info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Energy and carbon footprints of food: Investigating the effect of cooking
Fecha
2019-07Registro en:
Arrieta, Ezequiel Martín; Gonzalez, Alejandro Daniel; Energy and carbon footprints of food: Investigating the effect of cooking; Elsevier; Sustainable Production and Consumption; 19; 7-2019; 44-52
2352-5509
CONICET Digital
CONICET
Autor
Arrieta, Ezequiel Martín
Gonzalez, Alejandro Daniel
Resumen
Energy and carbon footprints of foods are of much concern, since food systems account for nearly
one third of energy use and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions worldwide. Due to the complexity
of mass variations in food processing and the diversity of appliances used in household cooking,
most studies on energy and carbon footprints were performed from cradle to farm gate or wholesale
stages. However, life cycle studies considering food preparation are important to assess environmental
impacts related to both consumer practices and food characteristics. In the present work, we performed
an experimental study that involved cooking of 18 foods consumed in Argentina; we report the
energy consumption, GHG emissions and mass changes associated with the process. We also defined
a nutritional footprint indicator, which allowed us to obtain the energy use and GHG emissions per
unit of nutrient content instead of per unit of weight (e.g. per kg of food). We studied the cases of
beef, wheat-based bread and soybeans, which represent the three analyzed food groups, to assess the
impact of cooking on the cradle-to-table energy and carbon footprint. Our results showed that the
relative impact of including the cooking stage in the energy and carbon footprints depends on the
analyzed food item, with the impact being more important for plant-based than for meat products.
Thus, a reduction in the footprint gap between plant-based and animal-based foods was found.