The amount of poultry in European diets isn’t conducive to an optimal circular food system, which prioritizes crops that produce healthy foods while reducing or reusing waste streams, new Cornell research finds.
As climate change gains force, the foods people choose to eat are increasingly tipping the balance towards ecological harm. The article, “Circularity in Animal Production Requires a Change in the EAT-Lancet Diet in Europe,” published Jan. 6 in Nature Food, shows the complex connections between animal agriculture, European food choices and the impacts on a rapidly warming planet.
“The foods societies produce and eat today have a climatic ripple effect that extends far into the future,” said study co-author Mario Herrero, professor of sustainable food systems and global change in the Department of Global Development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a Cornell Atkinson Scholar. “It’s imperative that we reimagine how food is produced if we are to stave off the worst impacts of global climate change.”
Senior author of the paper is Hannah van Zanten, visiting professor of global development in CALS and associate professor at Wageningen University.
Read more at Cornell University
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