Development of a healthy New Nordic Diet

Summary:

Many of the diseases today are diet‐related, and recommendations for a healthy diet are one of the main challenges for public health today. At the same time, concern for the environment and the planet's health has developed to be an equally important challenge, and the circumstances call for an update of our food culture. Dietary recommendations have not yet been successful in reversing the obesity epidemic, and one of the reasons for this could be that palatability and gastronomic potential are not taken into account in current dietary recommendations. It has been suggested that dietary recommendations should be more tailored to regional conditions which could help to preserve cultur‐ al diversity in eating habits, and in addition contribute to more environmentally friendly food con‐ sumption.

Both gastronomists and nutritionists are beginning to believe that there is a shared route to creating regional diets and an opportunity to develop a healthy diet that bridges gastronomy, health and sus‐ tainability. This forms the basis for the multidisciplinary, 5 year research project, OPUS (Optimal well‐ being, development and health for Danish children through a healthy New Nordic Diet), which aims to define and test a New Nordic Diet (NND). The hypothesis is that an optimal diet composition, based on healthy, palatable meals, may not only contribute to the prevention of excessive weight gain, obesity, and other health disorders, but may also improve quality of life, learning ability, and mental and physi‐ cal performance in children.

In the development of the NND the following principles have been crucial: Health, gastronomic poten‐ tial, Nordic identity, and sustainability. These principles led to the formulation of three overall guide‐ lines forming the basis of the NND as compared to the current average Danish diet: (i) More calories from plant foods and fewer from meat; (ii) More foods from the sea and lakes; and (iii) More foods from the wild countryside. These guidelines were used to develop a list of dietary components charac‐ terizing the NND: Fruit and vegetables (especially berries, cabbages, root vegetables and legumes), fresh herbs, potatoes, plants and mushrooms from the wild countryside, wholegrain, nuts, fish and shellfish, seaweed, free‐range livestock (including pigs and poultry), and game. For dietary compo‐ nents already included in the Danish Food‐based Dietary Guidelines (DFDG) and with substantial evi‐ dence for their health promoting properties, they are naturally included in the NND in at least the same amount as in DFDG; e.g. fruit, vegetables, potatoes, wholegrain, nuts, fish and shellfish. The rec‐ ommended intake of the other dietary components in the NND (e.g. fresh herbs, plants and mush‐ rooms from the wild countryside, seaweed, meat and game) is based on the scientific arguments for their health promoting properties together with considerations for acceptability, safety, availability, and the environmental sustainability.

An evaluation of the nutritional content of the NND was performed based on the overall dietary com‐ ponents in the NND compared with data from the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations (NNR) and the intake in the average Danish diet with regard to both macro‐ and micronutrients. Overall, the average daily intake of macro‐ and micronutrients in the NND meets NNR with small adjustments based on evidence of their health promoting properties. In addition, a safety evaluation of selected NND foods (wild plants) was performed for ensuring a non‐risk intake of these in the NND using the concept of Substantial Equivalence (SE) when data on the level of acceptable daily intakes was not known. It was concluded, that most compounds with a possible risk of adverse effects found in the plants seemed within similar levels as other common food plants, but further evaluation and analysis are necessary, before a daily intake of wild plants can be generally regarded as safe.

Finally a thematic variation over three lunch meals, each with fish, meat or vegetable protein sources and a model for a weekly meal structure applying similar variations have been made, to aid in the pro‐ cess of turning the NND guidelines and dietary components into meals. The model is made with ut‐ most concern for acceptability in relation to the Danish population's current everyday kitchen and dining culture, taking the principles of the NND into account. This model has subsequently been ap‐ plied successfully for two large OPUS intervention trials.

The NND is a suggestion for a regional diet with concern for health, gastronomic potential, Nordic identity, and sustainability. In the two intervention studies performed within the OPUS project, one in overweight adults and one in school children, it will be examined how such a diet can affect the nutri‐ tional, mental and physical health. As we get the results from these studies we learn more about how to develop it further. It is suggested that regional diets like the NND, could be created anywhere in the world using the same principles and guidelines.