Standardized Recipes and Their Influence on the Environmental Impact Assessment of Mixed Dishes: A Case Study on Pizza

Katerina S. Stylianou, Emily McDonald, Victor L. Fulgoni and Olivier Jolliet
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Katerina S. Stylianou: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Emily McDonald: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Victor L. Fulgoni: Nutrition Impact, LLC, 9725 D Drive North, Battle Creek, MI 49014, USA
Olivier Jolliet: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 22, 1-16

Abstract: Food and diet life cycle assessment (LCA) studies offer insights on the environmental performance and improvement potential of food systems and dietary patterns. However, the influence of ingredient resolution in food-LCAs is often overlooked. To address this, four distinct decomposition methods were used to determine ingredients for mixed dishes and characterize their environmental impacts, using the carbon footprint of the U.S. daily pizza intake as a case study. Pizza-specific and daily pizza intake carbon footprints varied substantially between decomposition methods. The carbon footprint for vegetarian pizza was 0.18–0.45 kg CO 2 eq/serving, for meat pizza was 0.56–0.73 kg CO 2 eq/serving, and for currently consumed pizzas in the U.S. (26.3 g/person/day; 75 pizzas types) was 0.072–0.098 kg CO 2 eq/person/day. These ranges could be explained by differences in pizza coverage, ingredient resolution, availability of ingredient environmental information, and ingredient adjustability for losses between decomposition methods. From the approaches considered, the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, which reports standardized food recipes in relative weights, appears to offer the most appropriate and useful food decompositions for food-LCAs. The influence and limitations of sources of reference flows should be better evaluated and acknowledged in food and diet LCAs.

Keywords: life cycle assessment; food decomposition; mixed dishes; pizza; carbon footprint (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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