After reviewing and unanimously authorizing it, the Senate’s prospective delegation presented its report on May 28 entitled "Towards sustainable food:a major health, social, territorial and environmental challenge for France?" » . At the end of the day, 20 proposals such as taxing certain foods because of their poor nutritional quality and using the proceeds of these taxes to finance nutritional education actions and distribute “healthy food vouchers.”
The rapporteurs – Senator LREM from Gironde Françoise Cartron and PS Senator from Finistère Jean-Luc Fichet – advocate a diet “more sober and more vegetable” . They thus suggest ”cleaning up the food supply by encouraging or obliging reformulation of recipes for industrial dishes (limit salt, sugar, or saturated fat).
Aware that these measures could be defended by the deputies, the senators of the delegation add that “the public authorities will also have to remove economic barriers, thanks to incentives or financial aid to access healthier foods or by supporting the social innovations carried out by associations or local actors, in particular those which make it possible to bring consumers and producers closer together in the same territory. ”
According to the rapporteurs, a profound transformation of the French food system must take place. The elected officials recall that it will be necessary to feed a population which should reach 9 to 10 billion human beings in 2050 and that “the food systems that developed in Western countries in the 20th century (…) are not sustainable in terms of consumption of natural resources , impacts on the climate and biodiversity or health. ”
In this report, elected officials also refer to the health problems that result from overconsumption of food, in terms of products that are too salty, too sweet or too fatty . According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 39% of adults worldwide are overweight and 13% are obese.
What worries are the many complications attributable to being overweight or obesity:type 2 diabetes (44% of cases), heart disease (23% of cases) and cancer (between 7% and 41% of cases depending on location), resulting in premature death of approximately 2.8 million people every year .
These figures are part of the reason why the senators of the foresight delegation want effective measures to be put in place to help citizens eat healthier and support sustainable, more resilient agriculture .
One day perhaps, a majority of French people will be able to have access to sustainable food vouchers in organic stores, on markets, when ordering organic baskets from AMAP, or baskets of meals to cook or even directly from the producer.
Among the 20 recommendations presented in the Senate report, several do not sound like a response to the problems experienced during confinement , in particular to difficulties in supplying or disposing of stocks depending on the territories. Here are six of them:
We will see in the coming months whether the deputies and the government favorably welcome the original proposals of this senatorial delegation, welcome in this context of reflection on a “world of after”.
According to UNICEF, out of 676 million children under 5 s living in the world in 2018, about a third were undernourished or overweight:187 million were undernourished , 40 million overweight. Half of these children, i.e. 340 million, suffered from dietary deficiencies (lack of vitamins, minerals, trace elements, etc.)
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