Diet, health and chronic disease

There are several definitions of food security, but all agree that an impotent outcome is the provision of ‘healthy’ life [1]. To maintain human health, it is important that people not only have enough safe food, but when food is available that they are able to make the correct food choices in order to meet nutritional requirements and assuring these options are available for future generations. Considering all aspects of malnutrition; under-, poor and over-nutrition, the majority if the world’s population are currently facing substantial risks to health [2]. This is likely to be exacerbated in the face of future challenges to our food supply system through population growth and associated reductions in land mass and fresh water availability to support food production, as well as declining energy supplies, ecosystem preservation and climate change [3, 4]. It is essential that research, policy and practice align globally to tackle these issues. The research challenges are inherently inter-sectorial and each discipline must adjust to new ways of working together. Chemistry has underpinned our understanding of the link between food and human health and will play major role in defining the requirements for future nutritional resilience.