In order to create sustainable food systems, producers, eaters, businesses, governments, and the funding and donor communities must understand how to quantify and understand the real costs of food. Advocates of the economic model known as True Cost Accounting (TCA) recognize that if we do not assess and account for everything that goes into producing and consuming food as well as the impact it has on people and the environment, we risk continuing on a path of damage to the planet and public health.