Food is the most essential component for our survival. Food chain in general terms is a sequence of who eats whom in the biological community to obtain nutrition. Generally, the food chain starts with the primary source as sun. It further links plants and chemosynthetic bacteria that make their own food also known as primary producers or autotrophs with animals that eat these autotrophs, known as herbivores and further it links herbivore to carnivore, which are responsible in consuming the herbivores. There are numerous food chains that connect to form food webs. While food consumption is essentially connected to the environment, food production is also a highly environment driven sector.

Food production is a major driver of environmental change. India's rapid population growth and ever-changing food habits put the sustainability of food production under massive pressure. It places pressure on agriculture, water availability and health impacts too. In the recent past, many studies have suggested that adapting to a healthy diet could improve the population health and alongside reduce environmental footprint of food production. Shifting to healthy guidelines nationally required a minor increase in dietary energy (3%), with larger increases in fruit (18%) and vegetable (72%) intake, though baseline proportion of dietary energy from fat and protein was adequate and did not change significantly. Meeting healthy guidelines slightly increased environmental footprints by about 3–5% across GHG emissions, blue and green WFs, and LU.  [1]

To bring about food sustainability, studies have researched the impact of paradigm shift of food consumption in India on greenhouse gases (GHG) , blue & green water footprints (WFs) and land use(LU). 

India faces a huge challenge of high rates of undernutrition. It implies a huge pressure on the environment to produce food. A shift to healthier diets may lead to small increments in environmental footprints.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412018314417

[2] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(18)30113-X/fulltext

[3] https://india.mongabay.com/2019/01/dietary-diversity-behaviour-change-in-indians-key-to-better-health-and-environment/