Put your food on a climate-friendly diet

8/4/2019 Put your food on a climate-friendly diet

1/8

Put your ood on aclimate-riendly diet

Reduce your oods environmental impact.


2/8

Cut your oods climate impact in halTe ood on your plate accounts or one-third o your impact on the climate. And anoverwhelming portion o greenhouse gas emissions is produced by the raising olivestock or meat. In Sweden, we eat too much meat, a act that is neither environ-mentally nor nutritionally sustainable. In act, we purchase an average o 85 kilos omeat per person per year. In the last 20 years, we have increased our meat consump-tion by 40 percent.

Exactly what you choose to eat is decisive when it comes to your oods impact onthe climate. What you eat means more than even the distance your ood has trave-led. Choosing vegetarian alternatives is thereore the simplest and most importantaction you can take towards eating in a more climate-riendly way. I you were tobecome completely vegetarian, you could reduce your oods climate impact bymore than hal.

Heres How you can cut your foods climate impact in Half

Make every other lunch and dinner vegetarian.1.

Dont waste ood.2.

Eat organic oods.3.

Eat according to season, and avor heartier vegetables. Avoid lettuce,4.tomatoes and cucumbers in the wintertime. Choose cabbage, carrots

and parsnips instead.


3/8

i

Meat production always requires more energy than vegetable cultivation. Meat canresult in up to 100 times more carbon emissions than vegetables, beans and lentils.ry it out! Find inspiration rom our vegetarian recipes at www.naturskyddso-reningen.se/klimatmat

In order to eat more healthully, Livsmedelsverket, Swedens National Food Admi-nistration, recommends that the average Swede should reduce his or her meat con-sumption. Eating vegetables is also less expensive than meat or sausages, parti-cularly i you choose root vegetables or other hearty vegetables, beans and lentils.

o h

Organic our and vegetables produce about hal the volume o greenhouse gases asnon-organic alternatives. Tis is largely due to the act that organic agriculturetakes place without the use o articial ertilizers, which require a great deal oenergy to produce. Krav-labeled products also ollow strict rules or the reductiono climate impact in production.

Another advantage with organic agriculture is that it avoids the use o chemicalpesticides. Tese pesticides kill not only pests they also kill their natural enemies.

An organic arm is more tolerant toward dierent varieties o plants and animals,which makes it more possible to manage a changing climate.

Half of all grains become feed for livestock

Livestock production demands enormous quantities o

eed. Today, 50 percent o all grain produced in Sweden is

used to eed livestock animals which could otherwise be

raised on grass or waste products. A ull 70 percent o

arable land in Sweden is used to grow livestock eed.


4/8

a z

When animals are allowed to graze in pastures, other species ourish. While this isa valuable advantage in itsel, it also allows nature to become more resistant to cli-mate changes such as extreme weather conditions. A grazed pasture can contain asmany as 40 dierent plants per square meter.

Unortunately, not all livestock is allowed to graze on these precious lands, sochoose organic meat or Swedish grass-ed meat instead.

wh , h h

Te good meat comes rom cattle and sheep that eed on grass something wehumans cant do. O course, when ruminants digest, they produce more green-house gases than pigs or poultry. But grazing animals are necessary or keepingpastures open, and or retaining important plants and animals. Pigs and chickensare examples o animals that almost exclusively eat the same oods humans can eat namely grains, corn and soy. A large quantity o Swedish livestock eed is impor-ted, a great deal o which is soy. We import more soy than coee, tea, chocolate,cocoa and spices combined.

soy destroys rainforests

Brazilian soy is a common eed or Swedish livestock. In severalcountries in South America, rainorest is destroyed in order tomake room or soy cultivation. The savannas o South America,known as cerrados, are used or agriculture, thereby threate-ning a unique ecosystem. This also aects the localpopulations ability to produce adequate quantities o ood.

This devastation threatens the climate, too. Deorestation or

the purpose o agriculture accounts or a ull six percent o glo-bal greenhouse gas emissions.

Eco-riendly meats include organic or Swedish,

grass-ed meats such as bee or lamb.


5/8

How to reduce waste

Plan beore you shop.

Use letovers wisely. Find out how at www.naturskyddso-

reningen.se/klimatmat

Preserve ood appropriately. Use clear containers to see

whats let in your rerigerator.

Empty packages completely.

Smell and taste your ood.

e . ch h

ry to ollow the Swedish growing seasons or ruit and vegetables. Summer-time in Sweden is a perect time to enjoy Swedish new potatoes, tomatoes, aspa-ragus, cucumbers, lettuce, leeks, berries, rhubarb, snow peas, zucchini andmushrooms. Winter is a better time to eat heartier vegetables such as red andwhite cabbage or carrots, rather than choosing lettuce, tomatoes and cucumberspurely out o habit.

d !Te ood we waste has large and unnecessary eects on the climate. We throwaway 20-30 percent o the ood we bring home. ogether, Swedish householdswaste 900,000 tons o ood every year.A our-person amily can save up to SEK 7,000 per year simply by reusing tothrow away edible ood. Some o this waste is due to the act that we buy toomuch ood, only or it to sit and rot in the rerigerator. More signicantly, howe-ver, we throw ood away ood completely unnecessarily. rust your senses. Smelland taste your ood!

r , -(s)

Carrots CabbageParsnips Celery root

Beets Potatoes

s , sh

Tomatoes Mar. Oct.*

Cucumbers Apr. Oct.*

Iceberg lettuce June Oct.

Arugula June Sept.

Chinese cabbage June Nov.

H , sh

Cauliower June Nov.

Broccoli June Oct. Yellow onions June Apr.

Leeks May Dec.

Zucchini July Oct.

Chinese cabbage June Mar.

Spinach May Aug.

Snow peas June Aug.

* Grown in greenhouses. Source: S.M.A.R.T-mat, Centrum fr Tillmpad Nringslra, www.kov.se

Seasonal guide to vegetablesWhen it comes to eating seasonal oods, a useul rule-o-thumb is to choose ru-its and vegetables rom Sweden. I this is not possible, produce rom NorthernEurope should be prioritized frst, ollowed by produce rom Southern Europe.


6/8

i hh

I everyone in Sweden wereto replace two meat-basedmeals per week with a vege-tarian alternative, we couldreduce the equivalent carbonemissions o 233,000 carsper year or 87,500 tripsaround the world in a singlecar.

A ew acts about oo

w h 85

In Sweden, we eat too much meat. Tis hasnegative eects on both our health and theenvironment. Every year, we consume asmuch as 40 kilos o pork, 16 kilos o poultryand over 25 kilos o bee.

!f h

Its easy to reduce meatconsumption by choosingsmaller portions, or bycooking a hearty stew.Te result is a healthiermeal with class.

eco-labels for organic products

Krav is the best-known eco-label or organic oods inSweden. The Krav label ulfls the guidelines established byEU regulations or organic agriculture. It also includes strictrules regarding environmental impact, animal health, animalethics and approved additives, among other aspects. Kravstipulates, or example, that pigs must be allowed to root insoil.

Krav

EU-ekologiskt

w ?

See a short lm and nddelicious vegetarian recipes andenvironmentally riendlyshopping tips atnaturskydssoreningen. se/klimatmat


7/8

d ?

One portion o pea soup

contains more iron than aportion o bee. However,the body does not absorbiron as eectively rom legu-mes. By complementingyour meal with oods rich invitamin C, such as chinesecabbage or oranges, or bydrinking blackcurrant juice,you can improve your bodysability to absorb iron.

c

One kilo o carrots produces only afh the amount o greenhousegases as one kilo o tomatoes*. For

this reason, try substituting a car-rot or a tomato once in a while.

Avoid oods transportedby airStrawberries,snowpeas,hari -

cots verts and asparagus purcha-

sed outside o their Swedish gro-

wing seasons.

Delicatetropicalfruitssuchas

guava, passion ruit and resh fgs.Exoticfreshsh.

r ?

One portion o rice produces twicethe amount o greenhouse gas emis-sions as a portion o potatoes. Krav-labeled rice is better than normalrice, since it is most ofen grown inItaly using less water-intensive met-hods. Other climate-riendly alter-natives include whole-grain wheat,pasta and bulgur.

* Swedish tomatoes grown in greenhouses heated by biouels.

seafood you can enjoy witH a good conscience

Herring

PercH

coalfisH

Walleye

all fisH and fisHproducts marked

witH tHe krav andmsc labels

Maintainproperrefrige-rator temperatures.

Rerigerator: 5 degreesCrisper: 8 degreesFreezer: -18 degrees

A temperature decrease oone degree requires a fvepercent increase in energyusage. But dont make ittoo warm or your ood mayexpire more quickly.

Useanelectricwaterhea-ter oten it saves energy.

Thawfrozenfoodinthererigerator. This coolsdown the rerigerator, redu-cing the energy necessary

to keep ood cold.Foodpreparedintheoven

demands more energy thani it were prepared on thestovetop.

A climate-riendly kitchen

cultivated mussels

and oysters

and the environment


8/8

Naturskyddsreningen. Box 4625, 11691 Stockholm.

Tel 08-702 65 00. [email protected]

The Swedish Society or Nature Conservation is a non-

proft environmental organization celebrating its 100th

anniversary in 2009. The more members we are, the

more we can accomplish. You are crucial to our work.

Support us by becoming a member!

Read more at

www.naturskyddsoreningen.se

Eating vegetarian meals is one o the simplest things you can do toreduce your oods impact on the environment and its climate. In thisbrochure, you can read about the serious environmental impact causedby meat consumption. We also oer tips on how you can easily reduceyour oods inuence on the climate.

Our choices as consumers can contribute to more sustainable agricul-ture, both in Sweden and around the world. By acting together, consu-mers can become a powerul orce and an important complement topolitical decisions. Te Swedish Society or Nature Conservation worksactively to inuence politicians, and to guide consumers toward envi-ronmentally riendly choices.

DevelopmentCooperationAgency.

Photo:KentarooTryman,

JohannaOgenblad,morguefle.com,

Matton,

JosBarriosLancellotti.

Documents

Put your food on a climate-friendly diet