In what context was the TI-FIG project initiated?

Caroline Méjean : TI-FIG continues on from the ANR NuTWInd project, which I coordinated between 2017 and 2022. The latter sought to characterize the food and nutritional transition observed in recent decades in Martinique and Guadeloupe. The study we conducted showed that over the span of 20 years, urbanisation and the expansion of large grocery retailers in the French West Indies led to increasing imports of animal proteins, sugars, and saturated fatty acids. The results also revealed that so-called traditional food – of higher nutritional quality than other types of food coexisting with it – is consumed by older populations but abandoned by the young, whose diet is high in fast food and sugary products. This traditional diet is primarily based on seafood, local tubers (sweet potato, yam, manioc), fruit, vegetables, and leguminous plants, which are essential to more sustainable agricultural systems. Expansive nutrition-related inequality was also identified, affecting single female-headed households in particular.

Bearing this in mind, the objective of TI-FIG, which was launched in June 2025, is to strengthen food and nutritional security for disadvantaged populations in Guadeloupe, by promoting traditional diets and foods within food aid and school cafeterias, and by taking into account all actors in the food system.

These results can be interpreted from an integrated health perspective. Traditionally, the One Health concept refers to interactions between human health, animal health, and the environment, primarily approached from a toxicological or pathological standpoint. With this in mind, the notion of an exposome  calls for a systemic approach to the cumulative exposure individuals are subject to throughout their lives. This includes the food environment – understood as the health and nutritional quality of foods – as well as the conditions governing their economic and material accessibility, which can have a lasting influence on dietary behaviour and state of health.

What issues is the TI-FIG project designed to address?

C. M. : This project will establish recommendations for school meal offerings and food aid, food provision, the transformation of food products by cafeteria staff, and support for production by local actors. While participatory research was in a way imposed on us in NuTWInd, for TI-FIG it was formalised in the form of workshops and other participatory methods. The project seeks to promote this type of traditional diet, which is declining today, thanks to workshops promoting traditional foods, for instance taste related awareness-raising  among children. In these areas affected by the chlordecone crisis and high cost of living, defiance toward public authorities and research should be taken into account. I believe that scientists serve as a bridge between public authorities and regional actors and citizens.

Does chlordecone exposure complicate the promotion of so-called traditional foods in the French West Indies?

C. M. : In the traditional food diet (yams, sweet potatoes), chlordecone exposure is low, thanks in part to the effectiveness of the public policies implemented (soil analysis, product inspection, water treatment, consumption recommendation campaigns, etc.). These helped reduce the contamination of local vegetables, which are less important vectors than some seafood products, for example.

Food prices are on average higher compared to France — 40% in Martinique and 33% in Guadeloupe — despite income being 15% less on average. In the French West Indies, the creole vegetable garden and roadside sales are widespread, and represent informal circuits for reducing household budgetary constraints for food. However, some products come from contaminated soil. A PhD thesis on public nutrition used modelling to identify prospects for adopting a balanced food diet, doing so without increasing the food budget and while reducing chlordecone exposure. The various measures under consideration are based either on changes to dietary behaviour or changes to supply chains, at constant prices for households.

You coordinate a second project within the SAMS programme, CARI. How did this project emerge?

C. M. : The NuTWind ANR project was a springboard for my career. During the project, I was asked to lead the collective scientific expert review entitled “Food and Nutrition in French Overseas Departments and Regions,” commissioned by the Ministry of Health. The goal was to establish an overview of the available scientific knowledge on food and nutrition in French overseas territories, and to formulate recommendations for adapting the National Nutritional Health Programme (PNNS) to their particularities. NuTWind’s results drove this research, which revealed a major data gap with respect to food-related issues in these areas. With this in mind, I collaborated with numerous experts, including Laurence Tibère, a food sociologist on Reunion Island. Together we began reflecting on creating a food observatory in Reunion. The CARI project began in 2023, and was conceived as a “methodological prototype” on the ground in Reunion, one that would help determine the scientific and organizational feasibility of such observatories overseas.

CARI covers all food systems, and measures different aspects of sustainability, including: dietary behaviour, the share of imports and local production consumed, the creation of price databases, and the environmental impact indicators of food. Via a multidisciplinary approach combining epidemiology, economics, geography, sociology, and nutrition, it seeks to test, develop, and validate methodological tools that are suited to Reunion’s insular context, marked by pronounced social and cultural diversity.

The project also includes a component on the physical food environment. The objective is to examine how an area’s commercial configuration can influence food practices. For example, does living in a neighbourhood where fast food is especially present, such as in Saint-Denis on Reunion, guide food choices and have consequences on health? These considerations relate to both public health policy and urban planning, and are once again wholly in keeping with a One Health approach. The urban exposome is  not limited to air pollution, as it plays a role in dietary behaviour, and more broadly in producing unequal access to healthy and sustainable food.

What impact has your research had on public policy?

C. M. : For instance, the NuTWind project’s results contributed to assessments of the Loi Lurel, which governs the quality of food offerings in French overseas territories, especially in terms of sugar content. The team also took part in discussions surrounding the law’s amendment as part of a Steering Committee established by the French Ministry of the Overseas. As mentioned above, NuTWind’s results made substantial contributions to the collective expert review on overseas territories, which led to recommendations for implementing a PNNS specific to these regions.

During NuTWind’s capstone seminar, two measures were defended before public actors: including nutritional criteria within the price-quality shield (BQP), which is based on a list of products at negotiated prices, with a view to combatting cost-of-living challenges in overseas territories; and the octroi de mer (dock dues tax), a specific tax on imported goods in overseas territories, which would have different rates depending on whether the products are more or less favourable to health, for example based on their Nutri-Scores. Including this criterion within the BQP could be part of the next PNNS, which will be established soon. However, reforming the octroi de mer, which was designed to benefit production and local government, remains more sensitive. 

This research has both local and national impact. The lack of scientific data on food in these territories, which are among the country’s poorest, lent our research great visibility among public authorities, who actively engaged with it.

¹ All of the environmental disamenities and amenities (including pollution and noise, weather-related factors, characteristics of the built environment, green areas, etc.) to which a person is potentially exposed in their external environment throughout their lifetime.