Will fish be part of future healthy and sustainable diets?

Abstract

First paragraph: The adoption of healthy and sustainable diets and food systems is recognised as a means to address the global challenge of malnutrition and poor-quality diets, and unprecedented environmental damage from food production and consumption.1 Sustainable diets have also been recognised as a key strategy to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Reducing consumption of animal-source foods is frequently presented as key to improving the sustainability of food systems.2 Fish and seafood can have a lower environmental impact and in many cases are considered more efficient than terrestrial animal production (albeit with wide variation) depending on the type of production or capture method,3 yet remain largely absent, or insufficiently articulated in the sustainable diets literature, rendering their future role in healthy diets unclear.4 This absence of specific consideration of fish and seafood extends to food security literature, in which the role of fish remains under-recognised and undervalued.5 Legitimate concerns exist regarding the environmental sustainability of fisheries and aquaculture systems; however, we argue that an overemphasis on the so-called doomsday portrayal of fish—which often dominates literature and the broader media—masks the myriad of positive contributions of the fisheries sector to nutrition and sustainability and limits its scope in contributing to healthy and sustainable food systems.