Contribution of the total utilization of food for health and the environment

Abstract

Currently, around 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted in the world. Brazil is considered the fourth largest food producer in the world, and at the same time, it is among the ten countries that most waste. The concern with waste and also the depletion of natural resources, requires from everyone, new behaviors and new ways of thinking and acting. For this scenario to change, the best way is to practice the full use of food, using unconventional parts such as bark, stalk, leaf and seed. This can contribute to reducing the production of food waste, as well as minimizing the environmental impact caused by them and also in actions aimed at reducing hunger and malnutrition, through the development of dietary techniques that fully reuse food. Thus, the objective of the present work was to carry out a bibliographic review of the importance of the full use of food. For this, it was carried out based on articles published in the last 10 years, in Portuguese or English, in addition to full texts. It can be concluded that food when consumed in its entirety can offer several benefits to consumers, in the treatment and/or prevention of diseases such as diabetes, hyperlipidemia, obesity, constipation and neoplasms, due to the greater presence of fibers, improvement of the system immune system, aiding in weight loss and increasing the intake of nutrients. Education about the unconventional parts of food is of utmost importance to enable the population to have a more nutritious, safe, sustainable diet, thus preventing chronic non-communicable diseases, improving health and quality of life. In addition, it contributes to the reduction of spending on food, food waste and the generation of organic waste.