How diet and labor intersect in the U.S. food system
Choosing what to eat in the United States often hinges on cost, nutrition, or personal values. A new study from Tufts University and the University of Nottingham examines a deeper layer behind our plates: the risk of forced labor embedded in the ingredients that form five dietary patterns, including government-backed healthy diets and the average American diet. The work, published in Nature Food on October 8, explores how healthy eating could, in some cases, come at the expense of exploited workers, while certain plant-based patterns may offer a path toward both better health and better labor conditions.
The scales and the stakes of forced labor
Worldwide, the International Labour Organization estimates around 28 million people are trapped in forced labor. The researchers note that forced labor spans recruitment debt, coercive contracts, withheld wages, abusive living conditions, and even violence. Jessica Decker Sparks, assistant professor at the Friedman School and corresponding author on the study, emphasizes that forced labor is a spectrum of coercive practices that can appear in many food supply chains—from farming fields to processing plants.
The five dietary patterns analyzed
The study builds on five diets to map risks across the supply chains of ingredients commonly found in the United States:
– Healthy U.S.-Style Diet
– Healthy Mediterranean-Style Diet
– Healthy Vegetarian Diet
– 2019 EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet
– Current average American diet (based on NHANES data)
More than 200 foods were evaluated on a risk scale grounded in how and where they are typically grown, harvested, or processed in the U.S. The goal is to understand how healthy-eating recommendations might shape exposure to forced labor, not to demonize any particular pattern.
Key drivers of risk in different patterns
Protein foods were the dominant source of risk across the diets, yet the contributors differed by pattern. In the livestock-intensive diets, researchers considered the cumulative risk of slaughtering, meat processing, and feed production. Fruits and nuts that require manual picking or shelling also showed higher risk, while fishing emerged as an especially high-risk sector compared with many others.
Specific findings include:
- The Healthy Mediterranean-Style diet, which includes seafood alongside plant foods and occasional dairy or red meat, showed higher overall risk, particularly due to seafood and fruits.
- The Healthy U.S.-Style diet, featuring dairy-rich items, exhibited notable risk linked to dairy and some meat products.
- The Healthy Vegetarian and Planetary Health diets tended to show lower overall risk, though nuts and seeds were prominent risk drivers in those patterns as well.
What these results mean for policy and practice
The authors stress that changing an individual plate is only part of the solution. Because dietary guidelines influence school meals, federal programs, and institutional purchasing, these findings could inform large-scale procurement policies. The aim is not only to safeguard nutrition and sustainability but to advance equity by ensuring that health-focused food programs do not inadvertently propagate exploitation.
As Nicole Tichenor Blackstone, associate professor at the Friedman School and senior author on the paper, notes, the risk profiles depend on the foods that make up each diet. The message is clear: healthy eating and worker justice can go hand in hand with thoughtful choices and robust governance.
Pathways toward safer food systems
Experts advocate a combination of worker-led solutions and binding protections in supply chains. The Fair Food Program, which includes farmworkers in designing and enforcing standards, is highlighted as a model for real change. When paired with trade policies that discourage imports produced with forced labor, it can create a level playing field where companies that respect workers aren’t undercut by exploitative practices abroad.
Ultimately, the study serves as a starting point for communities to guide dietary transitions that promote health, environmental sustainability, and justice for workers across the globe.
Closing thoughts from the researchers
“The best way to reduce forced labor in our food supply chains is to let workers lead in shaping solutions and to back those solutions with legally binding agreements that protect them from retaliation,” Sparks says. The work invites policymakers, institutions, and citizens to consider the labor implications of what we eat and to pursue systemic changes that ensure ethical food for all.
