What are food miles?
Food miles are the distance your food travels, from where it’s produced to your plate. Every mile travelled increases the greenhouse gases emitted.
However, it’s not as simple as it first appears.
Is it better to eat locally-reared meat, or fruit and vegetables that have travelled a long way?
The short answer, according to a study by researchers at the University of Oxford, is:
It’s better for the environment if you eat plant-based food, no matter how far it’s travelled.
The study, by Poore and Nemecek of the University of Oxford[1], acknowledges that there is a lot of variability between producers, and therefore scope for many meat producers to improve, which should be encouraged. But as a general rule to live by, it’s better for the environment if you eat plant-based food, no matter how far it’s travelled. (What they actually said was “The impact of even the lowest-impact animal products is typically worse than the impact of vegetable substitutes.“
That’s because the emissions from producing food far outweigh the emissions caused by transporting it. (A different study [2] showed that just 5% of American households’ food-related emissions were generated at the transport stage.)
So your priority should be:
- first cut out beef, other meats and dairy transported from far away, e.g. beef from cattle reared in the Amazon, replacing them with plant-based protein or smaller quantities of animal protein produced in your own country
- then cut out beef, other meat and dairy that have been produced closer to home, replacing them with plant-based protein
- finally, choose seasonal fruit and vegetables, or at least ones grown in warmer areas of your own continent. (This avoids wasting the energy used to heat industrial greenhouses in winter, or high-altitude air freight.)
So what is plant-based protein?
Protein is a basic building block of life, so all plants contain some protein – but some plants contain more, or more complete, protein than others.
Some of the best sources of plant-based protein are quinoa, seitan (vital wheat gluten), soy-based foods like TVP (textured vegetable protein), peas, beans (including baked beans from a can!), lentils, chickpeas (and anything made from them, like hummus or falafels), tofu, oats, rice, nuts and seeds.
[1] Poore, J. and Nemecek, T. (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 360(6392), pp.987-992.
After researching five environmental indicators, 38,700 farms, and 1600 processors, packaging types, and retailers, the researchers found that “Most strikingly, impacts of the lowest-impact animal products typically exceed those of vegetable substitutes, providing new evidence for the importance of dietary change.”
[2] Weber, C and Scott Matthew, H (2008) Food-Miles And The Relative Climate Impacts Of Food Choices In The United States. [online] Available at: <https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es702969f> [Accessed 25 January 2021].
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