Biodiversity in Food Consumption Studies

Nutritional epidemiologists have most recently been discussing the effects of changes in the global food system, which involve three significant health-related problems – obesity, malnutrition, and climate change. These problems interact and share determinants while exerting a mutual influence on the disease burden of contemporary society. One of these determinants is the low diversity of diets, which is a cause and consequence of a broader homogenization phenomenon that dominates the global food system. In this scenario, one of the biggest challenges to nutrition practitioners promoting diverse diets is the lack of dietary assessment tools capable of capturing and analyzing the foods consumed by the population in the light of biodiversity. In this chapter, we discuss some challenges in defining the objectives, design, and analysis of dietary assessments and suggest proper methods and useful tools for gathering information on biodiversity in dietary inquiries. Finally, we present fundamental actions that consider both biodiverse food resources and the cultural and environmental factors attached to them in dietary assessments.