Weighing Food Choices for Climate Friendliness

The existing threat of global warming and climate change has certainly not been escaped by our collective human consciousness. Day by day, we are witnessing quite peculiar things - the rising of temperature on the planet Earth, the melting of sea caps, and the radical shifts in the climate. One could say that it is all happening because of the ongoing industrial activities around the globe. In one sense that is true, but it is only one of the factors that is contributing to the larger problem. We also need to look at the fact that it is one of our tendencies to blame those in power or the so-called visible authority for anything that is a problem. But could this also be looked at from an individual’s standpoint? How is an individual responsible for the climate crisis we are facing in the present? Most people - who agree with the fact that they are responsible for the climate crisis at an individual level - would say that it is their habitual driving of cars, poor recycling habits, or tendencies to take unwanted flights that are contributing to the problem. However, I claim that there is something that is much more fundamental, referring to one of our habitual tendencies that is actually contributing to the climate crisis to a large extent. It is the way we eat. We have been eaters for ages, going back to the beginning of our species as human beings. From then on, our eating has ensured survival needs. Though, today it has already started associating real problems with it. According to IPCC, more than a third of Greenhouse Gas emissions - the contributing agents for the warming of the planet - come from the production, distribution and consumption of food. From a more specific lens, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization highlights the fact that greenhouse gas emissions from livestock production exceed those from all forms of transport—cars, trucks, planes, and ships—combined. To reiterate, the recent FAO 2021 Report also states that industrial animal farming causes 14.5% Greenhouse Gas emissions.

Now, when our food habits are constantly being posed with questions due to their detrimental effects on the climate and the environment, one of the questions that arise is the dilemma of understanding what kind of eaters should we aspire to become? Or rather what changes do we bring in our eating habits so that it is neither causing any detriment to the planet nor neglecting our pleasure of eating. 

Researchers from the University of Chicago - namely, Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin - have concluded via calculations that by simply switching from a conventional US diet (characterized by high intakes of red meat, processed meat, and conventionally-raised animal products) to a vegan diet, it would be possible to reduce emissions that are equivalent to 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide per person. Considering the fact that the consumption of meat and animal-based products is increasing the threat of GHG emissions, the adoption of a vegan diet or a plant-based diet - instead of an animal-based diet - comparatively promises to make us more eco-friendly eaters. Peter Singer - who is a professor of bioethics, a moral philosopher, and a turned vegetarian himself - substantially argues in favor of veganism and vegetarianism, reasoning in accordance with many studies that reveal the various health benefits of a vegan diet. He also argues that in developed countries in particular, where there is a wide variety of food choices, there is no need for the consumption of animal-based food. However, one of the counter-arguments that arises to this proposition is the nutritional crisis. According to an article published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, people who adopt vegan diets experience a deficiency of vitamins B-12 and D, calcium, and long-chain n-3 (omega-3) fatty acids that force them to rely on regular intake of supplements and their calculated food choices. So, that does not sound like a sustainable option. 

Another popular proposition is that we could adopt meat alternatives and meat substitutes. A novel concept in the field of food technology is called in-vitro meat or cultured meat, which is lab-grown meat via cellular agriculture. In-vitro meat is considered one of the possible alternatives to the meat produced by animal farming. Production of such meat does not lead to the emissions of methane and it also claims to slash the world’s production of nitrous oxide, another powerful contributor to climate change, by two-thirds. That said, it sounds like a good idea to become the kind of eater acceptable to artificially produced meat, which is claimed to be climate resistant and is not compromised on the taste and pleasure of eating. However, in Lynch et al.'s study, it is concluded that global warming will be less with in vitro or cultured meat than with cattle initially, but not in the long term. It is because in vitro meat also leads to emissions, which is mainly CO2. The problem is that CO2 is a long-lived gas that is accumulated in the atmosphere resulting in prolonged warming of the planet, compared to CH4 emitted from animal farming which only shows short-lived effects on the climate. In that case, becoming eaters that completely rely on cultured meat does not appear to be environmentally friendly either.

After weighing down the pros and cons of the various solutions recommending a so-called climate-friendly diet, it is clear that each of the solutions has its own limitations with regard to fulfilling the purpose of eating in the first place and reducing the harm caused to the planet on account of our eating habits. That said, there seems to be no absolute food maxim to determine the kind of eaters we should become in our attempts to curb the detrimental effects on the climate. Moreover, there is another constraint to just evaluating our eating habits - even though it is based on the collective greater good for the planet. That is the multiple layered attachments that are associated with the way we eat. These attachments are cultural, geographical, traditional, political, institutional, economic, and social that put constraints in front of all of us to bring the slightest shift in the kind of eaters we are present. Therefore, it is my vague preposition to say that becoming a conscious eater is the answer. It means being conscious of one's own eating habits and their associative consequences to the planet's health, and meantime, being conscious about various constraints that prevent them from transcending our identity of the kind of eaters we presently are. 

Works Cited

1. Paul, Dr Kalpita et. al. "Talk on the Ethics of Food and Climate Change", Krea University, 30 Sept. 2021. Accessed: 23 Nov. 2021

2. Singer, Peter. "A Case for Veganism", "In-vitro meat", Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter, 19 September 2016.

3.  Winston J Craig, Health effects of vegan diets, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 89, Issue 5, May 2009, Pages 1627S–1633S, https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.2009.26736N. Accessed: 8 Dec. 2021

4. Chriki, Sghaier and Jean-François Hocquette. "The Myth of Cultured Meat: A Review", Frontiers, 07 Feb. 2020, https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2020.00007. Accessed: 24 Nov. 2021