Sustainable Gastronomy Day: traditional food and a sustainable food system

Sustainable Gastronomy Day was observed around the world on 18 June 2026. To mark it, Jagonews24 published a lifestyle feature that day arguing that food is not only a way to satisfy hunger but part of culture, heritage and everyday life, and that a country's history, farming, climate and way of life show in what its people eat. In a consumerist world, the feature said, attitudes to food were changing fast: waste was rising while pressure on the environment and on farming grew, which made a sustainable food system more important every year.

This report sets out the feature's argument and adds the background behind it from the United Nations General Assembly, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the World Health Organization (WHO), Banglapedia and Bangladeshi newspapers. All figures were published before June 2026.

The UN General Assembly adopted resolution 71/246 on 21 December 2016, designating 18 June as Sustainable Gastronomy Day. It was adopted at the Assembly's 66th plenary meeting on the report of its Second Committee. The resolution acknowledges that gastronomy is a cultural expression related to the natural and cultural diversity of the world, and reaffirms that all cultures and civilizations can contribute to sustainable development.

The resolution recalls the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted on 25 September 2015. It affirms the need to focus the world's attention on the role sustainable gastronomy can play in achieving those goals, including by promoting agricultural development, food security, nutrition, sustainable food production and the conservation of biodiversity.

Member states, UN bodies, international and regional organisations, non-governmental organisations and individuals were invited to observe the day in line with national priorities. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the FAO were asked to facilitate its observance, and the resolution stresses that the cost of all activities arising from it should be met from voluntary contributions.

The Jagonews24 feature noted that many people link the word "gastronomy" only with luxury food or restaurant culture, but that its meaning is broader: it covers the history of food, cooking methods, farming, culture and the whole practice of how people eat. Sustainable gastronomy, in the feature's words, is food practice in which the environment, farmers, culture and human health count at every step from production to serving; put simply, a system in which nature is not harmed, farmers get a fair price and people can eat healthy food.

The FAO's page for the day describes sustainable gastronomy in similar terms: cuisine that takes into account where the ingredients are from, how the food is grown and how it gets to our markets and eventually to our plates. The FAO also describes gastronomy as the art of food and the cooking style of a region, and sustainability as practice that avoids waste and keeps resources for future generations. The same page notes that the world's population is projected to pass 9 billion by 2050, while one third of all food produced is lost or wasted.

The FAO has also given a formal definition of a sustainable diet. In its 2010 work "Sustainable Diets and Biodiversity", it described sustainable diets as those with low environmental impacts that contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations. Such diets, the definition continues, are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable, nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy, while optimising natural and human resources. The four concerns the feature named, environment, farmers, culture and health, all sit inside that definition.

The feature said huge amounts of food are wasted every year while millions of people suffer from malnutrition and food shortages, and that cooking too much at events, waste in restaurants and throwing out unneeded food at home had become common. Because water, land, labour and fuel go into producing food, it argued, wasting food wastes those resources too, and a sustainable food system starts with taking only what is needed and making proper use of leftovers.

The most complete international count is UNEP's Food Waste Index Report 2024, published on 27 March 2024. It found that 1.05 billion tonnes of food were wasted in 2022, including inedible parts, close to one fifth of all food available to consumers, or 132 kilograms per person. Households accounted for 60 percent of it, food services such as restaurants and canteens for 28 percent and retail for 12 percent. By UNEP's estimate, households on every continent were wasting more than a billion meals a day.

Food is also lost before it reaches a shop. The FAO estimates that about 13 percent of food produced is lost after harvest and before it reaches retail shelves. To draw attention to both loss and waste, the General Assembly adopted resolution 74/209 on 19 December 2019, proclaiming 29 September the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. SDG target 12.3 calls for halving food waste by 2030.

Several of the 2024 report's findings bear directly on Bangladesh. Average household food waste in high-income, upper-middle-income and lower-middle-income countries differed by just 7 kilograms per person, so this is not only a rich-country problem. Hotter countries appear to waste more food per person at home, and rural areas generally waste less than towns and cities. Only four G20 countries (Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) and the European Union had food waste estimates good enough to track progress to 2030.

The Business Standard reported the same report's estimate for Bangladesh on 27 March 2024: about 82 kilograms of food wasted per person per year at home, more than in the United States (73 kg), the Netherlands (59 kg) or Japan (60 kg), or roughly 14.10 million tonnes of household food waste a year. The 2021 edition had put the figure at 65 kg per person and 10.62 million tonnes in total. In South Asia, Bhutan had the lowest estimate (19 kg), followed by India (55 kg) and Sri Lanka (76 kg), with Nepal at 93 kg and Pakistan at 130 kg. The agricultural economist Dr MA Sattar Mandal told the paper that food waste is an existing issue, and a paradox for a low-income country.

The hunger figures show the paradox clearly. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025 report by the FAO and its partners, released in July 2025, estimated that about 673 million people, 8.2 percent of the world's population, faced hunger in 2024, down from 695 million in 2022. Yet nearly 2.3 billion people still lacked regular access to adequate food, and about 2.6 billion could not afford a healthy diet. The report also noted that food price inflation had risen from 2.3 percent in 2020 to 13.6 percent in 2023.

The feature said the link between food production and the environment is very deep: excessive chemical fertiliser and pesticide use, deforestation, plastic packaging and industrial agriculture were harming the environment, and food systems were bound up with global warming, climate change and water shortages.

The IPCC's 2019 Special Report on Climate Change and Land puts numbers on that link. Its Summary for Policymakers estimates that, when activities before and after production are included, the global food system accounts for 21 to 37 percent of total net human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. The same summary states that agriculture accounts for about 70 percent of global freshwater use, that people directly use more than 70 percent of the world's ice-free land surface, and that 25 to 30 percent of all food produced is lost or wasted, which is associated with additional emissions.

UNEP's 2024 report put a price on the waste. Food loss and waste generate 8 to 10 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, almost five times the emissions of the aviation sector, and cost the world economy about 1 trillion US dollars. Launching the report, UNEP's Executive Director Inger Andersen called food waste a global tragedy, saying millions would go hungry that day while food was wasted across the world.

The IPCC also pointed to diets as part of the answer. Paragraph B.6.2 of its summary says that balanced diets featuring plant-based foods, such as coarse grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, together with animal-sourced food produced in resilient, sustainable and low-emission systems, present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation. Diversification in the food system, such as integrated production systems and broad-based genetic resources, can reduce risks from climate change, the report adds.

The feature observed that many countries were turning to environmentally friendly farming and organic production. According to figures released on 10 February 2026 by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and IFOAM Organics International, certified organic farmland worldwide stood at 98.9 million hectares in 2024, worked by 4.8 million organic producers, and retail sales of organic food and drink reached 145.0 billion euros. The data came from 183 countries; Australia had the largest organic area, 53.0 million hectares.

Giving priority to local food and farming is one of the most important parts of a sustainable food system, the feature said, and Bangladesh's rural food culture is full of examples: people once relied on seasonal vegetables, local fish, rice, lentils and home cooking, which kept them nourished and supported local farmers.

Banglapedia's article on food habits, by Enamul Haq, explains where that culture comes from. The country's deltaic plains, drained by many rivers and soaked by plentiful rain, have made rice growing and fishing the chief occupations of the people through the ages. Many rice varieties are grown in both the dry and wet seasons, and hundreds of fish species live in the rivers, canals, floodplains, haors, baors, ponds, lakes, estuaries and the Bay of Bengal. Rice and fish therefore dominate the diet.

According to the article, a farm labourer or fisherman begins the day with panta, plain boiled rice soaked overnight in water and left to ferment a little, eaten with salt and chilli. Puffed rice (muri), flattened rice (chira) and popped rice (khoi) are traditional breakfasts in rural homes, eaten with milk or yoghurt, seasonal fruit such as mango, banana or jackfruit, and gur, the raw sugar made from date, palm or cane juice. Main meals bring bhorta (mashed vegetables or fish), bhaji (fried vegetables), dopiaza, jhol (a thin fish and vegetable curry) and dal. All communities eat plenty of vegetables and lentil soup, Banglapedia notes, and rural people grow their own vegetables and lentils and often catch their own fish.

The same article says the country's soft alluvial soil suits a wide range of vegetables; gourds, brinjal, beans, radish, cauliflower, cabbage, tomatoes and carrots are popular in towns and villages alike. A health campaign to encourage more vegetables, especially leafy greens, to prevent night blindness in children and to balance diets had raised intake among rich and poor. Banglapedia also records, however, that fish was becoming scarce and expensive because widespread embankments built to expand high-yielding rice had shrunk the floodplains.

In its closing part the feature argued that a country's food is not only a matter of taste but part of its culture and heritage: panta-ilish, bhorta, pitha and cooking on a village clay stove are part of Bengali feeling and identity.

Banglapedia describes pitha as traditional home-made cakes served on special occasions, such as receiving a bride or bridegroom or entertaining guests. The most common ingredients are rice or wheat flour, molasses or sugar, coconut and oil, and some pithas also use meat, vegetables or fruit such as jackfruit, palmyra, coconut and banana. The pitha season starts in late autumn, when farmers harvest paddy, and winter pithas made with date juice and cane molasses are considered the best. The article lists many kinds, including chitoi, patishapta, pakan, bhapa, andosha, kulshi, nakshi, puli and jamdani pitha, and notes that each area has its own pithas and the same pitha can go by different names in different places.

Panta-ilish is now most closely tied to Pohela Boishakh, the Bengali New Year. The Dhaka Tribune wrote on 12 April 2018 that panta bhat and ilish were among the popular foods of the day, but the same report raised the question of conserving the national fish. Every year, it said, Bangladesh observed a two-month government ban on catching ilish from 1 March across a 340 km stretch of five major rivers in several southern districts, aimed at protecting mother fish, ensuring safe spawning and boosting production. According to the report, the head of government at the time had been urging people to avoid ilish on Pohela Boishakh to protect the fish in its breeding season. From the angle of sustainable gastronomy, it is an example of how even a festive tradition meets questions of season and of the limits of a natural resource.

The feature warned that the growing taste for fast food and heavily processed food was bringing health risks and threatening traditional food culture. Banglapedia documents the same shift: working people crowd roadside eateries for quick, cheap meals; restaurants serving Chinese, Thai and Indian food have multiplied in the cities; and fast food restaurants have been opening in a big way, mainly for the younger generation, with sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs and cold drinks among the favourites.

The WHO's fact sheet on healthy diets, updated on 26 January 2026, says that changes in food production and food systems, rapid urbanisation and changing lifestyles have shifted dietary patterns: people eat more highly processed foods high in unhealthy fats, free sugars and sodium, and not enough fruit, vegetables and fibre. Unhealthy diets are a major risk factor for disease and disability, while healthy diets protect against malnutrition in all its forms and against noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.

The WHO recommends that everyone older than 10 eat at least 400 grams of fruit and vegetables a day; that free sugars stay below 10 percent of daily energy, equivalent to about 50 grams or 12 level teaspoons for a person of healthy weight eating about 2,000 calories a day; that total fat make up 15 to 30 percent of energy, with no more than 10 percent from saturated fat and no more than 1 percent from trans fat; and that adults keep salt below 5 grams a day.

How far Bangladesh was from those benchmarks shows in the national noncommunicable disease risk factor (STEPS) survey of 2018. Its results, published in BMJ Open in November 2020, found that 92.1 percent of urban adults and 88.9 percent of rural adults did not eat enough fruit or vegetables. Mean salt intake was 9.0 grams a day in rural areas and 8.9 grams in urban areas, close to twice the WHO limit. City dwellers were more likely to be insufficiently active, obese, hypertensive or diabetic.

Bangladesh's own dietary guidelines point the same way. According to the FAO, the country first published guidelines in 2000, and in 2013 they were revised by BIRDEM (the Bangladesh Institute of Research and Rehabilitation in Diabetes, Endocrine and Metabolic Disorders) with support from the FAO and others. The key messages include eating varied, well-balanced meals; using oils and fats in moderation; limiting salt and condiments and using only iodised salt; cutting sugar and sweetened drinks; drinking plenty of water; eating safe, clean food; and cooking in healthy ways. The guidelines' food pyramid has cereals at the base, then vegetables and fruit, then fish, meat and pulses, then dairy, with fats and oils at the top to be eaten sparingly. Anyone planning a change of diet, especially with a health condition, should first consult a doctor or a qualified nutritionist.

Building sustainable food habits does not mean waiting for some big initiative, the Jagonews24 feature said; change can start with small habits, and those small steps can bring large change over time. It reminded readers that food cannot be treated simply as something to consume, because farmers, nature, culture and the security of future generations are bound up with it, and that what today's children will eat and how safe tomorrow's world will be depend largely on today's food system.

At the launch of UNEP's 2024 report, Harriet Lamb, chief executive of the UK-based organisation WRAP, said that the huge cost of food waste to the environment, society and global economies called for greater coordinated action. The report cited Japan, which had cut food waste by 31 percent, and the United Kingdom, which cut it by 18 percent between 2007 and 2018, as evidence that steady measurement and coordinated effort can bring waste down. UNEP added that urban areas were expected to benefit particularly from efforts to strengthen food waste reduction.

The feature presented Sustainable Gastronomy Day not just as an international observance but as a call to build responsible eating habits, and as a day to imagine a world where food is healthy, environmentally friendly and safe for everyone. The real beauty of good food, it concluded, lies in its being good for both people and nature.

Photo: Moheen Reeyad / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, UN General Assembly (resolution 71/246), FAO, UNEP (Food Waste Index Report 2024), The Business Standard, IPCC, United Nations India (SOFI 2025), FiBL, Banglapedia, Dhaka Tribune, BMJ Open, WHO