To Cut Global Warming, Swedes Study Their
Plates
NewYorkTimes
Published:
October 22, 2009
Coming to an American city near you if
Obama signs on to the Stockhold Environmental Treaty and the Cap and Trade are
passed in Congress.
“Right
now, I don’t know what this means,” said Ms. Bergstrom, a pharmaceutical
company employee.
But
if a new experiment here succeeds, she and millions of other Swedes will soon
find out. New labels listing the carbon dioxide
emissions associated with the production of foods, from whole wheat pasta to
fast food burgers, are appearing on some grocery items and restaurant menus
around the country.
People
who live to eat might dismiss this as silly. But changing one’s diet can be as
effective in reducing emissions of climate-changing gases as changing the car
one drives or doing away with the clothes dryer, scientific experts say.
“We’re
the first to do it, and it’s a new way of thinking for us,” said Ulf Bohman,
head of the Nutrition Department at the Swedish National Food Administration,
which was given the task last year of creating new food guidelines giving equal weight to
climate and health. “We’re used to thinking about safety and nutrition as one
thing and environmental as another.”
Some
of the proposed new dietary guidelines, released over the summer, may seem
startling to the uninitiated. They recommend that Swedes favor carrots over
cucumbers and tomatoes, for example. (Unlike carrots, the latter two must be
grown in heated greenhouses here, consuming energy.)
They
are not counseled to eat more fish, despite the health benefits, because
And
somewhat less surprisingly, they are advised to substitute beans or chicken for
red meat, in view of the heavy greenhouse gas emissions associated with raising
cattle.
“For
consumers, it’s hard,” Mr. Bohman acknowledged. “You are getting environmental
advice that you have to coordinate with, ‘How can I eat healthier?’ ”
Many
Swedish diners say it is just too much to ask. “I wish I could say that the information
has made me change what I eat, but it hasn’t,” said Richard Lalander, 27, who
was eating a Max hamburger (1.7 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions) in the
shadow of a menu board revealing that a chicken sandwich (0.4 kilograms) would
have been better for the planet.
Yet
if the new food guidelines were religiously heeded, some experts say, Sweden could cut its
emissions from food production by 20 to 50 percent. An estimated 25 percent of
the emissions produced by people in industrialized nations can be traced to the
food they eat, according to recent research here. And foods vary enormously in
the emissions released in their production.
While
today’s American or European shoppers may be well versed in checking for
nutrients, calories or fat content, they often have little idea of whether
eating tomatoes, chicken or rice is good or bad for the climate.
Complicating
matters, the emissions impact of, say, a carrot, can
vary by a factor of 10, depending how and where it is grown.
Earlier
studies of food emissions focused on the high environmental costs of
transporting food and raising cattle. But more nuanced research shows that the
emissions depend on many factors, including the type
of soil used to grow the food and whether a dairy farmer uses local rapeseed or
imported soy for cattle feed.
Business
groups, farming cooperatives and organic labeling programs as well as the
government have gamely come up with coordinated ways to identify food choices.
Max,
Consumers
who pay attention may learn that emissions generated by growing the nation’s
most popular grain, rice, are two to three times those of little-used barley,
for example.
Some
producers argue that the new programs are overly complex and threaten profits.
The dietary recommendations, which are being circulated for comment not just in
Sweden but across the European Union, have
been attacked by the Continent’s meat industry, Norwegian salmon farmers and
Malaysian palm oil growers, to name a few.
“This
is trial and error; we’re still trying to see what works,” Mr. Bohman said.
Next
year, KRAV,
Those
standards have stirred some protests. “There are farmers who are happy and
farmers who say they are being ruined,” said Johan Cejie, manager of climate
issues for KRAV.