N4G Side Event: Food Safety: A Foundation for Nutrition and Growth

N4G Side Event: Food Safety: A Foundation for Nutrition and Growth


The Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit 2021 has articulated a vision where no woman or child is held back from reaching their full potential because they did not have access to a healthy diet.

Food safety and nutrition are inextricably linked in a myriad of ways. Among these, foodborne illness, particularly diarrheal disease, is a leading contributor to malnutrition, and fears about unsafe food can be a barrier to consumption of nutritious foods. In addition, excessive or untargeted efforts to control foodborne disease risk can result in less availability, accessibility, and affordability of nutritious food.

This side session will delve into the complex multisectoral requirements to keep food safe, with a focus on low and middle-income countries and the informal markets within them where consumers source their diets. A set of specific causal pathways will be presented, through which food safety and nutrition are interlinked. These pathways are grouped into the domains of health and physiology, consumer behavior, supply chains and markets, and policy and regulation. The linkages illustrate the direct ways in which food safety and foodborne diseases may impact nutrition outcomes—and vice versa. This session will also cover underlying assumptions and qualitative discussions on the evidence associated with these pathways. An expert panel will explore whether the current and evolving food system, can deliver a healthy, balanced diets that provide sufficient amounts of necessary nutrients while also preventing foodborne diseases.

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