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

PARALLEL SESSION 4B: DIET 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
Figure 1. Influence of a NuVal “nutritional weighting” on the life cycle (LC) greenhouse gas emissions and
energy use per kcal of food energy for a variety of foods.
Table 2. Life Cycle Energy Use for a variety of foods, expressed on different functional unit bases. Values
in parentheses are the ranking (high to low impact) of foods in each column.
per dry weight per serving per g protein per kcal food energy per kcal w/ NuVal "nutritional weighting"
MJ/ kg DW MJ/ serving MJ/ g protein MJ/ kcal food energy MJ/ nutritional kcal*
beef 111.88 (2) 3.88 (1) 0.18 (9) 0.019 (3) 0.061 (2)
lamb 101.20 (4) 3.54 (2) 0.19 (7) 0.016 (5) 0.061 (1)
pork 58.71 (9) 2.38 (4) 0.11 (14) 0.009 (12) 0.026 (8)
chicken 64.98 (6) 2.27 (5) 0.10 (18) 0.011 (8) 0.030 (6)
tuna 101.84 (3) 2.21 (6) 0.102 (17) 0.022 (2) 0.038 (4)
salmon 164.63 (1) 2.57 (3) 0.21 (6) 0.031 (1) 0.036 (5)
cheese 66.09 (5) 1.17 (7) 0.17 (9) 0.010 (10) 0.045 (3)
skim milk 33.16 (13) 0.75 (8) 0.090 (22) 0.009 (13) 0.011 (12)
whole milk 25.70 (16) 0.74 (9) 0.10 (19) 0.005 (17) 0.010 (14)
egg 60.12 (8) 0.72 (10) 0.11 (13) 0.010 (11) 0.030 (7)
brown rice 8.74 (21) 0.31 (15) 0.094 (20) 0.002 (23) 0.003 (22)
white rice 8.74 (22) 0.30 (16) 0.11 (16) 0.002 (22) 0.005 (18)
dry beans 3.22 (26) 0.10 (22) 0.013 (26) 0.001 (26) 0.001 (26)
apple 24.66 (17) 0.49 (11) 1.37 (1) 0.007 (16) 0.007 (17)
orange 28.30 (14) 0.49 (12) 0.40 (3) 0.008 (14) 0.008 (15)
strawberries 45.28 (11) 0.30 (17) 0.62 (2) 0.013 (7) 0.013 (11)
tomatoes 61.14 (7) 0.41 (13) 0.38 (4) 0.019 (4) 0.020 (9)
potato 7.73 (24) 0.34 (14) 0.080 (24) 0.002 (24) 0.002 (24)
broccoli 33.63 (12) 0.16 (18) 0.13 (12) 0.011 (9) 0.011 (13)
lettuce 50.42 (10) 0.12 (19) 0.24 (5) 0.015 (6) 0.015 (10)
winter squash 8.57 (23) 0.10 (20) 0.11 (15) 0.003 (20) 0.003 (21)
beets 7.45 (25) 0.10 (21) 0.068 (25) 0.002 (25) 0.002 (25)
cucumber 25.71 (15) 0.050 (23) 0.14 (10) 0.007 (15) 0.008 (16)
cabbage 14.06 (18) 0.050 (24) 0.085 (23) 0.005 (18) 0.005 (19)
carrots 11.40 (19) 0.037 (25) 0.14 (11) 0.003 (19) 0.003 (20)
onions 9.21 (20) 0.014 (26) 0.093 (21) 0.002 (21) 0.003 (23)
impact per g protein); deVries and de Boer, 2010 consider the environmental impact of animal-based foods
on a per kg protein and a per average daily intake basis. In this paper, we introduce an attempt to incorporate
a more nutritionally holistic functional unit. The NuVal nutrition indicator has been applied as a weighting
factor to environmental impacts per food energy content because the NuVal algorithm considers nutrient
content relative to food energy. In essence, the “nutritionally weighted” functional unit suggests that not all
food calories are created equal: depending on other nutritional components, food calories can contribute
more or less toward a healthy diet. As can be seen in Figure 1, the carbon footprint of pork, chicken, tuna,
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