Message

Animal-source foods can reduce risk of malnutrition or undernutrition

For people at risk of malnutrition or undernutrition, well-balanced food consumption (including livestock-derived foods), ensuring equitable access to safe milk, meat and eggs and increasing dietary diversity will support healthy growth and development and provide lifelong benefits

Core message

Actions and Solutions
 

  1. Among populations at risk of undernutrition, enhance access to milk, meat and eggs by subsidizing and distributing small livestock—such as local poultry, calves and goats—along with training in animal husbandry and information on proper household nutrition.
  2. Provide farm households with advice and training that both improve the productivity of their livestock and increase their access to livestock-derived foods, thereby creating pathways to healthy and diverse diets.
  3. Focus policies and programs on sustainable, healthy dietary patterns that meet all nutrient needs, not forgetting the risks that over-consuming food from livestock and other sources can increase the incidence of diabetes, heart disease and other non-communicable diseases. 
  4. Strengthen collaborations between health, nutrition and livestock programs to develop systems and interventions focused on the production and consumption of ASF for improved nutrition and food security.

 

Livestock-derived foods - Bioavailability of nutrients

 

Distributing livestock to rural households can increase diet diversity