White people's eating habits produce most greenhouse gases

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://today.uic.edu/white-peoples-eating-habits-produce-most-greenhouse-gases

White people’s eating habits produce most greenhouse gases

March 27, 2019

White individuals disproportionately affect the environment through their eating habits by eating more foods that require more water and release more greenhouse gases through their production compared to foods black and Latinx individuals eat, according to a new report published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology.

The report takes an in-depth look at what different demographic populations eat, how much greenhouse gas those foods are responsible for, and how much land and water they require. The study was undertaken to get a better understanding of the environmental impacts of the food consumption patterns of major demographic groups so that environmental policies designed to reduce negative impacts of food production could be drafted that take these differences into account.

“The food pipeline – which includes its production, distribution and waste – contributes significantly to climate change through the production of greenhouse gases and requires significant amounts of water and land, which also has environmental effects,” said Joe Bozeman, a student in the University of Illinois at Chicago Institute for Environmental Science and Policy and first author on the paper. “If we are to draft policies related to food, they can’t be one-size-fits-all policies because different populations have different eating patterns which have their own unique impacts on the environment.”

Bozeman and his colleagues analyzed data from The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s What We Eat in America – Food Commodity Intake Database – which provides per capita food consumption estimates for more than 500 types of food (such as apples, poultry, bread) as well as water – and from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which provides estimates of individual dietary intake. Estimates of the environmental impact of these foods were obtained from various databases and from the scientific literature. Foods considered ‘environmentally intense,’ include those that require more water, land and energy and produce more greenhouse gases than other foods. Apples, potatoes, beef and milk are among the most environmentally intense foods.

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https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12859

[msongs]

1. oddly enough the black ppl I know eat pretty much the same stuff I do. nt

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. A beloved maxim I learned years ago...

“Statistically speaking, ‘the people I know,’ is a poor sample.”

[customerserviceguy]

3. They sure do down here

More greens, probably, but they like fried chicken, ribs, barbecue, and shrimp and grits.

It seems counterproductive to inject racial politics into discussions of food sustainability.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Food consumption and demographic information

https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12859

…

2.3 Food consumption and demographic information

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) What We Eat in America–Food Commodity Intake Database (FCID) provided per capita food consumption estimates for over 500 food commodities derived from over 7,000 different foods – including beverages and water (EPA FCID, 2018). The EPA FCID was used to estimate food commodity consumption by taking data from the CSFII and the dietary intake portion of the NHANES. These food commodities can be expressed in grams of food consumed per day (i.e., x𝚗 of Equation 1) and categorized by various demographics. We gathered U.S. consumption data and per capita food consumption estimates for non‐Hispanic Black, Latinx (i.e., Mexican American and other Hispanic demographic categories as termed in the EPA FCID database), and non‐Hispanic White demographic groups. We have chosen to use the terms “Black” and “White” to represent their respective demographic groups since it aligns with EPA FCID (2018) terminology. We use the intersectional, gender nonbinary term “Latinx” to align with modern social terminology (García, 2018).

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[customerserviceguy]

5. It seems to me

that it would be more useful to focus on the country of residence of the food consumer than anything relating to race. I'd bet that African-Americans eat quite differently from Africans living on that continent.

Injecting race into this will lead to greater dismissal of this report than anything else, and especially by the people that the report is trying to target. And, while I expect vegans to want to guilt trip me over my beef and milk, they seem extreme about doing the same with my apples and potatoes.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. You should contact the corresponding author about your concerns

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jiec.12859