Dimensions of Sustainable Eating: Social Compatibility

Sustainable Eating (Name)
Sustainable eating is beneficial to our health, environment, economy, and the society. Our health is highly dependent on the food we consume. Nowadays we consume food whose history we know little about. We are rarely familiar with the origin, production, processing, transportation, or retail of the food we eat (Koerber and Hohler). The valuable ingredients of the too many animal-based foods that we consume have been destroyed in many cases. It is important to recognize that what we eat has significant impacts on our bodies, the natural environment, people around us, as well as to the economy.
Contents
1 Definitions
2 Dimensions of Sustainable Eating
1 Social Compatibility
2 Economic Compatibility
3 Environmental Compatibility
4 Compatibility with Good Health
3 Practicing Sustainable Eating
5 Minimizing meat consumption
6 Prioritizing plants
7 Shopping locally
8 Wasting less food
9 Selection of new seafood
10 Eating mindfully
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links
Definitions
Koeeber and Hohler define sustainability as a global development that seeks to satisfy the needs of the present generations without risking the ability of future generations to satisfy their needs.
Sustainable eating is defined as “choosing foods that are healthful to our environment and our bodies” (Moores).
Sustainable eating can also be defined as acquiring and consuming enough amounts of safe and nutritious food to stay active and healthy as well as dealing with resources, waste, and emissions responsibly (Davies, Fahy and Rau 160).
Dimensions of sustainability in eating
In their book “Joy of Sustainable Eating,” Koerber and Hohler outline four dimensions of sustainable eating. Three of these dimensions (society, economy, and environment) are adapted from the political model of sustainability from the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Conference on Environment and Development. The authors added the fourth one (health) in the context of food consumption.
Social Compatibility
Eating sustainably is beneficial to the society. Over a third of the total grain harvest globally is fed to livestock in order to produce eggs, milk, and meat (Koerber and Hohler). This is not efficient because these plant-based products could be in most parts be consumed by humans. Every 1 kilogram of meat produces requires multiple times the weight in grain (Koerber and Hohler). This means that healthier food, which can be consumed by humans end up being consumed by animals that produce a lower amount of food.
It is important to note that food loss contributes significantly to global food loss. About a third of food production in the world is lost through spoilage or supply chain leakage (Shepon, Eshel, and Noor). With a high demand for animal-based food, which is resource-intensive, food availability is limited. With sustainable eating, the consumption of animal-based food will reduce significantly. In the study by Shepon, Eshel and Noor, it was found that replacing animal-based foods such as dairy, poultry, pork, eggs, and beef with plant-based foods can lead to the production of twofold to 20-fold more nutritionally similar products per unit land. Also, if all animal-based foods are replaced with plant-based ones, there will be enough food to feed an extra 350 million people (Shepon, Eshel, and Noor). It is evident that sustainable eating can improve food security and consequently help in tackling poverty. In their book, Koerber and Hohler note that there are about 1 billion undernourished people in the world. Practicing sustainable eating can go a long way toward solving the problem of undernourishment in the world. With sustainable eating, the plant-based products, which would otherwise be used to feed livestock for the production of eggs, meat, and milk, could feed the undernourished people around the world. This shows that sustainable eating is socially compatible.
Economic Compatibility
Sustainable eating can lead to farmers receiving fair prices for their products as well as creating and preserving jobs. Many people around the world earn their living through the production, transport, processing, preparation, and advertisement of food products. Highly industrialized nations depend on food sector as it forms one of the most important contributions to their economies. However, this food sector is often characterized by ruinous competition (Koerber and Hohler). The competition has led to falling products for food products, and the victims are farmers as they find it hard to cover their costs. Farmers thus no longer have the incentive to produce food prices. Sustainable eating would encourage fair wages to farmers and jobs will be preserved and created as well (Koerber and Hohler).
According to an article by Anekwe and Rahkovsky, the benefits of healthy eating in the US is about $114.5 billion annually in increased productivity, medical savings, and prolonged life value. Our food choices have tremendous economic effects. Suboptimal nutrition is attributed to poor health in the US and globally as it is related to chronic illnesses such as stroke, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and several cancer types (Mozaffarian). Consequently, a significant portion of the budgets of many countries around the world goes to healthcare costs. In the case of the US, around 20% goes to healthcare. Many of these chronic conditions that take up a significant portion of the budget are dietary-related conditions that can be prevented. These diet-related illnesses hamper the economic growth of developing economies around the globe (Mozaffarian). Through sustainable eating, it is possible to have better health, better productivity, and a stronger economy.
Environmental Compatibility
Eating sustainably is in harmony with the natural environment. Human beings put a strain on the environment, mostly through extravagant lifestyles, particularly in industrialized nations (Koerber and Hohler). As outlined by Koerber and Hohler, actions of human beings result to:
* Pollution of water, air, food, soil with harmful products
* Emission of more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and rising of global temperatures
* Ozone layer destruction
* Overfishing in the oceans
* Soil loss as a result of salinization and erosion
* Destruction of forests
* Shortages of water in many places around the world, and
* Climate change characterized by storms, melting glaciers, flooding of rivers, forest fires, and rising of sea levels.
Dietary choices affect environmental outcomes. Human beings can preserve the environment and natural resources through dietary choices (Koerber and Hohler). According to a study by Behrens et al., animal products (dairy, fish, and meat) accounted for 70%, 65%, and 25% of greenhouse gas emission in the diets of high-, upper-middle-, and lower-middle-income nations respectively. From this study, it is evident that high-income nations that consume animal-based products contribute significantly to the...