What is the food of the future?
Food sustainability facts: what is sustainable food?
As the global population continues to grow and environmental concerns become more pressing, the concept of sustainable food has gained increasing importance. But when you ask ten people about sustainable food, you will probably get ten different answers. Producers, unclear food labels and the lack of transparent information make it difficult for most consumers to know which food is sustainable and which is not.
The United Nations describes sustainable development as: "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." When applying this to the food system, we should probably be thinking about the environmental impact of agriculture, the production processes, how we treat the farmers and how we treat our health.
With a continuously growing population we need to make food production and processing future ready. Sustainable food in the production stage considers the environmental impact of agriculture. This includes minimizing the use of synthetic chemicals, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, conserving water resources, and protecting biodiversity. The use of land and land use change are strong sources of biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions. This can largely be steered by the type of food you are producing. In the second stage, food processing, sustainability involves utilizing energy-efficient technologies, minimizing waste generation, and prioritizing the use of renewable resources1.
Fair food trade will improve your health
To me, it is more than just environmental impact. It’s about taking good care of each other, our planet and ourselves: our own body and mind. Taking care of each other in the end serves our health and well-being.
An easy example is the use of synthetic pesticides which is a great economic tool because it immediately increases production levels and turnover. At the same time, it hurts your health. For instance, it increases early puberty in adolescents and can cause cancer. And when exposed during pregnancy or early childhood, children can experience lower IQ levels or increased risks for ADHD and autism. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, we haven’t even talked about the use of antibiotics in livestock farming.
Let’s not focus on food insecurity, there’s plenty! Focus on your health.
We see a strong correlation between our welfare and a decrease in sustainability. On a world scale, a citizen from a richer country will buy more clothes, a second car or even a bigger house. And you also tend to see this in the food chain. People from the US and the EU and especially more high-impact foods, such as meat and fish. While other countries like Libanon rely much more on pulses, vegetables and carbs. I mean, who does not love a good falafel?
That means, richer countries need more land, cause more waste, have a higher impact on biodiversity and are also messing with their own health! At first sight, you could argue that the increase in land use and food production is a necessary step against hunger. And obviously, we need land to feed ourselves but we are taking this to extremes. However, worldwide we produce more than enough food to feed the world population even in today’s world with a high global population growth rate. It is how we treat the food and divide it that matters. By choosing efficient crop growth, we could already reduce our impact and create less perishable foods that we can more equally divide.
From food waste, to zero waste and leftover cooking
Not only are we consuming inefficient proteins and carbs, but we are wasting 931 million tonnes of food annually, both in the production process and in households2. That’s an easy win. We can definitely do something about that by simply freezing your food, eating leftovers or by sharing with your neighbours. You might even make some new friends!
In the next blog series, I will go into detail on specific foods and aspects of food production and processing. What food is more sustainable than others is no easy answer. But there is plenty of sustainable comfort food out there to discuss. I will use short stories and recipes to make it as easy as possible. Stay tuned!
1 https://www.unep.org/resources/report/unep-food-waste-index-report-2021
2 Kalantari, F., Tahir, O. M., Joni, R. A., & Fatemi, E. (2018). Opportunities and Challenges in Sustainability of Vertical Farming: A review. Journal of Landscape Ecology, 11(1), 35–60. https://doi.org/10.1515/jlecol-2017-0016
