what would a climate diet look like in australia
Millions of people around the world are hitting the streets this year in support of students who are demanding an end to fossil fuels. But we can also strike with our forks: global food production contributes around a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.
Australia was recently flagged as one of the countries with the greatest potential to reduce diet-related greenhouse gas emissions.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared that it is crucial for all sectors to rally against global heating, and targets to slow it down simply can’t be achieved without addressing food production and land management.
Environmental degradation also goes hand-in-hand with the global pandemic of chronic diseases including obesity, diabetes, cancer and heart disease. This double whammy includes other factors associated with industrial monocrops, such as pesticides and fertiliser.
So tweaking dietary habits is a win-win for people and the planet. But just what would a climate-friendly diet look like?
Meat would feature less
Meat and dairy are two primary contenders, according to the IPCC – cattle production is a major source of methane emissions and deforestation. This is particularly relevant for Australians who relish their steaks and sausages – they are the world’s second biggest meat eaters.
Given that more than one in 10 people – and rising – is vegetarian some of us are eating an awful lot of animal flesh. In fact, Australian meat consumption has grown from 93kg to nearly 95kg per person each year – that’s equivalent to everyone eating a very large steak every day.
“The mass production of meat is the single biggest cause of land clearing around the world, if not directly for the animals themselves then indirectly for the monocultures such as corn or soy that feed them,” says economist Dr Gillian Hewitson from the University of Sydney.
Sustainability expert Dr Michalis Hadjikakou, from Deakin University, Melbourne, agrees that reducing meat is a good start, but acknowledges radical shifts to vegan or vegetarian diets are difficult for many. For those who struggle, he suggests cutting back on beef and lamb, meats with the biggest environmental footprint.
Vegetarians might need to rethink too
New research is making it harder to gloss over dairy’s impact, suggesting that swapping out bacon for haloumi is not much gentler on the planet.
The study models country-specific dietary changes that could alleviate our climate, water and health crises.
Plants would feature more
In any event, switching to more plant foods is considered paramount for planetary and human health – especially as most Australians don’t eat enough of them.
A wider variety of plants would be eaten
Possibly some of the most sustainable – and nutritious – foods could be growing wild in our backyards or footpaths: edible weeds. Most cities even have guided foraging tours to help residents find them. Gardening expert Kate Wall, for instance, runs regular weed workshops in Brisbane that explore which weeds are edible and what can be done with them. “We have a forage and together we create a three-course meal with drinks, all based on weeds,” she says.
We’d eat less overall
Quality is more important than quantity, says Dr Mario Herrero Acosta, chief research scientist at CSIRO, and IPCC contributor.
Junk food would be binned
Cutting back on junk foods and drinks – highly processed products teeming with sugar, salt and unhealthy fats – would make a big difference, says nutritionist Dr Rosemary Stanton. Tackling these “discretionary” items that are unnecessary for a healthy diet is not only critical for human but also planetary health. Hadjikakou calculated that producing junk food contributes to more than a third of Australia’s food-related environmental impact, in terms of their water and land use, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
And home cooking would make a comeback
Australia has become a “takeaway nation”. While we love watching celebrity chefs cook, increasingly Australians shun our own stoves in favour ordering in or going out. In just 10 years, the money Australians spent on eating out doubled to a whopping $3.5 billion.
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