A look at the food and nutrition agenda over thirty years of the Unified Health System.

Food and nutrition are basic requirements for the promotion and protection of health. Nutrition monitoring and dietary recommendations are included in the mission of the Unified Health System (SUS, in its Portuguese acronym), as established by the Organic Health Law no. 8,080 of 1990. This article presents and discusses the food and nutrition agenda of the SUS and its interface with Food and Nutrition Security, its benchmarks, progress and challenges. This essay was guided by biographical and documentary research and, above all, by the experiences and perceptions of the authors, who, at various times and in various contexts, have been and continue to be actors of Brazil's food and nutrition agenda. We emphasise the idea of the SUS, with its accomplishments and shortcomings, as a living system derived from the technical, ethical and political commitments of its administrators, workers, academics and society as a whole. Thus, we seek to contribute to the debate about the Brazilian path to the construction of a public social welfare system committed to health and adequate nutrition as a human rights.