Author Archives: sasmits

Alternative Milk, Our Earth, and Systems Theory

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I really valued what I took away from this course, as it presented new and challenging topics that I had never considered before. It also gave me the opportunity to conduct research on a topic I took a great interest in: the sustainability of alternative milk products. I was inspired by a previous blog post I wrote, about a climate change food calculator that calculates the ghg emissions, water usage, and land usage of 40 different foods.

With the massive changes in the dairy and alternative milk market, I decided to use this as a jumping point to look into three milk products: milk from dairy cows, almond milk, and oat milk. I researched and compared all three products with reference to water usage and GHG emissions. I was mostly interested in determining if alternative milks were actually more sustainable, and if so which was the most sustainable milk?

I looked closely at the sections about food systems and the effect of climate change. I determined that the ecological system and the food production system are incredibly intertwined and interdependent. The ecological and biological systems greatly affect how food is grown and produced, and the food production system has had very adverse effects on the environment.

My research only scratched the surface of sustainable food production practices, but it is a critical piece in the future of food production. This course gave me a deeper understanding of systems theory that allowed me to analyze a topic in a more meaningful way.

Works Cited:

Guibourg, C., & Briggs, H. (2019, August 09). Climate change food calculator: What’s your diet’s carbon footprint? Retrieved June 09, 2020, from https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46459714

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Lucas, A. (2019, November 13). 5 charts that show how milk sales changed and made it tough for Dean Foods to avert bankruptcy. Retrieved June 09, 2020, from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/13/5-charts-that-show-how-milk-sales-have-changed.html

Fasting with Purpose

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I should begin this post with a little bit of honesty. I initially found these contemplative practices to be questionable at best. I couldn’t understand the points being made, or find the headspace to allow myself to listen. I am not really a spiritual person, nor do I take the time to think reflectively about how things make me feel.

This all changed during the hunger practice. By coincidence, I just had not eaten all day prior to doing this contemplative practice. It became relatable, and it finally clicked. I felt the hunger and was actually able to experience introspection. In my life I have been lucky enough to never experience chronic hunger, but I can now (at least slightly) sympathize with those that do experience this. I will never completely understand true hunger, and neither should anyone else. It should be a global initiative to end hunger and food instability/inequality. This evolved into a deeper understanding that I will carry through the rest of this course.

This breakthrough actually surprised me so much, I went back and redid the previous practices. They made so much more sense and their message was received on a deeper and more thoughtful level. I realized that the introspective aspect of this class is just as important as the reading and analysis.

Counting Calories: Alternative Proteins and Our Impact

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According to a recent study conducted at the University of Oxford, food production is responsible for 1/4th of all human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. Beef farming (meat and dairy) is responsible for 56-58% of CO2 emissions from food production. It was also found that the lowest-impact animal products exceed the average impacts of vegan substitutes.

One exception was found in the case of alternative proteins. Cashews and almonds are on average, very low-yield and pesticide intensive crops. These have major impacts on soil and waste runoff in the growing/production process.

Using this Oxford study, several researches developed the Climate Change Calculator that provides data on the environmental impact of food products. It has you first select a food product, then the frequency in which you eat it and then provides data on the emissions produced, water used, land used, and other protein amounts in comparison to the selected food.

Wanting to discuss alternative proteins to meat and dairy, I compared dairy to oat milk, and almond milk. Almond milk had the lowest amount of greenhouses gasses associated in production, oat milk was the second-lowest, and dairy milk was the highest. Oat milk uses about 1/9th the amount of water almond milk requires, and about 1/15th that of milk.

This ingenious calculator is incredibly useful and should be considered a household tool. Not only does it provide hard data that can help a consumer make conscious choices about their food, but also provides insight on the “best of the best” of protein alternatives.

Sources:

Guibourg, Clara, and Helen Briggs. “Climate Change: Which Vegan Milk Is Best?” BBC News. BBC, February 22, 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46654042.

Poore, J., and T. Nemecek. “Reducing Food’s Environmental Impacts through Producers and Consumers.” Science360, no. 6392 (2018): 987–92. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216.

Stylianou, Nassos, Clara Guibourg, and Helen Briggs. “Climate Change Food Calculator: What’s Your Diet’s Carbon Footprint?” BBC News. BBC, August 9, 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46459714.