TI-FIG

• Overall objective:

Certain traditional diets, defined as a region’s cultural and gastronomic heritage, have been described as both health-promoting and beneficial in terms of environmental and sociocultural impact. In Guadeloupe, the traditional diet, with its high nutritional quality, appears to persist among a quarter of the population. Promoting this diet and integrating it into the Guadeloupean food system could be a path toward more sustainable diets and food systems. However, its impact on the environmental and economic dimensions of sustainability and its sociocultural acceptability remain to be determined.

Furthermore, significant social inequalities in nutrition have been highlighted in Guadeloupe. Given the high proportion of Guadeloupean households relying on food aid and the high attendance at school meals, promoting traditional diets and foods through food aid and school meals could be an effective way to improve the diets of disadvantaged populations.

TI-FIG is an interdisciplinary project, combining epidemiology, nutrition, economics, sociology, agronomy, environmental sciences, food sciences, and local actors in the food system. It aims to identify the levers and conditions for promoting a sustainable diet and traditional foods, at different levels of the food system (consumers, food aid and school meals, territory), to improve the food and nutritional security of disadvantaged Guadeloupean populations.

• Scientific and societal issues:

TI-FIG‘s ambition is to enable a real breakthrough in our understanding of the levers for reducing social inequalities in nutrition, while promoting sustainable food systems that leverage local traditional resources.

One of the TI-FIG project’s main innovations lies in its integrated approaches to levers at different system levels for sustainable traditional food, ranging from agricultural production (farmer choices, marketing channels, environmental and economic performance at the territorial level) to consumption (traditional diets, consumer preferences, practices, and perceptions), including the provision of food aid and collective catering, including food processing. A second original feature is that it considers the promotion of traditional foods and diets not only as a means of preserving traditional food as a shared cultural heritage in a region of the world undergoing nutritional transition, but also to strengthen the sustainability of diets.

Guadeloupe’s traditional diet is a case study that can be transposed to other territorialized food systems: a model for describing, understanding, and improving the sustainability of today’s diet in the face of strong and growing pressure on natural resources, exacerbated by changing dietary behaviors.

TI-FIG will have a significant societal and economic impact and is expected to be of interest, for example: 1) to enable the Ministry of Health and other national and local decision-makers to implement dietary recommendations based on local practices and children’s preferences, and to formulate recommendations tailored to the dietary habits of high-risk nutritional groups; 2) to European and national programs, such as the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, and to producers themselves, by providing knowledge on a more resilient economic food system that shares values ​​equitably among stakeholders and promotes territorial development.

• Project focuses:

The TI-FIG project is structured around three axes:

1) Study the potential of traditional foods (TF) in food aid (FA) and school meals (SM) to make the diet of disadvantaged populations more sustainable. Based on a detailed characterization of the sustainability of the FA and SM offerings, we will use modeling to assess the potential for increasing the availability of TF while balancing sustainability indicators (nutritional quality, economics, and environmental impact). We will also identify domestic and agri-food transformations of TF that can improve their use and desirability in SM and in disadvantaged households.

2) Identify levers to improve consumer preferences for TF by evaluating consumer choices and interventions to strengthen adherence to a traditional diet. To this end, we will study social representations and preferences for and trade-offs regarding TF in different populations (FA users, children, canteen managers, and disadvantaged parents). We will then assess the effect of disseminating information about TF on the knowledge, perceptions, preferences, and acceptability of children attending the SM, using a longitudinal, quasi-experimental design. In parallel, we will conduct participatory workshops with local stakeholders involved in FA and FA users to design user interventions.

3) Assess the capacity of local production to reconnect with traditional food in the local food system through territorial food policies on SM and FA. In particular, we will assess the scope for increasing the local supply of TF for SM and FA in the local food system by studying producers’ trade-offs regarding TA. We will also assess, using life cycle analysis, the environmental sustainability of a diet with more TF at the territorial scale based on different supply chains for SM and FA. Finally, we will propose recommendations on the conditions for the success of territorial food policies to simultaneously increase consumer preferences for TF and the supply of TF in the local food system.

• TI-FIG project presentation video