Beyond the plate: Why bioavailability matters for sustainable diets

A recent perspective in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, led by Harvard scientist Khristopher Nicholas, argues for the importance to account for bioavailability differences across plant- and animal-source foods.

The amount of a nutrient absorbed and utilized by the body – nutrient bioavailability – is critical for connecting food systems to nutrition security and environmental sustainability. Why is this so?

Centre researcher Max Troell, a co-author of the paper explains: “Current food modeling often overlooks the significant differences in nutrient absorption between plant-source foods and animal-source foods, something that not only can lead to inaccurate assessments of dietary adequacy but also different diets environmental impact.”

The study highlights the variability in estimated bioavailabity across plant-source foods and Animal-source foods for 27 key nutrients and the limited accounting for bioavailability in major studies and nutrition recommendations.

It argues that existing data limitations should not preclude food systems researchers from accounting for bioavailability, and that a concerted effort is needed to develop more consistent and representative estimates of bioavailability across a variety of nutrients.