Inspiring Climate Action Since 2009
Tribe, in our last article about sustainable food, we tried to understand the social and environmental aspects of the current food systems.
Our current food industry is contributing to climate change and overusing our natural resources that the earth can replenish. It is not adequate to reach UN Sustainable Development Goal 2- Zero Hunger with current food operations. Additionally, because of the cheaper industrially made foods, human nutrient needs are compromised even where food is accessible.
So in this article, we are going to find out what can be sustainable food solutions, that will help us solve the above problems along with other social problems like employment rate in the food industry as well as the most important issue which is going to arise after the temperature rise, ability to produce food. Also, by choosing sustainable food, we will ensure that all of us around the world can have access to this healthy diet for years to come, without compromising the earth’s capacity.
One might think, I have enough food on the plate, I don’t seem to have any health issues at the moment then why should I change my eating habits? Why we all should start these sustainable eating habits? Because we consumers can build a better food system by increasing the consumer demand for sustainable food and decreasing demand for food that is not good for our farmer’s health or farmer’s health and the health of our planet. That way, the existing local and global food industry will shift to sustainable practices of food production and operations.
Food is also one of the main causes of so many lifestyle diseases, and we all who feel that we have enough food are at risk. Not just for a higher social and environmental cause but also for our personal health and our family’s health we need to unlearn our eating habits and learn about sustainable, healthy, and clean eating.
Definitely, there is no solution that fits all, based on the geography and access to natural resources; climate-smart food might vary across the world. But can we at least find an optimum solution? Yes, and this article is exploring all the aspects of the food industry to find that optimum solution for conscious consumers like us.
Before we see, how to find our own healthy, sustainable food, let’s look at two major research in the field of the next food revolutions.
It is estimated that the world population will rise to nearly 10 billion people by 2050. So the issues in food production, distribution, and consumption are going to get worse, if we don’t bring sustainable changes. EAT-Lancet Commission proposed a diet considering two important aspects of human health and environmental sustainability, called the Planetary Health Diet.
Prof. Walter Willett from Harvard Medical School & prof. Johan Rockström of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact together with 37 world-leading scientists published a scientific review report and proposed a Planetary diet, which can feed a future population of 10 billion people a healthy diet within planetary boundaries.
According to the 2019 EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets, a global shift towards plant-based foods such as legumes, fruits, nuts, grains, and vegetables has been noted in the last few decades. The proposed planetary diet is largely plant-based but can optionally include modest amounts of fish, meat, and dairy foods. Here is the snapshot of the planetary health plate.
However, the people with intolerance to certain foods like nuts, dairy, etc., and other exceptions will not be able to take advantage of planetary meals as effectively as others. But planetary diet is a recommendation for the larger population on the Earth considering environmental impacts, human nutrient needs as well as easy availability and accessibility of foods.
Informed and inspired by the world’s longest-lived cultures, called blue zones; Dan Buettner, Blue Zones founder, and demographers, as well as researchers, found out healthy eating and lifestyle practices called power 9. Okinawa in Japan; Sardinia in Italy; Nicoya in Costa Rica; Ikaria in Greece, and Loma Linda in California are 5 places in the world which are longevity hotspots or blue zones; where people are thriving into their 100s.
One of these power 9 eating practices is the 80% rule, where you eat till 80% full leave 20% gap. Or another diet practice in the Blue Zones meals is eating mainly plant-based food and depending on beans, including fava, black, soy, and lentils for protein and consuming very small portions of meat only a few times in a month. You can also use their Blue-zone meal planner which helps you in finding blue zone meals recipes and keeping track of your food consumption.
Blue Zones Power (
Though these two are the most prominent research in finding food that is good for us and for the planet, there are so many chefs, nutritionists, and food and lifestyle influencers around the world who are on a mission to find what is good to eat? To name a few Jamie Oliver’s food revolutions initiative or Rujuta Diwekar, India’s leading nutrition and exercise science expert. There are also some interesting initiatives like Menus of Change, started by The Culinary Institute of America and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Honestly, there is so much going on the internet about food and fitness, then how do we really find what is great for us? Also, there are so many parameters in finding the right food, should we look at environmental impacts, social impacts, health benefits, our pocket, economy & employment, etc, etc. So finding the right balance between all these parameters is important. That is exactly the ‘sustainable food’ the moment you start giving more importance to one of these factors, you start going away from ‘sustainable food’.
Here is a Sustainability Tribe’s quick guide to choosing your ‘Sustainable Food’, developing food ethics, and change your eating habits for better health and a better planet.
Where ever you are based on the planet, try and figure out what is locally grown, native vegetables, fruits, beans, and grains, etc, and include them in your regular meals. Try local traditional recipes to understand the proper use of these local ingredients and enhance their health benefits.
Find out local farmer’s markets or pick your own farms to try farm to fork foods. Find locally-made artisanal ingredients produced in small-scale or in small batches for authentic local food.
Grow your own food in your yard, garden, or in container garden in a terrace or balcony. Here are some tips to create an edible container garden. You can also grow vegetables and greens from scraps.
For UAE, some of the local food ingredients are camel milk, seafood from sustainable fisheries, and homegrown vegetables, fruits, and artisan products.
The local food has a very low carbon footprint as long-distance transportation or storage is not required plus producing naturally found native ingredients or indigenous food is resource-efficient too.
Now finding only locally grown food is not enough, it needs to be sustainably produced. Certified Organic is a popular term when it comes to sustainably produced food, but there are many other sustainable farming certifications like Rainforest alliance or sustainable agriculture you can find more about such certifications on Foodtank.
But what goes into sustainable food production? Some of the sustainable farming practices are protecting and restoring natural systems through effective management practices, such as choosing crops well-suited for their local growing conditions, minimizing the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and avoiding the use of groundwater for irrigation. Soil preservation and increasing nutrients and then preserving biodiversity in agro-ecosystems. Water efficiency is another important aspect and for fish & seafood, sustainable fisheries should be followed as per local regulations.
For the UAE, water-efficient hydroponics and aquaponics are great sustainable farming options. The geothermal powered greenhouse farms in Iceland is another great example of sustainable agriculture.
If you are a meat lover, the first thing you should do is reduce the consumption of red meat if you can’t stop it entirely. Start having a meat-free day weekly and start exploring plant-based protein sources and their recipes. Then slowly you can increase your meat-free days. If you really need to eat any meat red or white, make sure to find how it is produced, where it is coming from. Prefer a locally sourced, organically fed option. Also, make sure you are using as many parts in cooking as possible. So for meat-eaters, it’s ideal to follow nose to tail eating, where you are almost not throwing any animal parts in the garbage. Because it’s important to remember that organic waste creates Green House Gases (GHG) and directly contributes to climate change.
The recent amazon fire once again triggered the question of red meat. However, many forests around the world are burned down to produce foods like red meat in Amazon, palm oil in Indonesia or Africa, etc. Thus the forest land is now used for food production creating a land-use change. Natural forests act as carbon sinks, but after this land-use change, the forest land turns into a carbon pool, which also can release the carbon into the atmosphere. Thus the changes in land use adversely impact the greenhouse effect and climate change.
Stopping the land-use change is essential as it doesn’t just impact land-use change it also adds to greenhouse gases when a forest is cleared by fire. Now for the red meat industry, they also depend on fossil fuel for the whole cycle of production, processing, storing, and transportation. Additionally, when the organic waste from the red meat industry is thrown into the landfill, it creates some more GHGs like methane, etc. This way red meat adds to greenhouse gases threefold. We can not really separate red meat from fossil fuels, fossil fuels are bad guys in any case. However, red meat or even palm oil has this other negative impact through land-use change.
(Note: Palm oil is used not only in food products but also in personal care products along with other applications.)
Plant-based food has the least adverse impacts on the earth’s natural resources and climate change. So, increase the intake of beans, pulses, nuts, fruits, vegetables, and reduce red and white meat.
If you are not vegan or vegetarian then I will highly recommend you start reducing meat consumption if you can not entirely stop it. Start having a meat-free day weekly and start exploring plant-based protein sources and their recipes. Then slowly you can increase your meat-free days.
However, here is a piece of important advice for all vegans out there. It’s great that you are vegan, however, if you are using a lot of industrially manufactured vegan products made far from the place of your residence, you not really helping the environment and your health might affect too. Let me explain why is that? For example, you are based in the UAE and you use a packaged almond milk produced somewhere in Europe. Then your almond milk has a high carbon footprint also because it’s industrially produced there are surely some artificial nasties in your milk. So if you prefer veganism, make sure you buy locally produced vegan food, ideally from artisan products that are not made industrially and made in small batches and will have a shorter shelf life (expires sooner since production date).
Also, veganism works efficiently for the environment and your health if you are based in a country where there are enough natural resources to produce plenty of plant-based food. Plant-based local food doesn’t mean just a few vegetables but also fruits, nuts, legumes, and grains, etc. For example in the UAE, we have very limited locally produced plant-based food available therefore it’s important to understand sustainable food thoroughly.
Eating as much plant-based food that is produced locally is the best way of choosing sustainable ingredients. However, pause and give a thought to seasonally produced food. Anytime when you are buying fruits and vegetables off-season either they traveling from very far to reach you or they are produced locally with high water and energy consumption in a controlled atmosphere. Therefore better to consume seasonally grown food ingredients.
My personal favorite Artisan Preserve by Native Tongue back home
If you want to eat something off-season go back to roots and eat some preserved food which is preserved in a traditional way like sundried or pickled etc.
Cook your own meals at home that way you do not just reduce plastic waste of takeaway containers but also you can control the ingredient quality and quantity in your homemade meals. However, it’s important to consume minimally processed food to get the benefits of nutrients, so chose your recipes wisely. Stay away from packaged, industrially processed food as most of the nutrients are lost in the food processing and replaced by artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives. If you have no other option but to buy ready meals instead of cooking at home, then at least prefer the least processed, freshly made & healthy food.
It’s very important to read labels when you buying edible things not just for the expiry date but for all the ingredients. Try to pick items in your shopping cart where you can find traceable ingredients. As there are many unhealthy and even harmful ingredients in many food items that are industrially produced and are one of the causes of lifestyle diseases. For example, there are a total of 56 or more names used for sugar on food products. A lot of times when you read words like healthy, low fat, organic, vegan, etc. that can be just greenwashing and doesn’t necessarily mean the food product is free of artificial and harmful ingredients. So even after reading labels, it becomes difficult to decide if the food product is good for our health and climate-smart?
So the simple solution is to prefer locally produced, fresh, seasonal, artisan food and depending on what natural resources are available in the land you are based in. So when people like us expatriates, move from one place to another they need to adapt to new food ingredients instead of insisting on the same food from back home.
Healthy eating is not just about picking the right foods, portion control is the key when it comes to sustainable eating for your health. Healthy eating is not just about picking the right foods. Be mindful that portion size needs to proportional to your body’s nutrient requirements. Therefore, it important to emphasize calorie quality over quantity.
To control the portion size, you can use smaller plates. It is also important to cook just enough food or order the right amount of food, otherwise, the chances of overeating are much higher.
Our world is facing a paradox of the existence of food waste and food security at the same time. When a big part of our world population is facing hunger issues the remaining population is wasting food. We definitely should take responsibility here and need to reduce food waste for both social and environmental reasons.
This one of the very important aspects of sustainable eating, where we are making sure to waste food as less possible and try to reach zero food waste on a daily basis. You can read our article about reducing food waste by some good practices of shopping and storing food and cooking and ordering just enough.
Now even if you minimizing food wastage and trying to use as many parts of your raw ingredients in cooking, there are always some food scraps that go in the garbage. This organic waste ends up in landfill and create Greenhouse gases like methane. So it’s important to divert the food waste from landfill and compost it. Composting is not as hard as you think, here are some ways of composting & using food waste as fertilizers. An additional benefit is your organic fertilizers help you to grow your own organic food!
So remember to compost, make soil instead of greenhouse gases.
Last but not the least, it also important to pay attention to food packaging waste when we are talking about sustainable eating habits. It’s always better to dine in if you are eating out. Otherwise, carry your own reusables to avoid any single-use plastic waste related to food packaging and eating. Also when shopping for groceries try to shop with zero waste to avoid unnecessary food packaging. I mean who wants banana in plastic packaging when it has its own natural packaging?
You can find a complete guide to shopping zero waste in the UAE here. Also when we discussed at length sustainable and healthy food, it’s important to make your kitchen non-toxic (read here how?) to make it a healthy place to prepare food!
Consumer demand
To summarize clean eating tips, I will say, we need to decrease consumer demand for industrially produced food by increasing the demand for sustainable food. The three main aspects of sustainable eating are
Now that you are equipped with all the information needed to choose sustainable food, start making the right decision from today!
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Note: Sustainability Tribe organizes educational sustainable events for corporates and also to raise public awareness. One of the most popular past events was about Sustainable food with Sustainability Tribe. If you want to organize such events, please contact us and find more about how can you work with me.
Amruta Kshemkalyani, an expert sustainability professional turned social entrepreneur, is the founder of the Sustainability Tribe, AK Sustainability
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