Halving food-related greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved by redistributing meat consumption: Progressive optimization results of the NutriNet-Santé cohort

Kesse‐Guyot, Emmanuelle; Fouillet, Hélène; Baudry, Julia; Dussiot, Alison; Langevin, Brigitte; Allès, Benjamin; Rebouillat, Pauline; Brunin, Joséphine; Touvier, Mathilde; Herçberg, Serge; Lairon, Denis; Mariotti, François; Pelletier, Philippe

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147901

Cited by 20 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Diet optimization studies have also confirmed that reducing the share of animal products in favor of plant-based foods minimizes GHGe (11). For instance, in the NutriNet-Santé study also conducted in France, we have already shown that it is possible to reduce GHGe by 50% from the nutritionally adequate diets by reducing and rearranging the consumptions of animal products while ensuring nutritional adequacy (28). Smaller changes in protein intake in favor of plant protein targeting an increase in nutrient adequacy also decrease GHGe (29).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trade-offs between water use and greenhouse gas emissions related to food systems: an optimization study in French adults

Kesse‐Guyot

Pelletier

Brunin

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Water use (WU) and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) are two main issues facing food systems. Still, they have rarely been studied together even though they are potentially conflicting because their levers for improvement are not necessarily the same. Data on food-related environmental pressures suggest that GHGe and WU can be improved jointly, but their potential conflicts and trade-offs have not been explored. This is what we studied here by a compromise programming approach, using multi-criteria non-linear optimization under a set of nutritional and epidemiological constraints. We used food consumption data of adults aged 18-64 years (n=1,456) from the French representative study INCA 3 (2014-2015) coupled with food environmental impact data from the Agribalyse ® database. A full range of scenarios was identified by prioritizing the two objectives differently, giving weight from 0% to 100%, by 5-% steps, to GHGe improvement over WU improvement. Overall, we showed that it is possible to achieve significant joint reductions in WU and GHGe relative to their observed values: across the prioritization scenarios, WU reduction ranged from -36% to -14% as its prioritization decreased, while GHGe reduction varied less, from -44 to -52% as its prioritization increased. These joint important reductions in GHGe and WU required the removal of meat consumption (beef, pork, poultry and processed meat), while the consumptions of offal and dairy products remained moderate in order to meet nutrient reference values. However, the consumption of some foods varied according to the priority given to WU over GHGe reductions (namely, vegetables, fruit juice, dairy products, eggs, refined cereal, substitutes, offal and potatoes). Fish, whole grains, and fruit remained more constant due to the epidemiological constraints used. Whatever the scenario, the modeled diets were more plant-based than the observed diet from which they differed significantly (only 23-31% of common food consumptions), and were therefore healthier (63-76% reduction in distance to theoretical minimum risk of chronic disease). To conclude, while focusing solely on WU reduction induces a joint GHGe reduction that is near-maximal, the reverse is not true, showing that there is good alignment but also some divergence between these objectives. This suggests that food systems WU should be better considered in dietary guidelines for healthy and sustainable diet.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trade-offs between water use and greenhouse gas emissions related to food systems: an optimization study in French adults

Kesse‐Guyot

Pelletier

Brunin

et al. 2023

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…This calls for a dietary shift of consumers toward more plant‐based products and meat from non‐ruminant animals, away from milk and other dairy products. Such dietary changes could reduce the food‐related GHG emissions of dairy farming (Kesse‐Guyot et al., 2021) through mechanisms like a Pigouvian meat tax or green labels for consumers (Katare et al., 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions on Dutch dairy farms. An efficiency analysis incorporating the circularity principle.

Wang,

Ang,

Oude Lansink

2023

Agricultural Economics

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Circular agriculture is vital to achieve a substantial reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Optimizing resources and land use are an essential circularity principle. The objective of this article is to assess the extent to which land optimization can simultaneously reduce GHG emissions and increase production on dairy farms. In addition, we explore the potential reduction of GHG emissions under four different pathways. The empirical application combines the network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with the by‐production approach. This study focuses on a representative sample of Dutch dairy farms over the period of 2010–2019. Our results suggest that farms can simultaneously increase production and reduce GHG emissions by both 5.1%. However, only 0.6% can be attributed to land optimization. The land optimization results show that on average 25.3% of total farm size should be allocated to cropland, which is 6.7% more than the actual land allocation. GHG emissions could be reduced by 11.79% without changing the level of inputs and outputs. This can be achieved by catching up with the mitigation practices of the best performing peers.

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“…This is supported by the fact that the estimated conversion coefficients for carbon emissions of each protein food in this study were arranged in descending order as follows: beef, processed meat products, processed fish products, shellfish, pork, fish, eggs, poultry, nuts, beans, and processed bean products. Therefore, replacing animal-based protein foods with plant-based alternatives could significantly reduce carbon emissions [ 7 22 23 24 25 26 ]. Reducing the consumption of ultra-processed foods and red meat, particularly, could be beneficial in this regard [ 27 28 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is on plates for school meals: focusing on animal- vs. plant-based protein foods

Kim,

Kim

2023

Nutr Res Pract

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BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES This study aimed to analyze the potential of school meals in South Korea as a sustainable tool to reduce carbon emissions by focusing on animal- vs. plant-based protein foods. MATERIALS/METHODS By using a stratified proportional allocation method, 536 out of the 11,082 schools nationwide were selected including 21 kindergartens, 287 elementary-, 120 middle- and 108 high schools. A total of 2,680 meals served for 5 consecutive days (June 21–25, 2021) were collected. We analyzed the average serving amounts of protein foods (animal- vs. plant-based) per meal and then, calculated the estimated average amounts of carbon emission equivalents per meal by applying the conversion coefficients. The t -test and analysis of variance were used for statistical analyses (α = 0.05). RESULTS The average serving amount of animal-based protein foods per meal was 12.5 g, which was approximately 3 times higher than that of plant-based ones (3.8 g) ( P < 0.001); the Meat-group had the highest average amount of 17.0 g, followed by Egg-group (9.6 g), Fish-group (7.6 g), and Beans-and-Nuts-group (3.8 g) ( P < 0.05). Specifically, pork (25.1 g) was ranked first, followed by poultry (19.6 g), processed meat products (18.0 g). The estimated average amount of carbon emission equivalents of animal-based protein foods per meal was 80.1 g CO 2 e, which was approximately 31 times higher than that of plant-based ones (2.6 g CO 2 e) ( P < 0.001); the Meat-group had the highest average amount of 120.3 g CO 2 e, followed by Fish-group (44.5 g CO 2 e), Egg-group (25.9 g CO 2 e), and Beans-and-Nuts-group (2.6 g CO 2 e) ( P < 0.05). Specifically, processed meat products (270.8 g CO 2 e) were ranked first, followed by pork (91.7 g CO 2 e), and processed fish products (86.6 g CO 2 e). CONCLUSIONS The results implied that school meals with plant-based alternatives could be a sustainable tool to improve carbon footprint.

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Halving food-related greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved by redistributing meat consumption: Progressive optimization results of the NutriNet-Santé cohort

Cited by 20 publications

References 57 publications

Trade-offs between water use and greenhouse gas emissions related to food systems: an optimization study in French adults

Trade-offs between water use and greenhouse gas emissions related to food systems: an optimization study in French adults

Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions on Dutch dairy farms. An efficiency analysis incorporating the circularity principle.

What is on plates for school meals: focusing on animal- vs. plant-based protein foods

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