Status: 09.08.2022 15:23
Meat and cheese generally have a worse climate balance than fruits and vegetables. But what about other foods? An Oxford team has already examined 57,000 supermarket products for their environmental impact.
If you want to do something good for the environment when you buy groceries, you should avoid meat, fish and cheese and prefer to eat more fruits, vegetables and bread. That’s according to a British study that evaluated the environmental impact of more than 57,000 products sold in supermarkets, including many processed foods.
As the authors also report in the “Proceedings” of the US National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), many nutritional products have a low environmental impact.
A fourth feels misinformed
Climate and environment issues are important or very important to 84% of Germans when it comes to nutrition. This is reported in the current nutrition report of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. At the same time, 27% feel that people are less or not at all knowledgeable about relevant connections.
To better estimate the environmental impacts of grocery products, a team led by researchers at the University of Oxford developed an algorithm that estimated the overall impacts of more than 57,000 foods and drinks sold in retail stores in the UK and Ireland.
Environment scale from zero to 100
The authors quantified, for example, the effects of food on greenhouse gas emissions, land use and water consumption. From this, they determined a single composite environmental impact score per 100 grams of each product, ranging from zero (no impact) to 100 (highest impact).
“For the first time, we have a transparent, comparable method for assessing the environmental footprint of multi-ingredient processed foods,” said co-author Peter Scarborough. “These types of foods make up the majority of our grocery shopping, but until now there hasn’t been a way to directly compare their impact on the environment.”
Jerky products with the highest environmental impact
Products made from jerky, such as jerky or jerky, scored the highest in the study – these jerky products can also be found as snacks in more and more supermarkets in Germany. Typically, products made from meat, fish, and cheese tended to have a higher value, while many desserts and baked goods were in the mid-range and products made from fruits, vegetables, sugar, and flour, such as soups, salads, bread, and many more. breakfast cereals were on the lower end of the scale.
The study also compared the environmental impacts of meats and meat alternatives, including plant-based sausages or hamburgers. Many of the alternative products had only a fifth to less than a tenth of the environmental impact of their meat-based counterparts.
“Nutritional standards put food security at risk”
“Overall, the UK results are consistent with what we found for current food patterns in Germany,” said Rolf Sommer, head of agriculture and land use at WWF Germany, in an independent assessment. “We are dependent on ecosystem services of an intact nature in many ways,” continues Sommer. “Our dietary patterns therefore put our own food security at risk.”
The agriculture expert sums it up: “More fruits, vegetables, legumes and nuts and less animal products, this is a good formula for the environment and your own health”.
Sustainable food is also often more nutritious
This recommendation is also in line with the global “Planetary Health Diet” guidelines, which were presented by the “Eat-Lancet” commission in 2019 and contain goals for a balanced and ecological diet. She also refers to another finding from the current study: The researchers observed that more sustainable foods tend to be more nutritious.
The analysis also showed large differences within a product category. Depending on the ingredients and composition, different pesto sauces can have significantly different environmental impacts and nutritional values. Similar comparisons were made for crackers, lasagna and sausages.
Reducing the environmental impact of product choice
For the authors of the study, this means that even consumers for whom a major dietary change is not possible or attractive enough can contribute to reducing their environmental impact and to their own health by choosing certain foods and labeling them appropriately.
Overall, the researchers hope that the developed method will be a first step in enabling consumers, retailers and policymakers to make informed decisions about the environmental impact of food and beverages.