Comparing nutritional, economic, and environmental performances of diets according to their levels of greenhouse gas emissions

Louise Seconda (), Julia Baudry (), Benjamin Allès (), Christine Boizot-Szantai (), Louis-Georges Soler (), Pilar Galan (), Serge Hercberg (), Brigitte Langevin (), Denis Lairon (), Philippe Pointereau () and Emmanuelle Kesse-Guyot ()
Additional contact information
Louise Seconda: Université Paris 13
Julia Baudry: Université Paris 13
Benjamin Allès: Université Paris 13
Christine Boizot-Szantai: INRA Aliss UR 1303
Louis-Georges Soler: INRA Aliss UR 1303
Pilar Galan: Université Paris 13
Serge Hercberg: Université Paris 13
Brigitte Langevin: Solagro
Denis Lairon: Aix Marseille Université
Philippe Pointereau: Solagro
Emmanuelle Kesse-Guyot: Université Paris 13

Climatic Change, 2018, vol. 148, issue 1, No 11, 155-172

Abstract: Abstract In response to climate change, reduction of GHGEs (greenhouse gas emissions) from food systems is required. Shifts of agricultural practices and dietary patterns could reduce GHGEs. We aimed to characterize observed diets with different levels of GHGEs and compare their nutritional, economic, and environmental performances. Food consumptions of 34,193 French adults participating in the NutriNet-Santé Cohort were assessed using a food frequency questionnaire. Nutritional, environmental, and economic indicators were computed for each individual diet. Adjusted means of food group intakes, contribution of food groups to dietary GHGEs, nutritional, environmental, and economic indicators were compared between weighted quintiles of GHGEs. Diets with high GHGEs (ranging from 2318 to 4099 kgCO2eq/year) contained more animal-based food and provided more calories. Few differences were found for unhealthy food (alcohol or sweet/fatty food) consumption across the categories of dietary GHGEs. Diets with low GHGEs were characterized by a high nutritional quality. Primary energy consumption and land occupation increased with GHGEs (from Q1: 3978 MJ/year (95%CI = 3958–3997) to Q5: 8980 MJ/year (95%CI = 8924–9036)) and (from Q1: 1693 m2/year (95%CI = 1683–1702) to Q5: 7188 m2/year (95%CI = 7139–7238)), respectively. Finally, participants with lower GHGE related-diets were the highest organic food consumers. After adjustment for sex, age, and energy intake, monetary diet cost increased with GHGEs (from Q1: 6.89€/year (95%CI = 6.84–6.93) to Q5: 7.68€/year (95%CI = 7.62–7.74)). Based on large observational cohort, this study provides new insights concerning the potential of current healthy and emergent diets with low monetary cost and good nutritional quality to promote climate mitigation. However, the question of a large acceptability remains.

Keywords: Climate change; Dietary pattern; Greenhouse gas emissions; Organic food (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-018-2195-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:climat:v:148:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s10584-018-2195-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10584

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-018-2195-1

Access Statistics for this article

Climatic Change is currently edited by M. Oppenheimer and G. Yohe

More articles in Climatic Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().