Eating habits of white individuals disproportionately affect the environment as their foods require more water and release more greenhouse gases during production, a study claims.
The study, published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, takes an in-depth look at what different demographic populations eat, how much greenhouse gas those foods are responsible for, and how much land and water they require.
The study was undertaken to get a better understanding of the environmental impacts of the food consumption patterns of major demographic groups so that environmental policies designed to reduce negative impacts of food production could be drafted that take these differences into account.
“The food pipeline—which includes its production, distribution and waste—contributes significantly to climate change through the production of greenhouse gases and requires significant amounts of water and land, which also has environmental effects,” said Joe Bozeman, a student in the University of Illinois at Chicago in the US.
“If we are to draft policies related to food, they can’t be one-size-fits-all policies because different populations have different eating patterns which have their own unique impacts on the environment,” said Bozeman.
