Promoting healthy diets and lifestyles to reduce the global burden of noncommunicable diseases requires a multisectoral approach involving the various relevant sectors in societies. The agriculture and food sector figures prominently in this enterprise and must be given due importance in any consideration of the promotion of healthy diets for individuals and population groups.
South Americans typically eat three meals and one or two snacks daily. Milk is usually not consumed as a beverage but used in fruit-based drinks and coffee, and milk-based desserts are popular. Fruits, vegetables, and nuts are eaten in abundance. Cassava flour and meal are common in many areas.
Food consumption patterns have suffered important although not generalized changes in recent years. A series of factors favor these changes, such as variations in family income, rural-urban migration, increase of tertiary activities related to foods, and exposure to commercial propaganda. All of these factors, when compared among them, do not have the same impact or validity. Thus, while the first two induce changes in the food pattern, the last two guide the consumer to certain food products. Modernization of the food pattern in Latin America and the Caribbean has been inspired by the USA food pattern of the previous decade, which from the nutritional and economic points of view, does not prove to be desirable.
The Latin American region is an important net exporter of food and agricultural commodities, accounting for 16% of total global food and agriculture exports and 4% of total food and agriculture imports
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