A Food System Paradigm Shift: From Cheap Food at Any Cost to Food within a One Health Framework.

Every dollar spent on food in the United States produces two dollars of negative impact on public health and the environment. Today’s food system feeds people but harms the environment and the health of humans, animals, and plants globally (The Rockefeller Foundation, 2021). The authors of this commentary explore how food systems have arrived at this unsustainable state and what can be done to address this crisis. Driven by a narrow focus on economic efficiency, modern food systems have evolved to deliver cheap food at any cost. These food systems are typically guided by Ministries of Agriculture that often work in a narrow and siloed manner, function independently of Ministries of Health and Environment, are reactive to emergencies, and fail to respond proactively to the mining of natural resources and poor food-related public health outcomes (Scott and Gong, 2021). The authors of this commentary present a case for an urgent change of mindset toward systems thinking and proactive policies to curb these negative externalities (i.e., unintended negative impacts not adequately accounting for economic costs). This mindset change centers One Health, an approach that addresses the health of people, animals, plants and the environment through intersectoral and transdisciplinary methods, at the core of global food system policies (Rushton et al., 2018). If you are 50 or older and grew up in a rural town or provincial village in a wealthy country, there is a good chance that your family was involved in agriculture. You might have gone to school with children from farms who perhaps smelled of livestock or had to take time from school to help with crop planting or harvest. You might have been aware of food shortages, the importance of water availability, the seasonality of many fruits and vegetables, and how some meats were highly prized and saved for special occasions. You might understand how food would go bad, turning rancid or becoming moldy. You may have participated in preserving your own family’s homegrown or other locally grown produce. Agriculture might have surrounded you in your younger days. You might have known farm-