BERGEN (Dagbladet): Researchers at the University of Bergen have examined dinner recipes online and in cookbooks from Norway, the UK and the US.

The findings, based on Aslaug Angelsen’s master thesis, have resulted in a scientific article published in Nature Food.

She explains that the reason we dive into recipes is because they influence what we eat. So he and Professor Christoph Trattner, head of MediaFutures, looked at a random selection of the 600 recipes we presented.

– We see that dietary advice is reflected in the recipes. For example, Norway has the greatest recommendations for seafood consumption, and we see that recipes from Norway contain more seafood, he says.

In short, it is recommended that we eat more fish, vegetables and coarse grain products and less red meat.

Few plant foods

At the same time, there are not only positive findings.

– Dietary surveys reveal that we eat too few grains and fish, and too much red meat. We saw fewer recipes than we wanted containing lots of grains and fish.

Angelsen points out that the findings in the study follow dietary trends. But he stresses that it’s not a must that people follow recipes to the letter.

The researchers also found that the recipes from England contained the most vegetarian options, although there were a small number here as well.

– All diet suggestions recommend a plant-based diet. There is little in the recipe. This is very sad. There are very few vegetarian food recipes and even fewer vegan recipes. The three countries mostly have a meat diet, he said.

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VG wrote earlier this week that the Oslo city council would remove meat from diets in kindergartens, activity schools (AKS) and recreation clubs for environmental reasons. Angelsen also sees sustainability in her food recipes.

– As expected, plant foods have the least impact on the environment. The fish are in the middle of the tree, and the red meat bears the brunt.

Dinner recipe only

They found that recipes from the United States, which used more red meat, had a greater environmental impact than recipes from Norway and the United Kingdom.

To assess how sustainable a recipe was, they looked at greenhouse gas emissions and how much land was used to produce the food.

In scientific articles, it appears that only 1 percent of recipes meet all dietary recommendations. Angelsen explained that this is a common indicator used, but it didn’t work well in this survey.

– The diet recommendations apply to all foods, while we’ve looked at the dinner recipes. Therefore, it will not give a completely correct picture.

They concluded that 70 percent of the recipes could be categorized as healthy.

– It’s important to see the whole

To judge whether a recipe is healthy, they are measured against dietary guidelines in various countries, and they also look at the stated ingredients.

Angelsen explained that they had used the French Nutriscore, which is the Keyhole equivalent of the mark, to score the recipes.

– The Nutriscore has been criticized for not discriminating between proteins. That says nothing about where the protein comes from, says Angelsen and explains that it’s therefore not certain that 70 percent of a recipe is healthy.

– However, it is important to look at the whole diet in terms of how healthy or sustainable it is. For example, in line with current dietary advice to eat meat occasionally, he said.