Systems Solutions to Global Food Security Challenges to Advance Human Health and Global Environment Based on Diverse Food Ecology

On a global level, there is rapid emergence of diet-linked chronic diseases that represent a new reality of food security.  This recent global increase in diet-linked noncommunicable chronic diseases (NCDs) places a heavy burden on long-term health care management and overall costs, thus consuming higher levels of national health care budgets. 

Since all NCDs involve a metabolic malfunction that manifests itself in enhancing oxidative stress (i.e., oxygen function breakdown) at many cellular and organ levels, food crop-based diets designed for management of oxidative stress will be an important part of the overall solution to combat NCDs. 

The most cost effective of these metabolic innovations for NCDs is improved design of food crops based on agroecological diversity and enhanced redox-linked bioactive components (i.e., oxygen stress protecting compounds) that can prevent oxidative stress and thus mitigate NCDs.  Such food design must contain both macronutritional and micronutritional ingredients, including bioactive compounds that can counter oxidation-linked malfunctions of NCDs.  Such enriched foods are also essential in advancing community-wide nutrition and health, while concurrently increasing the agroecological diversity (i.e., plant biodiversity) of local food crops.  All these efforts greatly benefit the global ecology.

Dr. Shetty’s full paper was debated at the ISGP conference Food Safety, Security, and Defense: Focus on Food and the Environment in October 2014.