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Thu, Apr-10-08, 06:58
The climate change diet
By Peter Lavelle
ABC News Australia
10 April 2008
Spiralling food prices, fuelled in part by climate change, may pressure us into changing our diet -- perhaps for the better.
When we in the West think about the costs of climate change, we think of rising electricity and fuel prices. But these aren't the main concerns for people living in developing countries.
Egypt, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Yemen, Mexico in fact over 30 developing countries face critical shortages of food due to sharply rising costs for staples like rice, wheat, soybeans and corn.
The cost of rice, for example the staple food for half the world has doubled over the past year, and increased five-fold over the past five years.
What's driving price increases is the sharp rise in the price of oil (a major input in the production and transport of food), rising demand from China, land scarcity, especially as more land is being turned over to biofuels, and increasingly erratic weather events floods, storms and droughts caused by climate change, which are pushing down crop yields.
And prices are going to keep rising rice stocks are at their lowest since the 1980s and the major rice-producing countries Cambodia, India, Pakistan, and Vietnam have restricted their exports of rice to other counties so as to feed their own populations. Commodities futures on the world's financial markets are predicting prices will continue to rise.
Many developing countries face famine and civil unrest, warns the World Bank. In just the past few weeks there have been food riots and demonstrations in Indonesia, Egypt, Bolivia and in many small, poor African countries.
In Australia, food prices are rising too at about 5 to 10 per cent a year but because food accounts for a much smaller proportion of our household expenditure, Australian families are in a better position to absorb the price rises. But low-income families are already having to cut back on more expensive items like meat and fish.
Eating in the age of climate change
It's not just our energy consumption patterns that will have to change. We'll need to change our food consumption to take into account the effects of climate change, say the authors of an online report called Health Professionals Taking Action on Climate Change, just published by the British Medical Association.
The study, aimed at health professionals, looks at the health effects of global warming increased deaths from heat waves, more frequent infectious diseases, mental health problems, and malnutrition. It also has advice for health workers as to how they can make their practices and organisations more energy efficient.
Buried within the report are also some recommendations as to how we might adapt our diet to cope with the rising cost of food. It recommends we:
* Buy fresh, locally-produced food, which has less distance to travel and therefore uses less fuel.
* Eat fewer processed and refrigerated foods, which take more energy to manufacture, transport and store.
* Waste less food about one-third of the food we prepare is thrown away uneaten. Don't over-order in restaurants, and eat smaller portions.
* Drink tap water, not bottled water, which uses large amounts of energy to produce.
* Reduce the amount of meat and animal and diary products we eat. Meat is much more energy intensive and requires proportionally more land to graze animals than crops. Instead, eat foods lower down the food chain grains, fruits and vegetables that are cheaper to grow, use less energy and less land space.
* Buy foods in season seasonal products generally use less energy to produce.
Better for you
Now while lovers of meat, cheese, eggs and takeaway food might recoil in horror at these suggestions, in fact they make sense. Not only will they help lower your carbon footprint, they are also a good way to manage the household budget. Low-energy foods like grains, fruits and vegetables are likely to rise in price more slowly than energy-intensive foods like meat and dairy products.
But there's another big benefit: this new diet will actually be better for us.
For tens indeed hundreds of thousands of years we've been eating locally-gathered or locally-cultivated grains, fruits and vegetables, supplemented by occasional fish or game.
Some societies still eat this way. If you're living on a Greek island you might eat bread, grains, olive oil, fish, a little red wine and lots of fruit and vegetables. Sound familiar? It's the Mediterranean diet.
If you're living on an island off the coast of Japan it might be a low-calorie diet with small portions, little or no meat and plenty of fish, and green and yellow vegetables. We know it as the Okinawa diet.
Both these diets are associated with longevity and good health.
So from the point of view of our health, it may not be a bad thing to go back to a diet high in fibre (cereals, locally grown fruits and vegetables), low in saturated fat (minimal meat and diary products), and no processed foods; and spend the savings on a bottle of red wine.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/health/thepulse/stories/2008/04/10/2213128.htm
By Peter Lavelle
ABC News Australia
10 April 2008
Spiralling food prices, fuelled in part by climate change, may pressure us into changing our diet -- perhaps for the better.
When we in the West think about the costs of climate change, we think of rising electricity and fuel prices. But these aren't the main concerns for people living in developing countries.
Egypt, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Yemen, Mexico in fact over 30 developing countries face critical shortages of food due to sharply rising costs for staples like rice, wheat, soybeans and corn.
The cost of rice, for example the staple food for half the world has doubled over the past year, and increased five-fold over the past five years.
What's driving price increases is the sharp rise in the price of oil (a major input in the production and transport of food), rising demand from China, land scarcity, especially as more land is being turned over to biofuels, and increasingly erratic weather events floods, storms and droughts caused by climate change, which are pushing down crop yields.
And prices are going to keep rising rice stocks are at their lowest since the 1980s and the major rice-producing countries Cambodia, India, Pakistan, and Vietnam have restricted their exports of rice to other counties so as to feed their own populations. Commodities futures on the world's financial markets are predicting prices will continue to rise.
Many developing countries face famine and civil unrest, warns the World Bank. In just the past few weeks there have been food riots and demonstrations in Indonesia, Egypt, Bolivia and in many small, poor African countries.
In Australia, food prices are rising too at about 5 to 10 per cent a year but because food accounts for a much smaller proportion of our household expenditure, Australian families are in a better position to absorb the price rises. But low-income families are already having to cut back on more expensive items like meat and fish.
Eating in the age of climate change
It's not just our energy consumption patterns that will have to change. We'll need to change our food consumption to take into account the effects of climate change, say the authors of an online report called Health Professionals Taking Action on Climate Change, just published by the British Medical Association.
The study, aimed at health professionals, looks at the health effects of global warming increased deaths from heat waves, more frequent infectious diseases, mental health problems, and malnutrition. It also has advice for health workers as to how they can make their practices and organisations more energy efficient.
Buried within the report are also some recommendations as to how we might adapt our diet to cope with the rising cost of food. It recommends we:
* Buy fresh, locally-produced food, which has less distance to travel and therefore uses less fuel.
* Eat fewer processed and refrigerated foods, which take more energy to manufacture, transport and store.
* Waste less food about one-third of the food we prepare is thrown away uneaten. Don't over-order in restaurants, and eat smaller portions.
* Drink tap water, not bottled water, which uses large amounts of energy to produce.
* Reduce the amount of meat and animal and diary products we eat. Meat is much more energy intensive and requires proportionally more land to graze animals than crops. Instead, eat foods lower down the food chain grains, fruits and vegetables that are cheaper to grow, use less energy and less land space.
* Buy foods in season seasonal products generally use less energy to produce.
Better for you
Now while lovers of meat, cheese, eggs and takeaway food might recoil in horror at these suggestions, in fact they make sense. Not only will they help lower your carbon footprint, they are also a good way to manage the household budget. Low-energy foods like grains, fruits and vegetables are likely to rise in price more slowly than energy-intensive foods like meat and dairy products.
But there's another big benefit: this new diet will actually be better for us.
For tens indeed hundreds of thousands of years we've been eating locally-gathered or locally-cultivated grains, fruits and vegetables, supplemented by occasional fish or game.
Some societies still eat this way. If you're living on a Greek island you might eat bread, grains, olive oil, fish, a little red wine and lots of fruit and vegetables. Sound familiar? It's the Mediterranean diet.
If you're living on an island off the coast of Japan it might be a low-calorie diet with small portions, little or no meat and plenty of fish, and green and yellow vegetables. We know it as the Okinawa diet.
Both these diets are associated with longevity and good health.
So from the point of view of our health, it may not be a bad thing to go back to a diet high in fibre (cereals, locally grown fruits and vegetables), low in saturated fat (minimal meat and diary products), and no processed foods; and spend the savings on a bottle of red wine.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/health/thepulse/stories/2008/04/10/2213128.htm