er­ful green­house gas that con­tributes to glob­al warm­ing.

In­no­va­tion in food waste means re­think­ing how we use the food we al­ready have: buy­ing re­al­is­ti­cal­ly, stor­ing food prop­er­ly, us­ing left­overs and find­ing cre­ative ways to make the most of our food. For ex­am­ple, give your pota­to sal­ad a Caribbean twist by us­ing boiled green ba­nanas in­stead of white pota­toes! 

Ul­ti­mate­ly, in­no­va­tion doesn’t al­ways mean do­ing some­thing com­plete­ly new. Some­times, it means mak­ing smarter choic­es with the food, knowl­edge and re­sources we al­ready have—choic­es that nour­ish us to­day while help­ing pro­tect to­mor­row. 

The fore­go­ing is a week­ly col­umn by Earth­Medic and Earth­Nurse NGO to help read­ers un­der­stand and ad­dress the cli­mate and health cri­sis