A shrinking fraction of the world’s major crops goes to feed the hungry, with more used for nonfood purposes: new research

“Rising competition for many of the world’s important crops is sending increasing amounts toward uses other than directly feeding people. These competing uses include making biofuels; converting crops into processing ingredients, such as livestock meal, hydrogenated oils and starches; and selling them on global markets to countries that can afford to pay for them.

In a newly published study, [it is estimated] that in 2030, only 29% of the global harvests of 10 major crops may be directly consumed as food in the countries where they were produced, down from about 51% in the 1960s. We also project that, because of this trend, the world is unlikely to achieve a top sustainable development goal: ending hunger by 2030.

Another 16% of harvests of these crops in 2030 will be used as feed for livestock, along with significant portions of the crops that go to processing. This ultimately produces eggs, meat and milk – products that typically are eaten by middle- and upper-income people, rather than those who are undernourished. Diets in poor countries rely on staple foods like rice, corn, bread and vegetable oils.

The crops that we studied – barley, cassava, maize (corn), oil palm, rapeseed (canola), rice, sorghum, soybean, sugar cane and wheat – together account for more than 80% of all calories from harvested crops. Our study shows that calorie production in these crops increased by more than 200% between the 1960s and the 2010s.

Today, however, harvests of crops for processing, exports and industrial uses are booming. By 2030, we estimate that processing, export and industrial-use crops will likely account for 50% of harvested calories worldwide. When we add the calories locked in crops used as animal feed, we calculate that by 2030, roughly 70% of all harvested calories of these top 10 crops will go to uses other than directly feeding hungry people…

[T]he broader goal should be raising more crops in food-insecure countries that are used directly as food, and increasing their yields. Ending poverty, the U.N.‘s top sustainable development goal, will also enable countries that can’t produce enough food to meet their domestic needs to import it from other suppliers. Without more focus on the needs of the world’s undernourished people, eliminating hunger will remain a distant goal.”

Citation:

Ray, D.K., Sloat, L.L., Garcia, A.S. et al. Crop harvests for direct food use insufficient to meet the UN’s food security goal. Nat Food (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00504-z

27% of all land-use emissions are related to agricultural products consumed in a different country than they were produced

Researchers have for the first time quantified rising land-use emissions embodied in the international trade of specific agricultural products like beef that results in deforestation. “International trade allows goods and services produced in one country to be consumed elsewhere, separating consumption from its environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and land-use change (together referred to as “land-use emissions”).”

“Annually, 27% of land-use emissions and 22% of agricultural land are related to agricultural products ultimately consumed in a different region from where they were produced. Roughly three-quarters of embodied emissions are from land-use change, with the largest transfers from lower-income countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, and Argentina to more industrialized regions such as Europe, the United States, and China…” The findings are based on a new study published in the journal Science.

“These land-use emissions are substantial enough to threaten international climate goals even if fossil fuel emissions are drastically reduced,” the paper stated… A model the researchers created based on trade and agricultural data found that between 2004 and 2017, land-use emissions in international trade increased 14%.”

“The land-use change problem needs to be front and center on our radar,” said Steven Davis, a co-author of the paper and an associate professor of Earth system science at the University of California at Irvine. Davis and other scientists said wealthy nations are outsourcing land-use emissions to countries such as Brazil and Indonesia. “In places like the US or Europe, there’s very little land-use change going on for agriculture because we did our deforestation earlier in our history,” said Davis.

Timothy Seachinger, a senior research scholar at Princeton University and technical director of the World Resources Institute food program, studies agriculture land use and climate change. He said policies designed to lower greenhouse emissions from transportation in developed nations are increasing land-use emissions as woodlands are converted to grow crops for biofuels…

The paper sends an important message about the responsibility for land-use emissions, he added. “People think it’s just some kind of perverse activity by developing countries chopping down forests,” said Searchinger. “What’s driving this is demand for products” in the US, Europe and China.

Davis and his colleagues determined that cereals and oil crops, such as soybean and palm oil, accounted for 45% to 55% of land-use emissions in international agriculture trade between 2004 and 2017. Cattle, pigs and other animals represented 14% to 19% of emissions while fruits and vegetables were responsible for less than 8%.”

“As noted elsewhere, soybeans are the largest global source of protein for livestock feed. China’s soybean import from Brazil has surged by 2,000% since 2000. Most of which is used for animal feed to support rising meat consumption.”

“Searchinger said governments can lower land-use emissions by adopting policies to reduce reliance on biofuels and lower demand for meat. Imposing tariffs on products with high land-use emissions is another option, said Davis.

The opaqueness of food supply chains can make it difficult for consumers to avoid carbon-rich foods, said Davis. Palm oil, for instance, is a ubiquitous ingredient in many foods, from bread and margarine to cookies and ice cream, and its cultivation has resulted in widespread deforestation in Indonesia.” For more information on RSPO certified sustainable palm oil, go to: https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/8-things-know-about-palm-oil

These authors concluded that “Mitigation of global land-use emissions and sustainable development may thus depend on improving the transparency of supply chains.”

To access the newly published research article described here, see below URL:

Hong C, Zhao H, H, Qin Y, et al. Land-use emissions embodied in international trade. Science 2022;376:597-603.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj1572

Sources: Woody T. The climate threat hidden in your hamburger. Bloomberg. May 20, 2022. Available at: bloomberg.com. Hein T. The soybean situation: 2021 and beyond. Poultry World. April 2022. Available at: poultryworld.net

Carbon footprint labels to steer climate-friendly buying

“Nutritional breakdowns, ethical trade branding, recycling information – and now estimates of a product’s climate impact. Consumers across the globe are starting to see a new kind of information on goods packaging, indicating the level of planet-heating gases [greenhouse gases] emitted by making the items they are buying.

This fresh wave of efforts at “carbon footprint” labeling is being praised by some as empowering consumers to help tackle climate change – but criticized by others as confusing at best, and greenwashing at worst.

Danielle Nierenberg, co-founder of Food Tank, a U.S.-based think-tank, said a carbon-labeling system has “been in the works for a while” but companies needed time to research it properly, “so we’re just seeing it now”.

Numi Organic Tea, a California-based company that sources 130 ingredients from 26 countries, will start putting carbon labels on its teas this summer, after tracking their emissions since 2015. [See below graphic]

Figuring out the teas’ carbon footprint required studying farm management practices, processing equipment, energy use along the supply chain and more, said Jane Franch, company vice president for strategic sourcing and sustainability.

“That was the first step in our journey – wrapping our minds around what is the impact, and looking for places where we can reduce (it),” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The effort has included pushing tea factories to start using cleaner energy and more energy-efficient equipment, she explained.

Numi packaging will carry a label that includes a single, product-specific number: a kilogram of carbon-dioxide equivalent, broken down by ingredients, transport, packaging and even the energy required to boil water at a tea-drinker’s home…

“Publishing the climate impact of food products should be mandatory and standardized, just as with nutrition labels,” said a spokesperson for Swedish oat milks producer Oatly, which is leading a petition to the German government on the issue.

Denmark and France are already looking at creating their own consumer carbon labels, while the European Union is aiming to come up with a draft for a broader eco-label by 2024.

In related news, see: Denmark to Become First Country to Develop Climate Label for Food

Denmark to Become First Country to Develop Climate Label for Food
Denmark to Become First Country to Develop Climate Label for Food Part of the Food Policy Snapshot Series. Policy name: Denmark climate labels Overview: The Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries has announced that it will create a state-controlled climate label for food that promotes climate-friendly food production. Location: Denmark Population: 5.8 million. Food policy category: Sustainability, climate change. Source: http://www.nycfoodpolicy.org

The new official Danish dietary guidelines take climate into account

https://stateofgreen.com/en/news/denmark-introduces-official-climate-friendly-dietary-guidelines/

‘NO LONGER NICHE’

The food and beverage industry is at the center of the push for carbon labeling, given its outsize climate impact.

The global food system accounts for about a third of carbon emissions, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

But until recently, most efforts to reduce food-related emissions focused on production, said Edwina Hughes, head of the Cool Food Pledge at the World Resources Institute (WRI).  

“We’ve made loads of progress in the last 50 years, but we haven’t looked at consumption as much. That’s pretty significant – if you don’t look at shifting diets, you won’t get where you need to” in terms of curbing climate change, she said.

Some simple interventions appear to offer great potential.

For instance, adding messages at the top of menus nearly doubled the proportion of diners choosing plant-based dishes, according to WRI research published in February. 

The Cool Food program runs a carbon labeling initiative that includes a “badge” on menu items, indicating that they meet nutritional standards and have a smaller carbon footprint than researchers say is needed to achieve key climate goals.”

To learn more about the Cool Food program, go to: https://coolfood.org/

Sources: Biron CL. Climate-friendly cuppa? Carbon footprint labels aim to steer green buying. Thomson Reuters Foundation News, May 16, 2022. Available at: https://news.trust.org/item/20220513151006-3wtmb/

WTN Editor. Numi joins first mover brands like Oatly, Allbirds, Unilever in carbon labeling its products. World Tea News, March 9, 2022. Available at: https://www.worldteanews.com/whats-brewing/numi-joins-first-mover-brands-oatly-allbirds-unilever-carbon-labeling-its-products

Diets high in fiber associated with less antibiotic resistance in gut bacteria: new research

According to new research published in the journal mBIO (2022), “Healthy adults who eat a diverse diet with at least 8-10 grams of soluble fiber a day have fewer antibiotic-resistant microbes in their guts…” Soluble fiber is found in foods such as oats, barley, beans, lentils, nuts, seeds (e.g., flaxseed) and some fruits and vegetables (e.g., oranges, apples, pears, guavas, Brussels Sprouts, sweet potatoes, carrots, asparagus, and broccoli).

“Microbes that have resistance to various commonly used antibiotics such as tetracycline and aminoglycoside are a significant source of risk for people worldwide, with the widely held expectation that the problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – the term that refers bacteria, viruses, and fungi that are resistant are antibiotics – is likely to worsen throughout the coming decades.”

“Antimicrobial resistance in people is largely based in their gut microbiome, where the microbes are known to carry genetically encoded strategies to survive contact with antibiotics.” According to the authors of this new research, “the results lead directly to the idea that modifying the diet has the potential to be a new weapon in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.”

“The researchers found that regularly eating a diet with higher levels of fiber and lower levels of protein, especially from beef and pork, was significantly correlated with lower levels of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARG) among their gut microbes. Those with the lowest levels of ARG in their gut microbiomes also had a greater abundance of strict anaerobic microbes, which are bacteria that do not thrive when oxygen is present and are a hallmark of a healthy gut with low inflammation. Bacterial species in the family Clostridiaceae were the most numerous anaerobes found.”

“But the amount of animal protein the diet was not a top predictor of high levels of ARG. The strongest evidence was for the association of higher amounts of soluble fiber in the diet with lower levels of ARGs. “

“Surprisingly, the most important predictor of low levels of ARG, even more than fiber, was the diversity of the diet. This suggests that we may want to eat from diverse sources of foods that tend to be higher in soluble fiber for maximum benefit.”

Source: Agricultural Research Service (ARS), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Diets high in fiber associated with less antibiotic resistance in gut bacteria. Davis, CA: ARS, USDA. May 10th, 2022. Available at: ars.usda.gov

Citation: Oliver A, Xue Z, Villanueva YT, et al. Association of diet and antimicrobial resistance in healthy U.S. adults. mBIO 2022;13(3):e00101-22. https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.00101-22

Which diet is more climate friendly: novel foods or mostly vegan?: research

As reported recently in Anthropocene Magazine, a new study published in the journal Nature Food finds that “eating insect meal, kelp, lab-grown eggs, and other novel foods greatly reduces climate impact. But there’s also a simpler solution: eating less meat.”


“So-called ‘novel foods’ such as insect powder and algae are increasingly being touted for their environmental and health benefits. Now a new study finds that if widely adopted, these ‘future foods’ could indeed dramatically cut the global warming potential of European diets, while fulfilling key nutritional needs. 

But, the new analysis also suggests that such diets may just be a more complicated and risky route to achieving climate targets we already know we can largely reach with just one key dietary change: reducing the amount of meat we consume.

The researchers, writing in Nature Food, explain how they created a model combining varied diet types—including diets rich in animal-sourced foods, vegan foods, plant-based proteins like tofu and meat substitutes, and ‘novel foods’ — to determine the optimal dietary combination for environmental and nutritional benefits. ‘Novel food’ diets include farmed insects, protein made from fungus and microbes, farmed seaweed, nutrient-rich powders made from blue-green algae, and cell-cultured foods such as meat, milk and eggs that would be grown in vats, independently of chickens and cows.

The boon of these new and developing foods is that they can be produced efficiently in limited space, taking strain off the land and water resources, and generating far less in the way of greenhouse gasses. 

When researchers tallied up the water-use, land-use, and emissions impact of optimized diets, the benefits of these novel foods clearly shone through. Incorporating ‘future foods’ in European diets, together with plant-based replacements for animal proteins, could reduce water-use, land-use and the global warming potential of these diets by more than 80%. 

Specifically including insect meal, cultured milk, and microbial protein provided the best balance of trade-offs between nutritional content and environmental impact, the researchers found. And, the contributing benefits of novel foods was significant: most of the water-use and land use impacts of the optimized diets came from the plant-based alternatives that featured in it, not from the novel foods. 

In fact, when novel food diets were parceled out and their impact independently modeled, their benefits came out consistently higher than other dietary options in the model—reducing global warming potential by 83%, water-use by 85%, and land-use by 87% compared to current European diets. Depending on what was being measured, novel foods could be between 4 and 34% less impactful than omnivorous and vegan diets (except when it came to global warming potential, where veganism trumped the benefits of novel foods.)

Novel foods are also more nutrient-dense, and therefore may be efficient than other plant based options at providing key nutrition. They could also prove more climate-resilient, shielded as many are from the elements out on the field.

But while these numbers are impressive, they’re actually not that far off the benefits that could be achieved by simply reducing the share of meat and dairy in European diets—a task that would  currently be much easier to accomplish than getting people to adopt totally new foods. The researchers calculated that limiting meat consumption alone could reduce the impact of European eating habits by 60%. 

Novel foods may bring greater benefits for the environment, but these must be weighed up against the realities of adoption. To the average person, milk cultured in vats, and flours made from ground insects, are not currently palatable options for saving the planet—whereas plant-based alternatives like mushroom burgers and soy proteins, which are becoming increasingly familiar to consumers, might hold more appeal and therefore greater potential to move current diets in the right direction. That’s not to mention the regulatory and policy hurdles that still lie ahead in getting many novel foods to market.

Yet, these foods evidently hold great potential benefits for the climate and planet that we should not overlook, the researchers says—calling for more investments to increase their share in our diets. In the meantime, a lot can be achieved by including more plants and more variety, and crucially, moderating the consumption of animal-based foods.” 

To read the full Anthropocene Magazine article, go to:

https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2022/04/which-diet-is-more-climate-friendly-novel-foods-or-mostly-vegan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=which-diet-is-more-climate-friendly-novel-foods-or-mostly-vegan&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=which-diet-is-more-climate-friendly-novel-foods-or-mostly-vegan

Citation:

Mazac, R., Meinilä, J., Korkalo, L. et al. Incorporation of novel foods in European diets can reduce global warming potential, water use and land use by over 80%. Nat Food 3, 286–293 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00489-9

Meat consumption must fall by at least 75 percent: study

“If our planet Earth is to continue feeding us in the future, rich countries must significantly reduce their meat consumption – ideally by at least 75 percent.” This is the conclusion of a new review published by researchers at the University of Bonn. “The study reviews the current state of research on various aspects of meat consumption. In addition to the effects on the environment and climate, these include health and economic effects. A conclusion of the researchers: Eating meat in small amounts can be quite sustainable. The results are published in the journal Annual Review of Resource Economics.

…[T]here are good reasons for significantly reducing consumption of animal-based foods. “If all humans consumed as much meat as Europeans or North Americans, we would certainly miss the international climate targets and many ecosystems would collapse,” explains study author Prof. Dr. Matin Qaim of the Center for Development Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn. “We therefore need to significantly reduce our meat consumption, ideally to 20 kilograms or less annually. The war in Ukraine and the resulting shortages in international markets for cereal grains also underline that less grain should be fed to animals in order to support food security.” At present, around half of all grains produced worldwide are used as animal feed, Qaim said.”

Mass vegetarianism is not the best solution

Would it not be better for humankind to switch completely to vegetarian or, even better, vegan diets? According to the authors of this study, this would be the wrong approach. “On the one hand, there are many regions where plant-based foods cannot be grown. “We can’t live on grass, but ruminants can,” clarifies Qaim’s colleague and co-author Dr. Martin Parlasca. “Therefore, if grassland cannot be used in any other way, it makes perfect sense to keep livestock on it.” From an environmental point of view, there is also no real objection to careful grazing with a limited number of animals.”

Poorer regions also lack plant sources of high-quality proteins and micronutrients. “For instance, vegetables and legumes cannot be grown everywhere and, moreover, can be harvested only at certain times of the year. “In such cases, animals are often a key element of a healthy diet,” Parlasca points out. “For many people, they are also an important source of income. If the revenue from milk, eggs and meat is lost, this can threaten their livelihoods.” In any case, the poorer countries are not the problem, the authors point out. For their inhabitants, meat is usually much less frequently on the menu than in industrialized nations. This means that the rich countries in particular must reduce their meat consumption.”

Citation:  Parlasca MC, Qaim M. Meat consumption and sustainability. Annual Review of Resource Economics 2022 14:1. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-111820-032340

To download the article free of charge, go to:  https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-resource-111820-032340


Source: Meat consumption must fall by at least 75 percent. However, in small quantities it can be quite sustainable, shows a study by the University of Bonn. University of Bonn press release, April 25th, 2022. https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/news/082-2022

Stop Food Waste Day digital cookbook and other food waste resources

Happy Stop Food Waste Day (April 27, 2022)! To raise awareness of Stop Food Waste Day, a digital food waste cookbook for home cooks has been published. It features recipes from 45 Compass Group chefs across 30 countries. These recipes give a second life to ingredients that most commonly go to waste in home kitchens, including stale bread, bruised fruit & vegetables, and discarded peels. This food waste cookbook can be downloaded as a PDF at: https://www.stopfoodwasteday.com/en/cookbook.html

Other valuable food waste resources can be accessed here: www.stopfoodwasteday.com

Compass Group US introduced Stop Food Waste Day in 2017 before going global in 2018.

In addition, see these 15 tips for reducing food waste and becoming a Food Hero from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

https://www.fao.org/fao-stories/article/en/c/1309609/

Finally, the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), ReFED and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have released a report detailing how U.S. lawmakers can take action to reduce food waste in the 2023 Farm Bill. See below URL to download a copy of this new report.

Opportunities to Reduce Food Waste in the 2023 Farm Bill (Report)

Click to access 2023-Farm-Bill-Food-Waste.pdf

Study explores fast-growing rise of ‘climavore’ consumers

“By 2030, our routine food choices will be climate-directed. The companies that mobilize now will win the future of food.” With that said, global management consulting firm Kearney has released its 2022 Earth Day Survey, which measures the growing momentum of ‘climavorism’ among consumers – referring to the making of mindful food choices based on environmental impact.

This year’s survey polled 1,000 US consumers on their awareness of, and reaction to, the connection between food preferences and climate change concerns. The results showed many consumers had awareness of the issue and were willing to shift food purchasing behaviors.”

“Climavores believe switching protein sources—from, say, beef to chicken, or pork to soy—goes a long way toward amplifying their personal environmental impact. Eighty-three percent said once a week they would be willing to substitute fish, chicken, pork, or plant-based protein for beef. Consumers most prefer fish and chicken when considering substituting beef to improve environmental impact.”

According to the survey results, four out of five consumers have at least some awareness of the environmental impacts of food. See Figure 4 below. Younger consumers (18-44) are 1.5-2.0 times more likely to consider the environmental impact of their food choices decisions than older consumers.

Environmental impact is valued almost twice as much in grocery stores than in restaurants. Twenty-seven percent of respondents indicated environmental issues were a significant influence on their specific food choices in the grocery store, compared to 21 percent in online purchases, and only 15 percent in restaurants. Figure 1 (see below) highlights how environmental impact of food ranks compared to other significant factors such as cost, taste, and nutrition (in grocery stores, online purchases, and restaurants).

Cost perception and aversion to plant-based diets are the most significant obstacles to making food choices which minimize environmental impact. “The study also uncovered a more negative consumer response to plant-based food alternatives, with 19% of respondents stating they were likely to purchase such products in the next 12 months, down from 31% in 2021. 

Relating to this, a growing number of plant-based insiders argue that too many processed ingredients and questionable sustainability claims are plaguing the industry, and have begun to call for reform.  How plant-based companies respond to consumer surveys such as these remains to be seen. But the effect of the ‘climavores’ cannot be ignored.” 


Sources:

Dawn of the Climavores, Kearney – Consumer and Retail (April 22, 2022)  https://www.kearney.com/consumer-retail/article/?/a/dawn-of-the-climavores&utm_medium=pr&utm_source=prnewswire&utm_campaign=2022EarthDay

Kearney 2022 Earth Day Study Explores Fast-Growing Rise of “Climavore” Consumers, Vegconomist (April 23, 2022)

2022 Earth Day Study Focuses on Fast-Growing Rise of “Climavore” Consumers

Do chemicals in plastic consumer products, and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), contribute to obesity?

In a recent study published in Environmental Science & Technology, Dr. Martin Wagner and co-authors investigated whether everyday plastic consumer products contain chemicals that induce adipogenesis, a key process in the development of obesity. These investigators found that, indeed, the chemicals extracted from one third of the products trigger the differentiation and proliferation of adipocytes or fat cells, which were developing towards an unhealthy phenotype. They also showed that plastics contain known metabolism-disrupting chemicals but believe that other, so far unknown, plastic chemicals caused these effects. Based on their new findings, these researchers argue that plastics may represent an underestimated environmental factor contributing to obesity.

You can view the recent Collaborative on Health and the Environment webinar with speaker Dr. Martin Wagner titled, “Do chemicals in plastic consumer products contribute to obesity?”, by going to the following URL:

To access the webinar slides, go to:

https://www.healthandenvironment.org/webinars/96602

Citation:

Völker J, Ashcroft F, Åsa Vedøy A, et al. Adipogenic activity of chemicals used in plastic consumer products. Environmental Science & Technology 2022; 56 (4):2487-2496. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.1c06316

More recently, three scientific reviews published in the journal Biochemical Pharmacology, which cover what obesogens are, how they contribute to obesity, and methods for studying them, point out how paying attention to obesogens can help shift the focus in obesity research from treatment to prevention of obesity. Scientists also call for a reduction in exposure to obesogens, which are ubiquitous in everyday life, as a method to slow the obesity epidemic.

According to Heindel and colleagues (2022), “[o]besogens are a subset of environmental chemicals that act as endocrine disruptors affecting metabolic endpoints. The obesogen hypothesis posits that exposure to endocrine disruptors and other chemicals can alter the development and function of the adipose tissue, liver, pancreas, gastrointestinal tract, and brain, thus changing the set point for control of metabolism. Obesogens can determine how much food is needed to maintain homeostasis and thereby increase the susceptibility to obesity. The most sensitive time for obesogen action is in utero and early childhood, in part via epigenetic programming that can be transmitted to future generations.” Many obesogens are not found in food rather they enter the body through other consumer products, including plastics, makeup, shampoos, and cleaners. Obesogens can also get into food from pesticides and food packaging (van Deelen, 2022).

To reduce exposure to obesogens, one can limit consumption of pre-packaged and highly processed foods (e.g., ultra-processed foods), which often come in containers made with obesogens such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and other plastic additives. Avoiding fruits and vegetables treated with pesticides or buying certified organic produce is another way to reduce exposure (van Deelen, 2022). The Environmental Working Group has their “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean Fifteen” lists so individuals can determine which fruits and vegetables contain the highest and lowest pesticide residues so consumers can make the best decisions for their families. To access these lists, go to: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php

Citations:

Lustig RH, Collier D, Kassotis C, et al. Obesity I: Overview and molecular and biochemical mechanisms. Biochem Pharmacol. 2022 Mar 30:115012. doi: 10.1016/j.bcp.2022.115012. Epub ahead of print.

Heindel JJ, Howard S, Agay-Shay K, et al. Obesity II: Establishing causal links between chemical exposures and obesity. Biochem Pharmacol. 2022 Apr 5:115015. doi: 10.1016/j.bcp.2022.115015. Epub ahead of print.

Kassotis CD, Vom Saal FS, Babin PJ, et al. Obesity III: Obesogen assays: Limitations, strengths, and new directions. Biochem Pharmacol. 2022 Mar 26:115014. doi: 10.1016/j.bcp.2022.115014. Epub ahead of print.

Sources:

van Deelen G. Chemicals in everyday products are spurring obesity, warns a new review (April 25, 2022)

https://www.ehn.org/chemicals-in-food-that-cause-obesity-2657191067/obesity-levels

Plastics pose threat to human health (December 15, 2020)

https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2020/plastics-pose-threat-to-human-health

Additional resources include:

Obesity and endocrine-disrupting chemicals (Review Article, Endocrine Connections) (2021)

https://ec.bioscientifica.com/view/journals/ec/10/2/EC-20-0578.xml

A technical report published by the Endocrine Society and the International Pollution Elimination Network (IPEN) titled “Plastics, EDCs & Health” (2020) can be accessed at:

Click to access edc_guide_2020_v1_6chqennew-version.pdf

See the below infographic that lists 9 Tips for Living with Less Plastic. (Source: Less Plastic)

And finally, Foodprint offers tips for simple alternatives to using plastic wrap:

5 Reusable Plastic Wrap Alternatives

5 Reusable Plastic Wrap Alternatives

Parts of the world are heading toward an insect apocalypse, study suggests

“Extreme land use combined with warming temperatures are pushing insect ecosystems toward collapse in some parts of the world, scientists reported Wednesday.

The study, published in the journal Nature, identified for the first time a clear and alarming link between the climate crisis and high-intensity agriculture and showed that, in places where those impacts are particularly high, insect abundance has already dropped by nearly 50%, while the number of species has been slashed by 27%.

These findings raise huge concerns, according to Charlotte Outhwaite, the lead author on the study and researcher at the University College London, given the important role of insects in local ecosystems, pollination and food production, and noted that losing insects could threaten human health and food security.

“Three quarters of our crops depend on insect pollinators,” Dave Goulson, a professor of biology at the University of Sussex in the UK, previously told CNN. “Crops will begin to fail. We won’t have things like strawberries.”

“We can’t feed 7.5 billion people without insects.”

Outhwaite said their findings “may only represent the tip of the iceberg,” because of the limited amount of evidence in some regions.”

Source:  https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/20/world/insect-collapse-climate-change-scn/index.html

To read the study published in Nature, “Agriculture and climate change are reshaping insect biodiversity worldwide,” go to: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04644-x

Citation:

Outhwaite, C.L., McCann, P. & Newbold, T. Agriculture and climate change are reshaping insect biodiversity worldwide. Nature (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04644-x

Two additional resources on the “insect apocalypse” and “insect crisis” are the following books: “Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse” (2021) and “The Insect Crisis: The Fall of Tiny Empires That Run the World” (2022).