Balanced Animal Nutrition for Better Feeds, Healthy Animals, Safe Food, and a Healthy Planet: A One Health Perspective—An Invited Review

Abstract

Livestock production is increasingly expected to deliver not only higher output, but also better animal health and welfare, safer and more nutritious food, viable livelihoods, and lower environmental pressure. This invited review examines balanced animal nutrition within a One Health framework, linking feed resources with animal health, food quality and safety, community well-being, and environmental sustainability. Evidence from studies on improved forages, agro-industrial by-products, alternative feed resources, precision nutrition, feed safety, preventive healthcare, antimicrobial stewardship, manure management, and climate-resilient production was considered across the feed–animal–food–community–environment pathway. Nutritionally balanced and safe feeding strategies can support animal health and productivity, improve nutrient utilisation and modify selected quality characteristics of animal-derived foods. Their effects on disease occurrence, antimicrobial use, food safety and environmental outcomes depend on livestock species, physiological stage, dietary composition and production-system characteristics, as well as appropriate veterinary care and food-chain management. The review identifies differences among livestock species and production systems, as well as nutritional, economic and environmental trade-offs that influence the suitability of feeding strategies. Although evidence supports several individual relationships between animal nutrition, animal health, food quality and resource use, the complete sequence of downstream One Health outcomes has rarely been assessed within the same experimental or analytical framework. Integrated evaluation of these outcomes is therefore necessary to determine the wider benefits and limitations of nutritional interventions across livestock production systems.