25
Jan

In recent years, there has been growing public interest in the need for healthy diets. The governments and companies are making great efforts in improving nutrition, and discussions in connection with these areas are developing, including the Global Index proposed by the Access to Nutrition Initiative (ATNI). Under such circumstances, nutritional profiling systems have been developed and introduced to evaluate the amount of nutrients contained in foods based on scientific evidence and to express the nutritional quality of foods in an easy-to-understand manner.

However, these discussions are often based on Western perspectives. Nutritional issues that are rooted in the food culture of each country must also be considered. For example, nutrients are obtained almost exclusively from processed foods in the West, while in Japan and several other Asian countries, nutrients are obtained from food ingredients. There are therefore differences in methodologies between the West and the Asian countries, requiring consideration from various angles. And the discussion in healthy eating would not usually cover influencing environmental burden.