The impact of food. Penultimates webisodes-Bonus

Food is central to our lives. We need it to survive and it plays a big part in how we engage with other people and society, how we celebrate and how we live our lives. However, we are usually not aware of its impacts. We have the capacity to provide humankind with a healthy, varied diet, and still, almost 700 million people suffer from hunger and 3 billion can’t afford to be well-nourished.

Today we are featuring Luisa. It's her birthday, we want to know what she's going to eat today and what impact this food can have on the baby she's expecting.

The Mufete

The Mufete of kacusso is an Angolan traditional food made of fresh grilled river’s fish and a mild spiced onion sauce accompanied with stewed palm oil beans; boiled sweet potato; boiled plantain and boiled cassava.

Adopting a plant-based diet

All foods have an impact, but some have more impact than others, especially when you consider factors like deforestation, biodiversity loss and climate change. Meat and dairy consumption are the main cause of deforestation in the world. Clearing land to raise cattle is not only pushing the Amazon rainforest to a tipping point but also killing wildlife and increasing the risk of future pandemics. More than half of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from food are due to only this one industry. Overfishing is also responsible for huge biodiversity loss.

The exact contribution to your footprint of such factors is different from food item to food item. Generally, while choosing organic, local and sustainably packaged options can contribute to a more sustainable diet, they’ll never amount to the same impacts that moving towards a plant-based diet has. The infographic below shows this: the "root" of your impact is the type of food (choosing plant-based vs meat) and the packaging it is in are the "leaves" (a cucumber with or without plastic for example).

Sustainable food swaps

Did you know that you make about 200 food choices every day? Without it, you are weighing your options all day long. Therefore, the further the day progresses, the bigger the chance that you make less responsible choices. While these facts are mostly related to the food choices you make for your health, a lot of times the choices are made for other reasons: such as environmental (climate change) and social aspects (food justice).