ABSTRACT
Aquatic foods, including plants and animals from fisheries and aquaculture, are often high in bio-available nutrients, and some can be harvested or produced with environmental impact and resource use that is lower than many terrestrial animal sourced foods or equivalent to plant-based foods. There is substantial potential for increased consumption to improve the diets of people who consume low amounts of aquatic foods. There also are opportunities to reduce the environmental footprint of diets where the most sustainable aquatic foods are consumed in place of more resource intensive and environmentally impactful foods. The potential of aquatic foods to contribute to improved environmental and health outcomes will be mediated by challenges including the impacts of climate change, habitat loss and degradation, overfishing, and the provision of aquaculture feed. Realising the opportunities to manage and utilise aquatic foods to improve nutrition and reduce environmental food impacts, as well as to support peoples’ cultures and livelihoods, will determine the extent to which aquatic foods can contribute to more sustainable diets.
