Our world is facing a huge challenge: we need to create enough high-quality, diverse and nutritious food to feed a growing population—and do so within the boundaries of our planet. This means significantly reducing the environmental impact of the global food system.
September 30, 2022
Our world is facing a huge challenge: we need to create enough high-quality, diverse and nutritious food to feed a growing population—and do so within the boundaries of our planet. This means significantly reducing the environmental impact of the global food system.
There are more than 7,000 edible plant species which could be consumed for food. But today, 90% of global energy intake comes from 15 crop species, with more than half of the world’s population relying on just three cereal crops: rice, wheat and maize.
The rise of ultra-processed foods is likely playing a major role in this ongoing change, as our latest research notes. Thus, reducing our consumption and production of these foods offers a unique opportunity to improve both our health and the environmental sustainability of the food system.
Impacts of the food system
Agriculture is a major driver of environmental change. It is responsible for one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions and about 70% of freshwater use. It also uses 38% of global land and is the largest driver of biodiversity loss.
While research has highlighted how western diets containing excessive calories and livestock products tend to have large environmental impacts, there are also environmental concerns linked to ultra-processed foods.
The impacts of these foods on human health are well described, but the effects on the environment have been given less consideration. This is surprising, considering ultra-processed foods are a dominant component of the food supply in high-income countries (and sales are rapidly rising through low and middle-income countries too).
Our latest research, led by colleagues in Brazil, proposes that increasingly globalized diets high in ultra-processed foods come at the expense of the cultivation, manufacture and consumption of “traditional” foods.
How to spot ultra-processed foods
Ultra-processed foods are a group of foods defined as “formulations of ingredients, mostly of exclusive industrial use, that result from a series of industrial processes.
