An Unfortunate Term for an Important Step Forward in a Fair Food Transition

At Future Food Utrecht, where we conduct research on healthy, sustainable, and fair food systems, we asked FFU board member Michèlle Bal, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Social Science, to provide insight into two recent developments that have sparked considerable discussion: the introduction of the term eetdrammen by the Netherlands Nutrition Centre, and the update of the EAT-Lancet diet (an international scientific guideline for a healthy and sustainable diet).

(1) The EAT-Lancet diet was introduced in 2019 as a balanced, healthy diet that could feed a growing world population within the ecological boundaries of the planet. The World Wildlife Fund (2)  translated the diet into the Dutch context. Within this diet, there is a shift in protein intake from animal-based to plant-based sources, and we eat less processed food with unhealthy additives.
In October, a renewed analysis by the EAT-Lancet Commission(3) was published, in which a social foundation for a fair food transition was added to the existing core elements—the PHD (Planetary Health Diet) and the ecological boundaries of the Earth. This addition fits well within the framework of the well-known Doughnut model (4+figuur 1), which describes a fair and safe space for the continuation of human life in times of climate change, and it adds a clear social component to the EAT-Lancet diet.

To establish the social foundation, the EAT-Lancet Commission applied the frameworks of distributive justice (i.e., a fair distribution of important resources, opportunities, chances, burdens and risks), procedural (or representative) justice (i.e., a fair decision-making process about these distributions), and recognitional justice (i.e., acknowledging and valuing diverse (and intersectional) perspectives, identities and experiences) to the food system. Based on these frameworks, the researchers selected three human rights that are crucial for a fair food transition: the right to affordable and healthy food, the right to a clean and healthy environment, and the right to decent work. They then analyzed what is needed to realize these fundamental rights worldwide and, based on this, made recommendations for 23 concrete actions(5) . 

One important action that was proposed is the banning of advertising for unhealthy foods combined with warning labels on unhealthy products. The Netherlands Nutrition Centre also endorses the importance of paying more attention to such a healthy food environment. To support this, the Nutrition Centre introduces a new term: eetdrammen (6) . When I (and many others with me) first heard this term, I didn’t immediately have a clear idea of what it meant. I associated it with the term klimaatdrammer (climate nagger), a label once given to our possible new prime minister, and wondered whether it referred to vegans being told not to be so activist in trying to persuade others to adopt a plant-based diet. This stereotypical image of vegans is, after all, considered irritating by many people (7) But no—the Nutrition Centre defines eetdrammen as “pressuring others to eat unhealthy food.” So, the complete opposite.

After looking up its meaning, I indeed began—just as the Nutrition Centre suggests—to notice more and more examples of eetdrammen in my food environment. Still, in the solution the Nutrition Centre proposes for eetdrammen, namely making healthy eating normal, I miss a more positive note. Of course, it would be good if healthy eating became the norm, but we can also take it a step further. We can also entice people into making healthier and more sustainable choices, so that they eat these with more pride and pleasure.

This aligns with another explicit recommendation from the EAT-Lancet report, namely to protect and promote healthy, local diets and, more broadly, to make healthy and sustainable choices more appealing. At Future Food Utrecht, we also contribute to this in various ways. For example, Prescilla Jeurink leads a PtS Signature project on celebrating sustainable and healthy food choices, and Martijn Huysmans, together with a team of researchers, studies how to make local specialties more appealing by documenting their artisanal, place-based origins (8) (such as, for example, champagne, Gouda cheese or Parma ham).

I therefore hope that we will increasingly focus on “food celebrating” alongside addressing eetdrammen in order to achieve a fair food transition.