LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

PLENARY SESSION 1: FOOD 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
122
High nutritional quality is not associated with low greenhouse gas
emissions in self-selected diets of French adults
Florent Vieux 1 , Louis-Georges Soler 2 , Djilali Touazi 2 , Nicole Darmon 1,*
1 UMR 1260 INRA, 1062 INSERM, ‘Aix-Marseille Univ Nutrition, Obésité et Risque Thrombotique’, 13385 Marseille, France
2 Institut National de Recherche Agronomique UR 1303 ALISS- 65 Boulevard de Brandebourg - 94205 Ivry sur Seine, France
* Corresponding author. E-mail: nicole.darmon@univ-amu.fr
ABSTRACT
Food consumption contributes approximately 15-30% of the total greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) in the developed countries. The
aim of the present work was to analyse the relationship between the nutritional quality of self-selected diets and their associated
greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGE). Each adult of the INCA2 national dietary survey (n=1918) was aggregated in one of four increasing
nutritional quality group and GHGE (in g CO2e/d) of his/her diet was estimated. High-quality diets contained more plantbased
foods, notably fruit and vegetables, and less sweets and salted snacks than low-quality diets. Expressed per 100Kcal or 100g
consumed, the highest GHGE was recorded for meat, fish and, eggs food group and the lower for starchy foods. After adjustment for
energy intake, high-quality diets had significantly higher GHGE (+4% and +14% in men and women respectively) than low quality
diets. This suggests that environmental and nutritional objectives are not necessarily aligned.
Keywords: diet, food, nutrient recommendations, energy density
1. Introduction
Changing food consumption patterns is often considered as an important driver of climate change and a
way of reducing the environmental impact of the food sector, which contributes approximately 15-30% of
the total greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) in the developed countries (Garnett, 2008;Kim and Neff,
2009;Kling and Hough, 2010;Tukker et al., 2006). In particular, changing the diets (Carlsson-Kanyama et al.,
2003;Coley et al., 1998) through a reduction in meat consumption in high-income countries (associated with
a reasonable increase in low-income countries) has been proposed as a good way to reduce the GHGE related
to the food sector, whilst simultaneously improving the people’s health (McMichael et al., 2007). However,
meat, fish and dairy products are unique sources of specific and essential nutrients, and the reduction of their
consumption raises a number of nutritional challenges (Millward and Garnett, 2010).
Sustainable diets have been defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as "diets protective
and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable;
nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy; while optimizing natural and human resources" (FAO,
2010). Accordingly, the FAO recommends to give due consideration to sustainability when developing foodbased
dietary guidelines and policies, and acknowledges the need for studies demonstrating the synergies
between the different dimensions of sustainability (FAO, 2010). The aim of the present study was therefore
to analyse in detail the relationship between the nutritional quality of self-selected diets and their associated
greenhouse-gas emissions. To account for the actual diversity of food consumption patterns in France, data
from the latest dietary survey conducted among a representative sample of the French adult population were
used (AFSSA, 2009). Based on the previously published GHGE of a selection of some highly consumed
foods in this population (Vieux et al., 2012), the daily GHGE of each diet was estimated and correlated with
the consumption of food-groups and with indicators of nutritional quality, such as the Mean Adequacy Ratio
(MAR). Then, to avoid a priori assumptions about the food content of high and low nutritional quality diets,
a way of classifying them that only relied on their energy density and their nutrient contents was specifically
developed for this study, and the daily GHGE of diets of increasing nutritional quality according to this classification
were compared.
2. Methods
2.1. Population sample and dietary data
The dietary data used in the present study were derived from the 7-d food records of a nationally representative
random sample of adults (n=2624; age > 18 years) participating in the INCA 2 cross-sectional dietary
survey (‘Enquête Individuelle et Nationale sur les Consommations Alimentaires’, (‘Individual and National
Survey on Food Consumption’) conducted in 2006-2007 by ANSES (French agency for food, environmental
and occupational health safety) (AFSSA, 2009). After the exclusion of under-reporters using standard
procedures, the present analysis was conducted on a final sample of 1,918 adults (776 men and 1,142
women). All of the food items declared as consumed by the participants during the survey (n=1314 foods