Article | Climate Change and Our Eating Behavior | Dr (Ms) Sharad Singh | Central Chronicle
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Climate Change and Our Eating Behavior
- Dr (Ms) Sharad Singh
Writer, Author & Social Activist
Blogger - "Climate Diary Of Dr (Ms) Sharad Singh"
Sometimes such things also have such a deep impact on each other that we cannot even think about them. When someone says that our food habits have a profound effect on the climate, we find it strange to hear it. Humans have been associated with food since the dawn of their existence. Food keeps him alive. But the same food is now having a negative impact on the climate in the form of a carbon footprint. Let us see how our food habits affect the climate and how we can bring changes in our food habits.
Climate scientists say change, including moderating our diets, is exactly what's needed to bring down greenhouse gas emissions from food. That means eating less red meat and more plant-based foods. Producing plant-based foods generally results in fewer greenhouse gas emissions and requires less energy, land, and water. Opting for seasonal fruits produce rather than buying, say, non-seasonal fruits can also make a difference. Meat, cheese and eggs have the highest carbon footprint. Fruit, vegetables, beans and nuts have much lower carbon footprints. If we move towards a mainly vegetarian diet, we can have a large impact on our personal carbon footprint.
The largest chunk of food-related greenhouse gases comes from agriculture and land use. For instance - methane from cattle’s digestive process, nitrous oxide from fertilizers used for crop production, carbon dioxide from cutting down forests for the expansion of farmland, other agricultural emissions from manure management, rice cultivation, burning of crop residues, and the use of fuel on farms. With this, a share of the greenhouse gas emissions are caused by refrigeration and transport of food, industrial processes such as the production of paper and aluminum for packaging, the management of food waste too. Then there are several other stages in a food system directly or indirectly responsible for carbon emissions. For instance, felling forests to make way for farms and pastures removes a major carbon sink and thus indirectly contributes to emission load in the atmosphere. Running farm machinery on fossil fuels and manufacturing of agrochemicals and fertilisers too emit greenhouse gases.
The climate impact of food is measured in terms of greenhouse gas emissions intensity. The emissions intensity is expressed in kilograms of “carbon dioxide equivalents” – which includes not only CO2 but all greenhouse gases – per kilogram of food, per gram of protein or per calorie. Animal-based foods, especially red meat, dairy, and farmed shrimp, are generally associated with the highest greenhouse gas emissions. This is because meat production often requires extensive grasslands, which is often created by cutting down trees, releasing carbon dioxide stored in forests. Cows and sheep emit methane as they digest grass and plants.The cattle’s waste on pastures and chemical fertilizers used on crops for cattle feed emit nitrous oxide, another powerful greenhouse gas. Shrimp farms often occupy coastal lands formerly covered in mangrove forests which absorb huge amounts of carbon. The large carbon footprint of shrimp or prawns is mainly due to the stored carbon that is released into the atmosphere when mangroves are cut down to create shrimp farms.
Plant-based foods – such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, peas, nuts, and lentils – generally use less energy, land, and water, and have lower greenhouse gas intensities than animal-based foods.
76% of the world's population gets most of its daily nutrients from plants—yet climate change is already causing droughts and flooding that can destroy staple food crops. If extra CO2 in the atmosphere makes those crops less nutritious, it will be even harder to feed the world's growing population. Increased water scarcity due to climate change reduces the capacity to produce food and its quality, which has serious implications for food security, nutrition and health. In Ethiopia alone 9.7 million people are currently in need of emergency food aid. The more climate changes and the more that extreme climate events become commonplace, the more food we lose on an annual basis. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, roughly one-third of the food produced by farmers is lost between the field and the market in low- and middle-income countries.
So, how can food-related emissions are reduced? Indeed, reducing emissions from the food sector requires changes at all stages, from producers to consumers. By including more and more vegetarian foods in our diet, we can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Consuming higher amounts of low-emitting substances—beans, chickpeas, lentils, nuts, and grains—as opposed to high-emitting substances—meat and dairy products such as butter, milk, cheese, meat, coconut oil, and palm oil. We can significantly reduce our environmental impact by making small changes in our eating habits. This change will be beneficial for both health and climate from every point of view. In the last decade, the trend towards being vegetarian has increased in developed western countries like America and Britain. There is no religious reason behind this but the desire to reduce the carbon footprint. That is why even those people who have been eating meat for generations are becoming vegan. Such efforts make a lot of sense towards reducing the carbon footprint in the climate. Therefore, we should also pay attention to the behavior of our food so that we too leave at least a carbon footprint.
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(27.11.2022)
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