An assessment of individual foodprints attributed to diets and food waste in the United States

Abstract

This paper assesses the environmental impacts of the average American's diet and food loss and waste (FLW) habits through an analysis of energy, water, land, and fertilizer requirements (inputs) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (outputs). We synthesized existing datasets to determine the ramifications of the typical American adult's food habits, as well as the environmental impact associated with shifting diets to meet the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) dietary guideline recommendations. In 2010, FLW accounted for 35% of energy use, 34% of blue water use, 34% of GHG emissions, 31% of land use, and 35% of fertilizer use related to an individual's food-related resource consumption, i.e. their foodprint. A shift in consumption towards a healthier diet, combined with meeting the USDA and Environmental Protection Agency's 2030 food loss and waste reduction goal could increase per capita food related energy use 12%, decrease blue water consumption 4%, decrease green water use 23%, decrease GHG emissions from food production 11%, decrease GHG emissions from landfills 20%, decrease land use 32%, and increase fertilizer use 12%.

Life Cycle Assessment of Dietary Patterns in the United States: A Full Food Supply Chain Perspective

“…Thus, despite the anticipated benefits of the recommended diet, GHGEs associated with the food system are not reduced by a shift to align with RFP 2000 dietary guidelines, and there is an increase of 9.17% compared to CFP. A similar conclusion, with a lower fractional increase than this study, is shown by Birney et al (2017) and Tom et al (2016) with three different dietary scenarios [11,19]. In an iso-calorific shift from the current US diets to USDA dietary recommendation, Heller and Keoleian (2015) reported a 12% increase in diet-related GHGEs [14].…”

“…A number of LCA studies and review articles related to food supply chains have been reported worldwide [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. There are some deficiencies in detailed environmental impact assessment across the entire food system and these are variously evaluated with different methodological approaches.…”

“…However, for foods that have small environmental impacts during production, ignoring activities after farm gate may have a sizeable effect [24]. Although several studies concluded that adopting the dietary guidelines would diminish the overall environmental impacts [18,25,26], there is not unanimous agreement [11,14,19]. There exist research gaps and dissimilarities of current food consumption patterns (CFP) and recommended food consumption patterns (RFP) among different countries.…”

Urban food–energy–water systems: past, current, and future research trajectories

“…The final paper in the collection by Birney et al (2017) quantifies the environmental footprint, which they call the 'foodprint,' of the average American diet, including associated food loss and waste. This foodprint is measured in terms of GHG emissions and energy, water, and fertilizer use.…”

“…Curbing edible food loss and waste and reducing packaging may be more effective leverage points for improving resource efficiency in the food system than previously understood. Birney et al (2017) highlight the need to address food loss during production and transport, since avoiding these losses can have simultaneous benefits across all three systems (food, energy, and water). Reducing food packaging is also shown to have a comparable benefit to certain environmental concerns for some crops (e.g.…”