Rapid dietary change can foster desired food system transformations: lessons from past evolutions of dietary patterns.

The global food system is currently at a critical turning point as it is driving the planet’s trajectory towards exceeding 1.5 °C warming and crossing tipping points in the Earth system. It is responsible for one-third of global emissions and the primary cause of freshwater consumption and pollution, biodiversity loss and terrestrial ecosystem destruction. The prevalence of undernourishment is persistent, while unhealthy diets and widespread overnutrition cause diet-related chronic diseases and health damages. To achieve international agreements’ targets on climate and biodiversity its transformation is essential.

Rapid dietary change to more plant-based diets and reduced animal products consumption is a powerful leverage for plummeting the environmental and climate impacts of food habits. It has been referred to as one of the potential positive tipping points that can be harnessed to transform the global food system, profoundly altering its modes of operation. Nevertheless, there is limited empirical evidence regarding whether such non-linear dynamics occur in the food sector, resulting in an important gap in the identification of specific factors that can trigger a desired transition.

We propose a quantitative framework to identify historic and ongoing tipping dynamics in food system transformation. We first implement statistical analyses to explore the past evolution of the dominant dietary patterns within historical data series (1961-2020) of country-scale food supply quantities, across different food categories. We then unravel the drivers behind dietary patterns evolution in time (e.g., per capita GDP, cultural and social factors, supply patterns), also highlighting significant similarities across different countries, possibly suggesting coupled dietary evolutions. The outputs of our statistical framework provide ground for the analysis of past shifts in dietary patterns and the role that potential tipping elements driving dietary shifts - changes of normative consumer beliefs and behaviours, agricultural practices and policies - had in triggering food system transformations, or that may have in accelerating future desired transitions towards a more sustainable food system.