A la une Your diet is cooking the planet
Des habitudes alimentaires plus écologiques.
Les suggestions pour rendre notre alimentation plus respectueuse de l'environnement ne manquent pas : bio, circuits courts, réduction du plastique et petits producteurs sont aujourd'hui de plus en plus mis en avant. Mais ces suggestions, bien que bénéfiques, n'auraient qu'un impact réduit sur le coût écologique de nos assiettes. Les véritables ennemis seraient le gaspillage alimentaire, et notre trop forte consommation de viande...
What’s for dinner? On a planet wracked by rising seas and hotter temperatures, that’s a fraught question to answer. Food production accounts for roughly a quarter of the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions, and scientists have found that limiting global warming will be impossible without significant changes to how the world eats. 2. Reforming the food system to save the planet is going to require new corporate practices, and new laws and regulations. But individual consumer behaviors matter as well—more than you might think. Your diet is likely one of your biggest sources of climate emissions. But what should you do?
3. Experts on land use, climate change, and sustainable agriculture told me that two habits tower above all others in terms of environmental impact. To help save the planet, quit wasting food and eat less meat.
4. The conservation nonprofit Rare analyzed a sweeping set of climate-change mitigation strategies in 2019. It found that getting households to recycle, switch to LED lighting
and hybrid vehicles, and add rooftop solar systems would save less than half the carbon emissions combined than would reducing food waste and adopting a plant-based diet.
SAYING NO TO FOOD WASTE
5. Let’s begin with the role of food waste. Americans waste a lot of food. Nearly one-third of it, in fact. Food is the single biggest component of our country’s landfills, and the average American sends more than 200 pounds of food there every year. More than 1,250 calories per person a day get tossed in the garbage.
6. Households, not restaurants or schools or corporate cafeterias, are the dominant wasters. When you toss a spoiled chicken breast or moldy tomato into the trash, you’re wasting a greenhouse-gas-intensive product. You’re also sending it to a landfill, where it will emit methane.
7. Addressing food waste would be lowhanging fruit: The country could save money, emit less carbon into the atmosphere, alleviate the burden on landfills, reduce the number of animals subjected to life on a factory farm, and address its hunger crisis just by eating all the food it makes.
8. How to do it? For one, get wise about expiration labels and quit throwing out perfectly good food. Research shows that nearly all Americans misinterpret date labels and toss their groceries out prematurely, for fear of food poisoning, and understandably so. As a general point, most food is safe to eat as long as there is no evident spoilage, such as visible mold or an off smell. “Use your senses,” says Yvette Cabrera of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the conservation nonprofit, noting that those senses were refined through millennia of natural selection in no small part to help us figure out whether food is safe to eat.
9. Experts also point to a series of simple, old-fashioned techniques households can use to ensure that they eat more of the food they buy. Figure out appropriate portion sizes; eat your leftovers; store food in appropriate containers and at the right temperature; prepare and freeze perishables instead of letting them linger and go bad; and shop in your refrigerator and cabinet before you hit the store.
EATING LESS MEAT
10. And when you’re at the store, there is one dietary change to consider that beats all others in terms of its climate impact. It is not eating locally or seasonally. It is eating less meat. Roughly three-quarters of the world’s farmland is used to pasture livestock or raise crops to feed that livestock. That contributes to deforestation, destroys the planet’s natural carbon sinks, erodes the planet’s biodiversity, and uses up fresh water.
11. The main, mooing offender is beef. Gram for gram, beef produces roughly eight times more greenhouse-gas emissions than farmed fish or poultry, 12 times more than eggs, 25 times more than tofu, and even more compared with pulses, nuts, root vegetables, bananas, potatoes, bread, or maize.
12. Trading your rib eyes and cheesesteaks for lentils and tofu is one of the best things you can do as a consumer for the environment; if all Americans did, the country would be roughly halfway to hitting its Paris Agreement targets. Still, the all-or-nothing way the choice is often presented is a mistake. Better all Americans cut meat consumption by 40 percent than 3 percent of Americans cut it out completely.
13. Experts encourage taking small, meaningful steps to reduce your meat consumption, and trying to find some joy in doing it. Participate in Meatless Monday; try learning to cook dishes from a plant-heavy cuisine you like; offer a vegetarian option at work events; opt for dishes where meat plays a supporting, rather than leading, role.
WHAT ABOUT EATING LOCAL AND ORGANIC FOOD?
14. After wasting less food and eating less meat, all other changes a person might make are marginal, experts said, among them eating locally, organically, and seasonally. Transporting food around the world tends to make up only a small share of a given product’s total greenhouse-gas emissions. What you are eating and how it was farmed is far more important than how it got to you, and imported food typically has a low carbon impact.
15. For all that, experts said there are good reasons to opt for organic, locally produced, seasonal food. Many smaller-scale operations outside Big Ag produce food without pesticides, without monoculture, with manure instead of chemical fertilizers, and with respect for biodiversity and soil health. Those are all important facets of environmental preservation too.
16. When it comes to eating animals, “unfortunately, the cruelty scale is the flip of the emissions scale,” Leah Garcés, the president of Mercy for Animals, a nonprofit that advocates for better conditions for animals raised in industrial environments, told me. Transportation and processing is much rougher on birds, which have delicate bodies.
For these reasons, a chicken breast represents much more suffering than a steak, even though the steak is worse for the planet. But the fact remains: The fewer animals you eat, the fewer die, and the better off the planet is.
“The fewer animals you eat, the fewer die, and the better off the planet is.”
17. Diets that are good for the planet tend to be good for people too. Research by Clark and his colleagues has shown that foods associated with good health generally have low environmental impacts.
18. Our diets are cooking the planet, and changing them, even in small ways, might help avert catastrophe. A burger for lunch, a bag of wilted greens in the trash—these may not be as obviously destructive to the environment as a private jet or a gas-guzzling car. But they are choices we make daily, and they matter.
1. to be wracked by être ravagé par / rising dont le niveau s'élève / fraught difficile, éprouvant / to account for représenter / roughly environ / greenhouse gas emissions émissions de gaz à effet de serre / global warming réchauffement climatique / significant important, majeur.
2. to require exiger, nécessiter / corporate ici, des entreprises / law loi, législation / regulation réglementation / behavior comportement / to matter importer, jouer un rôle important / diet régime (alimentaire) / likely probablement.
3. land terre, terrain / sustainable durable /
to tower above dépasser largement / to waste gaspiller, perdre / meat viande. 4. conservation protection de l’environnement / nonprofit organisation à but non lucratif / sweeping vaste / set ensemble, série / mitigation atténuation / to get, got, got sb to faire en sorte que qqn (+subj.), amener qqn à / household ménage, foyer / to switch changer, ici passer (à) /
rooftop (sur le) toit.
5. single seul (et unique) / component composant, élément / landfill décharge / average moyen / pound livre (453,6 grammes) / to toss jeter / garbage ordures.
6. spoiled ici, avarié / breast ici, blanc / moldy moisi / trash ordures, poubelle(s) / greenhouse-gasintensive qui émet beaucoup de gaz à effet de serre.
7. to address ici, lutter contre / low-hanging fruit fruits poussant le plus bas dans l'arbre ; ici, cible facile / to alleviate soulager, réduire / burden fardeau, poids, charge / to be subjected to endurer / factory farm usine agricole, élevage industriel / hunger faim, famine.
8. wise sage, avisé, réfléchi / label étiquette / to throw, threw, throw out jeter /
groceries produits d'alimentation, provisions / food poisoning intoxication alimentaire / safe sûr, sans danger / spoilage détérioration / off ici, (odeur) forte, désagréable / to be refined s'affiner, s'améliorer / in no small part en grande partie, principalement / to figure out déterminer.
9. to point to indiquer / old-fashioned classique / leftovers restes / to store conserver / to freeze, froze, frozen congeler / to linger ici, traîner / to go, went, gone bad s'abîmer, se gâter, tourner / cabinet placard / to hit, hit, hit stores arriver dans les magasins.
10. to consider envisager / to beat, beat, beaten battre, dépasser / seasonally selon les saisons / to pasture faire paître / livestock bétail / to raise crops produire des cultures / sink puits, zone de concentration / to erode nuire à, faire disparaître peu à peu / fresh water eau douce.
11. to moo meugler / offender coupable / farmed d'élevage / poultry volaille / pulse légumineuse / nut (générique) noix / root vegetable légume-racine.
12. to trade for échanger, troquer contre / rib eye faux-filet / cheesesteak sandwich composé de fines tranches de viande de boeuf couvertes de fromage fondu et généralement garni de différents ingrédients (spécialité de Philadelphie) / halfway à mi-chemin / to hit, hit, hit atteindre / target cible, objectif / still ici, pourtant / to cut, cut, cut diminuer, réduire.
13. meaningful significatif, important / to take, took, taken steps prendre des mesures / dish plat / plant-heavy riche en végétaux / supporting role ici, rôle secondaire / leading role rôle principal.
14. organically biologiquement, sans engrais / to tend to avoir tendance à (généralement) / to make, made, made up constituer, représenter / share part / typically généralement.
15. small-scale à petite échelle / Big Ag = Big Agriculture terme péjoratif généralement utilisé pour désigner les grandes et puissantes sociétés agricoles dont l'activité est jugée nuisible pour la société, la santé et l'environnement / manure fumier / soil sol, terre / preservation protection.
16. flip ici, revers de la médaille / mercy grâce, pitié, ici clémence / to advocate for plaider pour, défendre / to raise élever / processing traitement, transformation / rough dur, violent / delicate ici, sensible, fragile /
to be better off mieux se porter. 18. to cook cuisiner, préparer; ici griller, détruire / to avert éviter / wilted greens légumes verts flétris / obviously ici, visiblement / gas-guzzling qui consomme beaucoup / daily quotidiennement.