Healthy living, nutrition and food waste in the Barents region

Summary

The Nordic Council of Ministers through the Arctic Co-operation Programme 2015-2017, funds «Healthy food and lifestyle in the Arctic». Researchers at NIBIO - Department of Economy and Society, and Nofima has collaborated with researchers from the University of Oulu in Finland and two universities in Arkhangelsk in Russia. An important part of the project is that researchers from Norway, Finland and Russia share knowledge and learn from each other about what a sustainable and healthy diet is and how it affects public health in the three countries. The project's overall goal has been to contribute to documenting some key trends in diet and alcohol consumption, and how these affect people's health in the Barents Region. Moreover, the project aims to provide a brief description of some key aspects related to food waste and what role food waste has, or may have a sustainable and healthy diet. This report, which points to large inequalities in health in the three countries, is based on work done in the project's first year. The theme food waste in this report is limited to pointing out differences in the three countries in terms of legislation and some measures to reduce the amount food waste. The report relates to the work done in one of the project's work packages, and was conducted during the period September 2015 to August 2016.