“The Carbon Footprints of U.S Diets: New Research Linking Environmental Impacts to Food Choices and Diet Quality”
Tulane Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health, Tulane Prevention and Research Center and the American Public Health Association will be hosting a webinar on May 16th, 2018 12pm – 1:30pm CST.
Lead by:
Diego Rose, PhD, Tulane University, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and
Martin Heller, PhD, University of Michigan, School for Environment and Sustainability
If you would like to join the on-campus group viewing, it will be held on the 22nd Floor of the Tulane Downtown Tidewater Building, 1440 Canal Street, Room 2212.
If you are unable to join the group viewing, we recommend joining remotely. Please register using the link
If you are unable to attend the webinar, a recording will be available after the event at the CEMCH blog, the Tulane PRC website and the APHA webinar page.
About the Webinar
Agriculture is a major contributor to climate change, representing 30-40% of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) globally, and about 10% in the US. Individual dietary choices contribute to this problem by influencing what gets produced. Our research addresses the environmental impacts of individual food choices in the US and their implications for diet quality. We developed an approach to link environmental impacts of foods to 24-hour recall data on adult diets reported in the 2005-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). We constructed a distribution of the carbon footprint of 1-day diets by ranking diets from low to high impact. Those in the top quintile (i.e. high impact diets) had a carbon footprint close to eight times that of the bottom quintile. Shifting the top quintile diets to the mean resulted in a significant overall reduction in national GHGE. After scaling for energy intake, we examined the differences in food and nutrient content, and overall diet quality of these high and low-impact diets. The bottom quintile (i.e. low impact) diets scored better on vitamin E, fiber and saturated fat, but not on calcium, vitamin D, and potassium. Overall diet quality as measured by the Healthy Eating Index was better in the low impact group. These results suggest that food patterns with lower carbon footprints have a better overall diet quality and are more nutritious on several key dimensions. Our analyses highlight the importance of utilizing individual dietary behaviors rather than just population means when considering diet shift scenarios and set the stage for further policy and scenario simulations aimed at aligning environmental and nutritional outcomes. Attendees will learn how to 1. Explain what is meant by a carbon footprint and how to calculate it for specific foods.2. Describe the relationship between individual dietary choices and GHGE from food in the US context. 3. Explain the link between the GHGE of a diet and its overall nutritional quality
