This video can also be downloaded in MP4 format from here.
Eating the Earth - Food Diet and Sustainability
How should we eat to ensure a sustainable future?
Part of the 2009 UTSpeaks lecture series.
Introduced by Professor Stuart White of Institute of Sustainable Futures (UTS).
The Institute of Sustainable Futures was created to undertake contract research, to create change towards sustainable futures, working across disciplines and with a solutions orientation.
The talks was given on the 18th February 2009 at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
Speakers:
Rosemary Stanton
Dana Cornell
Dr Rosemary Stanton is a nutritionist and author of numerous books on the topic of healthy eating. She is also a member of the NSW Health Department's Food Advisory Committee.
Dana Cordell is a senior researcher and doctoral student at the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) at the University of Technology, Sydney. She is also co-founder of the Global Phosphorus Research Initiative.
Impact and inputs of diet and food choices.
How closely it lies with the study of systems: where things come from and where things go to.
What a major impact diet has on carbon footprint and global ecological sustainability.
It takes approximately 5 kg of cereals to produce 1 kg of meat.
Managed grazing lands now occupy 25% of the global land surface area.
34% of cropland is used to feed livestock.
Nearly 20% of Australians are obese. Nearly 50% overweight.
This costs Australia in health terms about 21 billion per year in terms of dealing with 'overnurishment'.
Meat consumption has doubled in the last 15 years in China and it's up 70% in Brazil.
Dana talks about the serious impacts of phosphorus use.
'Embodied oil'.
Terms of trade.
'Embodied cruelty' and factory farming.
50% of our food is lost between the farm and the fork regardless of where it occurs in the food chain. Systemic inefficiency or actual inefficiency.
Global food crisis (the other GFC).
Probably the sustainability issue most amenable to personal choice and behaviour.
Fair trade sales up up.
Think globally, act locally notion.
The balanced diet: 'food literary' triangle made up of nutrition and health, environmental sustainability, and taste (how to cook it)
Issues to address
- overconsumption = wastage and 'waistage'
- ethics of using resources - animal foods, modified foods, 'functional' foods - for the overfed while others starve
Environmental issues
- greenhouse gases
- water / irrigation
- soil fertility
- fertiliser use
- reduced biodiversity
- high production of animal foods
- processing, packaging, storage and transport
- ethanol production (cars competing with humans for energy)
Each of these issues are addressed with its issues, and actions required to address
Greenhouse gases and food
- agriculture produces 16% of green house gases
- 70% agricultural green house gases from livestock
- methane particularly problematic - odourless, cattle and sheep burps
- feed improvements -> minor decrease in methane
Actions
- avoid waste
- favour plant foods
- fewer animal foods and avoid lot-fed beef (40-80% of beef)
- choose minimally processed foods
- choose minimally packaged foods
- cut exports: beef, lamb and dairy
water and food production - water is our most vital issue
- production of animal foods uses more water than required for most plant foods
litres of water for 1 kg food
- potatoes 500 l / kg
- wheat 900 l / kg
- maize 1400 l / kg
- rice 1910 l / kg
- soy 2000 l / kg
- chickens 3500 l / kg
- beef, broad acre 50,000 l / kg (CSIRO figure)
- beef (lot-fed) 100,000 l / kg (USA figure)
action
- favour plant foods
- fewer animal foods
- restrict production of animal foods to areas with enough natural rainfall, less chance of erosion and appropriate native grasses or pasture; may mean changing the animals we are prepared to eat
soils and food production
- Aust. soils very low in phosphorus
- over-reliance on chemical fertilisers
- little research into organic production
- town planning
action
- need increased recovery of phosphorus
- change to diet with more plant foods
- favour smaller animals (less phosphorus use than animals fed grain or enhanced pasture)
- favour locally-grown organic produce
modern food production emphasises
- animal foods
- processed foods
- packaged foods
- foods for export
- imports
animal production
- 40% of world grain fed to animals
- 20-50 kg of feed produces 1 kg meat
- issues include - land clearning, farm imputs and transport, waste (450kg steer -> 20 kg wet waste / day)
action
- government action
- reduce animal numbers and lot feeding
- reduce meat exports
- reclaim phosphorus from animal manure
- personal action
- reduced consumption of meat - Rosemary Stanton is not convinced we should have no meat (simply because you can't win the hearts and minds of Australians to have no meat; you can design a nutritious diet around no meat)
- favour chicken, pigs, meat from animals that graze and kangaroo
- keep chooks at home if appropriate (eat scraps, produce eggs, when they get old you can eat them if you're able to kill them)
processed foods - need to consider the energy inputs
- production
- processing
- packaging and disposal of
- distribution
kilojoules to process 1 kg of food
- flour 2100 kJ/kg
- canned fruit/veges 2500 kJ/kg
- bottled water 3000 kJ/kg
- ice cream 3800 kJ/kg
- soft drink 5900 kJ/kg
- low-kJ soft drink 25000 kJ/kg (ironic)
- chocolate 77700 kJ/kg (sorry)
- instant coffee 79000 kJ/kg
This is just a snippet from Rosemary Stanton's lecture. The full slides and audio available from this link.
