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food and net zero

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food and net zero

Postby scullion » Thu Oct 21, 2021 12:42 pm

this is part of the 'nudge' committee report (starting on page 42) deleted by the government that i linked to in the wild chatter thread -

4.1 Diet changes
Our food systems are responsible for 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions,
100 with
livestock (and particularly ruminant products) being a disproportionate driver of emissions,
land-use change, freshwater use,101 and a major source of other pollutants.102 Shifting dietary
habits towards more environmental options (e.g. plant-based, local) and enabling sustainable
agriculture is fundamental to achieving Net Zero.

it goes on to suggest the 'upstream' and 'downstream' measures of behaviour change necessary.

we are vegetarian. we eat very few eggs but i would find some dairy difficult to give up but maybe i should make the effort to transfer to oat milk.

i realise that the majority of posters here eat meat but i've wondered for some time how many days per week are non meat eating days for people and how far would you go down the behavioural change route?

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Re: food and net zero

Postby dennispc » Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:00 pm

First scullion, thank you for posting the link to the report, the second sentence of which makes it clear that it's not the views or the government nor its policy. Can't understand why they banned it unless they wanted to give it greater publicity?

I drink very little milk, water on morning muesli, just some in coffee. OH has been through all the milks and has settled on oat milk, happy with that. It also makes nice custard. :D

A rough check of my food intake recently meant of the 21 meals in a week, rare to snack, about a third is vegan, another third vegetarian and the final third almost equal between meat/fish. We've been doing that for a few years now, partly the environment partly for health reasons.

Not sure that helps.

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Re: food and net zero

Postby liketocook » Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:46 pm

Interesting scully, I eat less meat/fish these days than I used to, not necessarily less often but much smaller portions of higher quality. I also use meat based stocks in many otherwise plant based dishes such as soups. Over the past ten years quantity wise I probably eat 30-40% less meat than I used to and make sure none is wasted. Breakfasts are nearly always veggie usually marmite on toast, lunches are where I eat the most eggs/dairy but they usually have no or minimal meat content. Main meals are a mix though most do contain some amount of meat or fish with one or two plant-based though I may add parmesan or a knob of butter so not truly veggie/vegan. I don't drink milk but do have it my tea and have tried alternatives but wasn't keen I'd rather have it without. Lots of potential room for improvement.

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Re: food and net zero

Postby Earthmaiden » Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:49 pm

I would miss eggs, cheese and fish very much but of course, in a quest to rear fewer animals it would have to be so. I don't eat meat every day and do try to eat local or British reared as kindly as possible (the difference in price between organic and mass reared chicken is horrifying, I don't think anyone has the right to demand badly reared cheap meat). I do buy reduced to clear meat and fish in the hope that if supermarkets make less profit they'll think twice about buying the items again. It seems awful that the animal might not be utilised having been reared and slaughtered. I have all but given up various things in my everyday diet and find it's more a question of just getting used to a new regime and only miss certain things sometimes for fleeting moment and people could do it if encouraged more. A generational shift has already begun.

Unlike war time rationing etc, one assumes that food would still be relatively plentiful and affordable to most, were a gradual change to be made. That makes it considerably less miserable than otherwise. It is important too that there is plenty of education regarding a balanced diet (which doesn't seem to be happening in the current mass produced plant food market).

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Re: food and net zero

Postby liketocook » Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:54 pm

I think one thing that could be done would be levelling the price of meat & non-meat family favourites which lots of low income families rely on such as chicken nuggets. I'm not suggesting these are the best choices but they are popular. In Tesco a 1kg 72 piece bag of chicken nuggets costs £3.15 with a recommended portion size of five nuggets. Quorn nuggets are £2.59 for 476g which is approximately 6 portions. Now it levels out a bit if people buy branded chicken ones but if you are feeding your family on a very low budget that's probably not what you would choose where as if the plant based alternative was a comparable price to the value nuggets people might be more inclined to make the switch.

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Re: food and net zero

Postby Suffs » Sat Oct 23, 2021 8:30 am

Thought this would be a good place to mention a new low-impact food enterprise https://www.eadt.co.uk/things-to-do/foo ... ry-8430860

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Re: food and net zero

Postby Earthmaiden » Sat Oct 23, 2021 11:32 am

Nice one, Suffs. If that sort of thing went on in all rural areas with grass fed cattle it would certainly help I think. To me, the big problem is feeding the masses. Sit on any train trundling through city suburbs or drive round new housing estates on the edge of town and the enormity of the number of dwellings/people there are to feed who have little or no means of living sustainably on local food really hits you.

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Re: food and net zero

Postby Stokey Sue » Sat Oct 23, 2021 11:39 am

I think the whole thing is complicated personally I don’t eat meat X days a week, fish Y days and so on, I eat what I fancy and what’s around, and looking just at my own friends and acquaintances that seems to be slightly unusual - people still comment if you choose the veg option in a restaurant, I noticed this on my last couple of holidays, groups of (middle aged, middle class in the main) solo travellers who seemed to think you were missing out if you had a restaurant meal that didn’t include a slab of animal protein.

This is an attitude that needs to change, or it will only be token meat free Mondays and soy lattes forever more. And it’s quite hard to get people to look at vegetables as main dishes, ask what meat free meals these peopled eat and the answer is mac and cheese or omelette, occasionally something made with Quorn

I suppose what I eat is very much what Rachel Roddy or or Yotam Ottolenghi would put in their books, plant based but with dairy and eggs small amounts of fish or meat (a pasta dish with a little cured pig or a few anchovies for example) and occasionally a full on steak, roast of fish meal

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Re: food and net zero

Postby Suelle » Sat Oct 23, 2021 11:43 am

Well said, EM!

Small sustainable enterprises are wonderful if they are near enough to you to be able to use, but they are not competitive with supermarket, or even corner shop, prices, so not an option for many people (including some of those living within delivery range!). I know mail order is an option too, but delivery charges can add even more to the cost that way.
Traditional home baking, and more:
http://mainlybaking.blogspot.co.uk/

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Re: food and net zero

Postby scullion » Sat Oct 23, 2021 2:22 pm

the dairy may be lower carbon in their processing of the milk, although the article didn't really elaborate on that but the cows produce more methane by being grass fed rather than corn fed - unfortunately.
there is ongoing work to try to change the gut bacteria of cows to reduce the methane production but in the meantime reduction in cattle is the easiest way to reduce the methane emissions.https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/stem-in-context/cows-methane-and-climate-change.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/video-how-beef-farmers-can-reduce-their-carbon-footprint

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Re: food and net zero

Postby Earthmaiden » Mon Oct 25, 2021 10:34 pm

Did anyone watch Panorama tonight re plastic bottles and Coca Cola (picked because they at least can produce figures)? It really seems to defeat the object when we all worry about food production and so much new plastic is being made from fossil fuels. I'm sure we are all aware of it but it doesn't seem to dominate conversation as much as the production of other foods (and the packaging of things we ingest surely has to count).

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Re: food and net zero

Postby Stokey Sue » Mon Oct 25, 2021 10:51 pm

I started a climate change quiz on the BBC today
Spoiler alert: I gave up after Q3 as although their answer may be true in terms of immediate energy consumption, you need surely to take into account the lifetime carbon footprint of manufacturing, maintaining and finally scrapping one bus vs up to 40 private cars?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58996348

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Re: food and net zero

Postby dennispc » Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:02 am

I understand counting the total environmental cost of everything from start to finish is beginning to happen, can't remember where I read that computers are not looking good.

Didn’t mean to post Spector’s reference to plant rich diets in Chatterbox, so putting it here as ‘Plant Rich’ might sound more doable.

https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/eating-a ... t-covid-19

A friend suggested listening to an interview with Spector; haven’t got a link but it was broadcast on October 19th at 9am, The Life Scientific, Radio 4 available on BBC Sounds.

One of the family sent me ‘Brain Food’ by Dr Lisa Mosconi, lots of interesting stuff, but not much for me as it’s obviously aimed at the American market where she now lives. Born in Verona she went to the States to do her PhD and was shocked at the struggle she had to get the fresh food of her youth. Ordering her first pizza she asked about the cheese, it was Mozzarella but manufactured using ‘Cheese Produce’. Horrible. Includes a bunch of simple recipes. Top of her food pyramid is a daily portion of dark chocolate as well as a glass of red wine, best drunk with friends. Some of you will like that I'm sure.

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Re: food and net zero

Postby miss mouse » Mon Nov 08, 2021 10:55 am

'The Food Programme' R4 was interesting yesterday.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011bxc

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