South America: Food Systems and Metabolic Health

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South America • Argentina • Bolivia • Brazil • Chile • Colombia • Ecuador • French Guiana • Guyana • Paraguay • Peru • Suriname • Uruguay • Venezuela

South America at a glance

South America contains twelve sovereign countries and an extraordinary range of food systems: Amazonian forests, the Andes, the Caribbean coast, the Guianas, the Chaco, Pampas, Atlantic fisheries and major cities. The continent’s metabolic-health transition cannot be reduced to one diet or ancestry. Undernutrition and micronutrient deficiency persist while obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, fatty liver disease and cardiovascular disease rise.

A continent of overlapping food geographies

The Andes form an important cross-border theme running through Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. They are not the primary classification for entire countries. Amazonian and coastal food systems overlap several of the same national borders, while Brazil, the Southern Cone and the Guianas add distinct agricultural and cultural histories.

Explore the Amazon food-systems theme

The Amazon food-systems page connects Indigenous, Quilombola, Maroon, riverine and urban communities across nine countries and territories. It explains cassava processing, fisheries, agroforestry, mining contamination, land rights and the transition toward imported ultra-processed foods.

Shared nutritional strengths

Beans, maize, cassava, potatoes, quinoa, plantain, rice, fruit, vegetables, fish and diverse regional preparations remain valuable foundations. Brazil’s rice-and-beans pattern, Andean tubers and grains, Southern Cone horticulture and the cassava traditions of the Guianas demonstrate that culturally familiar foods can support modern prevention.

The processing transition

The major change is often not disappearance of traditional food but the addition of sugary drinks, packaged snacks, refined baked goods, instant foods and fast food. South America also generated one of the world’s most influential responses: Carlos Monteiro and colleagues in Brazil developed NOVA, which classifies foods by the nature, extent and purpose of processing.

Regional priorities

• Make safe water the default beverage.
• Protect children from aggressive marketing of ultra-processed products.
• Support farmers, fishers, markets and public procurement of minimally processed foods.
• Address anemia, food insecurity and excess weight together.
• Publish country and subnational data with clear definitions and dates.

Authoritative starting points

• PAHO: Health in the Americas
• FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean
• WHO: noncommunicable diseases

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South America • Argentina • Bolivia • Brazil • Chile • Colombia • Ecuador • French Guiana • Guyana • Paraguay • Peru • Suriname • Uruguay • Venezuela