Abstract
Human and companion animal health depends upon nutritional quality of foods. Seed varieties, seasonal and local growing conditions, transportation, food processing, and storage, and local food customs can influence the nutrient content of food. A new and intensive area of investigation is emerging that recognizes many factors in these agri-food systems that influence the maintenance of nutrient quality which is fundamental to ensure nutrient security for world populations. Modeling how these systems function requires data from different sectors including agricultural, environmental, social, and economic, but also must incorporate basic nutrition and other biomedical sciences. Improving the agri-food system through advances in pre- and post-harvest processing methods, biofortification, or fortifying processed foods will aid in targeting nutrition for populations and individuals. The challenge to maintain and improve nutrient quality is magnified by the need to produce food locally and globally in a sustainable and consumer-acceptable manner for current and future populations. An unmet requirement for assessing how to improve nutrient quality, however, is the basic knowledge of how to define health. That is, health cannot be maintained or improved by altering nutrient quality without an adequate definition of what health means for individuals and populations. Defining and measuring health therefore becomes a critical objective for basic nutritional and other biomedical sciences.
Highlights
Human and companion animal health depends upon nutritional quality of foods
A new and intensive area of investigation is emerging that recognizes many factors in these agri-food systems that influence the maintenance of nutrient quality which is fundamental to ensure nutrient security for world populations
While the biomedical community understandably focuses its research on human biology, providing the right nutrients to populations living in different environmental contexts requires an integratedsystem and ‘‘nutrient chain’’ view from soils via plants and animals to food and the consumer (Tilman and Clark 2014)
Summary
While the biomedical community understandably focuses its research on human biology, providing the right nutrients to populations living in different environmental contexts requires an integrated (eco)system and ‘‘nutrient chain’’ view from soils via plants and animals to food and the consumer (Tilman and Clark 2014). We discuss here how nutrient quality is influenced by crop genetics, agricultural environments, and potential losses between seed and fork These and other factors have direct consequences for nutrition and biomedical research. The reliance on the best high-yield-variant (HYV) crops has led to an estimated 75 % loss in genetic diversity of agricultural plants and animals between 1900 and 2000 (FAO 2010). While nutrient intake measurements can never be biochemically accurate because of the (i) farm-to-fork losses in nutritional quality and (ii) recall bias of human subjects (Kristal et al 2005), knowing the food groups and the approximate range of nutrient intake is necessary for health research since phenotypes result from gene–environment interactions and food is the most important factor to maintain life. Rice with b-carotene (0–37 lg/g), iron (increased [sixfold), or folate (\1–17 lg/g)
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