Households Provided Free Produce Require Intensive Intervention to Increase Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Reduce Plate Waste: A Randomized Trial

Journal of Nutrition · 2026-02-11

BACKGROUND: Policies seek to both increase fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption and reduce wasted food, though few have investigated if subsidizing FV consumption leads to more waste. OBJECTIVES: We evaluate changes in FV intake, waste, and inventories after free provision of supplemental produce and delivery of a smart coaching intervention to reduce food waste and replace less nutritious foods with FV. METHODS: Adults from households in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, measured food intake and waste for ≥3 d before and after intervention. Households were randomized to an intensive intervention to reduce food waste and replace less nutritious foods with FV (n = 23) or to a control intervention (n = 23). Both received free FV and measured FV inventories before and after intervention. RESULTS: Among control participants, free FV provision led to no significant changes in FV intake (-0.07, P = 0.71) or diet quality measured by Healthy Eating Index (HEI, -1.93, P = 0.33) but did increase FV inventories (4.89 kg, P = 0.04) and the number (9.53 events/period, P < 0.001) and magnitude (100.5 g/event, P = 0.005) of FV waste events, whereas total caloric intake (-132.7 kcal/d, P = 0.04) decreased. After receiving free FV, and compared with controls, treatment participants increased FV intake (0.85 servings/d, P = 0.002) and frozen FV inventories (1.78 kg, P = 0.04). After intervention, treatment did not significantly differ from control in HEI (-2.77, P = 0.34), total caloric intake (147.8 kcal/d, P = 0.13), total FV inventories (-1.83 kg, P = 0.51), plate waste (-22.2 g/person/d, P = 0.09), or the number (-3.57, P = 0.24) or magnitude (-66.4, P = 0.11) of FV waste events. CONCLUSIONS: Providing free FVs without focused interventions to improve diet quality and reduce waste fails to increase FV intake and increases FV waste. Pairing interventions with free FV provision appears critical to translating program resources into improved FV intake, whereas efforts to substantially decrease FV waste require more intensive effort. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT05061888.

<scp> <i>De gustibus est disputandum</i> </scp> : The role of agricultural and applied economists in an era of behavior change initiatives and endogenous preferences

American Journal of Agricultural Economics · 2026-01-25

Abstract Popular society increasingly questions preferences that drive many resource allocations and production decisions, with many groups actively seeking to alter those preferences to achieve changes to resource use. Agricultural and applied economists, who are already equipped with excellent technical skills to undertake consumer preference and valuation studies, must also be challenged to understand post‐Beckerian consumer theories that can help guide emerging requests placed upon economists as multi‐disciplinary collaborators as non‐academic groups press us to join in work involving interventions that work from the implicit assumption that preferences are malleable and potentially endogenous. I call association members to follow our best traditions of studying production dynamics and incorporating emerging theories drawn from or inspired by other disciplines so that we may better interact with the broader scientific community who, as many suggest, finds our insistence on stable and static preferences to limit the usefulness of economists in handling a raft of modern dilemmas. In addition to setting out the history of economists' reticence in considering endogenous preferences, I will outline several threads of emerging literature that can provide structure to professional inquiry in this domain and sketch some emergent cases with implications for the agricultural and resource sectors.

Convergence research for sustainable regional systems

iScience · 2025-07-22 · 1 citations

Convergence research addresses societal and environmental challenges by co-creating knowledge across disciplinary boundaries, often in deep collaboration with extra-academic parties to ensure that the research process is solution-focused, actionable, and just. As part of National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research projects on sustainable regional systems, we present multiple perspectives on conducting convergence research within the coupled social-ecological-technological systems framework. These projects explicitly engage extra-academic parties to co-design and co-produce knowledge throughout all stages of this participatory research. We introduce the 3 C's model as a framework that links a research team's Communication, Collaboration, and Creation decisions to the likely degree of convergence and societal change achieved. This model assesses the degree of integration among different social sciences, biophysical sciences, engineering, and other scientific disciplines, as well as extra-academic partners ranging from governmental agencies and industries to non-profit organizations and tribal communities. Integration in this context is assessed by its ability to situate local problems within broader systemic lenses, resolve conflicts among the priorities of partners, and conduct cutting-edge research that addresses real-world needs with actionable sustainability solutions. By synthesizing inclusive and just practices of conducting convergent research across a selection of research teams, we provide recommendations for academic researchers and administrators to encourage and advance convergence research in solving challenging sustainability issues.

Ontologies relevant for improving data interoperability for food loss and waste: A review and research agenda

Cleaner and Responsible Consumption · 2025-09-09 · 1 citations

Food loss and waste (FLW) is a global challenge. Interoperable FLW ontologies will foster more comprehensive data sharing and inform better solutions to reduce and recover excess food and to valorize wasted food and food byproducts. This review reveals that only eight ontologies currently address FLW with most emphasizing valorization. Notably, few are designed explicitly to support FLW reduction, and none facilitate food recovery, which is critical given that reduction and recovery are the preferred means of mitigating FLW. Furthermore, existing FLW ontologies show limited alignment with recognized gold-standard frameworks, for example the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry, and none support ongoing connectivity to external ontologies, restricting their utility across stakeholder domains. Looking ahead, there is a pressing need to create or expand ontologies that adhere to best practices from relevant foundries to ensure robust linkage and interoperability and undergird structured data ecosystems that support food systems stakeholders in FLW prevention and mitigation. Achieving this goal will require active collaboration among a diverse range of stakeholders, including builders of food systems cyberinfrastructure, scientists, innovators, regulators, public and private funders, community-based organizations, policymakers, and international NGOs as each rely on critical ontological elements to inform decision-making, measure impact, and drive improvement across the food supply chain. Finally, large language models offer promising capabilities for expediting ontology creation, broadening inclusivity in ontology creation, and enhancing the accuracy of resulting data infrastructures. • Ontologies facilitate data interoperability and machine learning approaches. • We review the food loss and waste (FLW) literature and find 8 relevant ontologies. • Most support valorization of wasted food; none support food rescue or recovery. • Future efforts should adhere to best practices and leverage stakeholder insights. • Large language models offer promise for expediting creation of FLW ontologies.

Changes to Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Waste When Households Receive Free Produce

medRxiv · 2025-04-25 · 1 citations

Objective: The study evaluated changes in household food intake, the waste of fruits and vegetables (FV), and FV inventories after supplemental produce was provided free of charge and in response to a smart coaching intervention to reduce food waste and replace less nutritious foods with FV. Design: Households measured food intake and waste for ≥3 days before and after intervention. Households were randomized to receive either an intervention to reduce food waste and replace less healthy foods with FV or a control intervention. Both groups received free FV and measured FV inventories before and after intervention. Setting: Participants were from the Baton Rouge, Louisiana region and picked up FV at a central location. Participants: 46 adults and their household members. Results: Treatment participants increased intake of fruits (0.33 servings/day, p=0.09) and vegetables (0.50 servings/day, p=0.01) compared to the control group. All participants reported a decrease in daily total caloric intake (133 kcal/day, p=0.04), an increase in the number (9.5 events/period, p<0.001) and average magnitude (100.5 g/event, p=0.005) of FV waste events, and an increase in fresh FV inventories (4.1 kg/household, p=0.001) after receiving free FVs. Compared to the control group, treatment participants reported less FV waste during eating occasions (22.2 g/day, p=0.09) and an increase in frozen FV inventories (1.8 kg/household, p=0.04). Conclusions: Providing free FVs without additional intervention does not increase FV intake but does lead to more and larger FV waste events. When coupled with targeted information to improve diet quality and reduce waste, free FV provision can lead to increased FV intake with no significant increase in energy intake or plate waste and smaller increases in the number and magnitude of FV waste events, suggesting that pairing intensive intervention efforts with free FV provision is critical to translate program resources into improved nutrition without increasing waste.

Food Waste and Recycling Behaviors Among Short-Term Rental Lodgers and Hosts

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

Assessing environmental gains from sustainability interventions in a competitive market setting: A foodservice case study

Environmental Development · 2025-11-08

Precision Prevention, Diagnostics, and Treatment of Obesity: Pipedream or Reality?

Obesity · 2025-09-18

Precision medicine approaches have gained attention for their potential to more effectively manage obesity by tailoring diagnosis and treatment strategies to individual characteristics, including genetic background, phenotypes, metabolic profiles, and environmental exposures. The current review evaluates the evidence for precision medicine in weight management by summarizing the proceedings of a Pennington Biomedical Scientific Symposium titled "Precision Prevention, Diagnostics, and Treatment of Obesity: Pipedream or Reality?" This review discusses the extent to which we can classify and predict obesity risk based on individual-level factors; whether we have the diagnostic capability to prospectively identify people who will benefit most from specific interventions; whether prospective trials demonstrate superior prevention and treatment of obesity when precision approaches are applied; and whether evidence is sufficient to guide policy decisions. Expert opinions were presented on the current evidence of precision medicine for obesity to collectively evaluate key barriers and opportunities for implementation of precision approaches in clinical and public health settings.

A comparative assessment of food waste and carbon footprint toward a more sustainable healthcare foodservice

Journal of Cleaner Production · 2025-02-21 · 11 citations

Corrigendum to “Quantifying phosphorus loads from legacy-phosphorus fields” [J. Gt. Lakes 50 (2024) 102446]

Journal of Great Lakes Research · 2025-01-09