Food in Transition emerged from interdisciplinary discussions within a research cluster on behaviour and governance, bringing together scholars from economics, psychology, and the natural sciences at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Supported by the Amsterdam Sustainability Institute, the cluster aims to foster collaboration across disciplines to address complex societal challenges. This project offers a multidisciplinary perspective on the transition toward more sustainable diets, synthesizing insights from multiple fields to examine both the drivers and barriers of dietary change.
Below you can find a tentative abstract for the manuscript we have in mind:
Diets rich in animal protein pose significant challenges to both the environment and human health. Embracing planetary-health diets is critical for meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Over the last two decades, scholars across disciplines have increasingly evaluated the facilitators and barriers, and strategies underlying a sustainable protein transition. Nonetheless, a comprehensive overview of these inter- and multi-disciplinary insights is currently missing. This consequently hinders empowering researchers and practitioners to break silos and design innovative and effective strategies to accelerate the protein transition. In this perspective, we provide an expert synthesis and overview of the cutting-edge insights from the extant knowledge across diverse fields in tackling the protein transition, such as humanities and social sciences (behavioural sciences, behavioural psychology, behavioural economics, behavioural public policy, marketing communication and PR research, media studies, public health, EU project design and management, and sustainable development) as well as natural sciences (food science and nutrition, public health nutrition, environmental geosciences, applied biological science, bioscience engineering, nutritional biochemistry, human biology, agroecology and sustainable agriculture). By integrating knowledge across these disciplines, we highlight missing gaps in the protein transition research and outline new policy directions that can expedite the shift toward planetary-health diets.