Carbon and food production, split from packaging

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Gfamily
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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by Gfamily » Fri Jan 31, 2020 11:05 am

It will often be the case that plant based foods will be less dependent on cold chain supply methods, and have longer shelf life than many meat products, as well as requiring fewer materials for packaging ready for point of sale.
All of which can help with the carbon footprint.
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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by dyqik » Fri Jan 31, 2020 11:17 am

Soy milk doesn't contain all of the soy bean that goes into it. To make it, you soak the dried soy beans, then blend them and strain out the solids. The solids are then discarded (i.e. processed further and likely sold for animal feed and the like).

To turn it into tofu, you then coagulate the soy milk, and strain it, discarding the liquid, which contains further nutrients.

Remember that you do need to account for these losses above.

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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by Woodchopper » Fri Jan 31, 2020 12:01 pm

dyqik wrote:
Fri Jan 31, 2020 11:17 am
Soy milk doesn't contain all of the soy bean that goes into it. To make it, you soak the dried soy beans, then blend them and strain out the solids. The solids are then discarded (i.e. processed further and likely sold for animal feed and the like).

To turn it into tofu, you then coagulate the soy milk, and strain it, discarding the liquid, which contains further nutrients.

Remember that you do need to account for these losses above.
Certainly, an example of how humans can't consume the basic product.

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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by Woodchopper » Fri Jan 31, 2020 12:02 pm

Gfamily wrote:
Fri Jan 31, 2020 11:05 am
It will often be the case that plant based foods will be less dependent on cold chain supply methods, and have longer shelf life than many meat products, as well as requiring fewer materials for packaging ready for point of sale.
All of which can help with the carbon footprint.
Certainly.

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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Jan 31, 2020 4:12 pm

Texturised soya lumps in Portugal are only €3/kg, which equals €6/kg of protein. They're not a particularly mainstream product here either, so I expect further reductions in price are easily possible.

It also has the advantage that it can be stored dry without refrigeration indefinitely, which made it handy doing fieldwork off grid in Africa in places with no electricity and a "variable" local protein supply (ie had anybody gone fishing or rustled up a spare chicken that day?).
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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Jan 31, 2020 4:14 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Fri Jan 31, 2020 12:01 pm
dyqik wrote:
Fri Jan 31, 2020 11:17 am
Soy milk doesn't contain all of the soy bean that goes into it. To make it, you soak the dried soy beans, then blend them and strain out the solids. The solids are then discarded (i.e. processed further and likely sold for animal feed and the like).

To turn it into tofu, you then coagulate the soy milk, and strain it, discarding the liquid, which contains further nutrients.

Remember that you do need to account for these losses above.
Certainly, an example of how humans can't consume the basic product.
Yes, the process for making tofu is basically the same as cheesemaking, but with a different starter material. I'm not sure how the ratio of by-product compares though.
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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by dyqik » Fri Jan 31, 2020 4:21 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Jan 31, 2020 4:14 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Fri Jan 31, 2020 12:01 pm
dyqik wrote:
Fri Jan 31, 2020 11:17 am
Soy milk doesn't contain all of the soy bean that goes into it. To make it, you soak the dried soy beans, then blend them and strain out the solids. The solids are then discarded (i.e. processed further and likely sold for animal feed and the like).

To turn it into tofu, you then coagulate the soy milk, and strain it, discarding the liquid, which contains further nutrients.

Remember that you do need to account for these losses above.
Certainly, an example of how humans can't consume the basic product.
Yes, the process for making tofu is basically the same as cheesemaking, but with a different starter material. I'm not sure how the ratio of by-product compares though.
It's about the same at the milk -> solids step - for an obvious reason: Soy milk is produced to have about the same protein/fat density as cow milk, and it's a fairly easy to achieve ratio. I've done the full process from dried beans to tofu at home, as well as made cheese - the process for both is pretty close to the same, although cheese making generally cultures the milk while/before coagulating it (although it doesn't have to for e.g. ricotta or paneer).

With cow milk -> cheese, the whey can be used to a) make whey protein powder or b) make ricotta. Not sure if there's that much use for soy "whey", although I guess that could be dried to make protein powder or similar.

The big chunk of waste in the process is the strained out solids from the soy beans when making the soy milk in the first place. Obviously you could compare that to the volume of grass that becomes by-product when grass is processed through a cow, but that's somewhat unfair.

Tempeh or just eating edamame would avoid that, mind.

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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by Woodchopper » Fri Jan 31, 2020 7:22 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Jan 31, 2020 4:12 pm
Texturised soya lumps in Portugal are only €3/kg, which equals €6/kg of protein. They're not a particularly mainstream product here either, so I expect further reductions in price are easily possible.

It also has the advantage that it can be stored dry without refrigeration indefinitely, which made it handy doing fieldwork off grid in Africa in places with no electricity and a "variable" local protein supply (ie had anybody gone fishing or rustled up a spare chicken that day?).
I just worked out some Portuguese to find chicken on that site at €1.59 per kg. Yay, I speak Portuguese!

But yes, economies of scale would reduce the price of soy protein.

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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by Gentleman Jim » Mon Feb 03, 2020 12:35 pm

Start screening so we don't just rely on Fusarium venenatum
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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by shpalman » Sat Jan 22, 2022 10:57 am

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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by Millennie Al » Sun Jan 23, 2022 3:13 am

From that article we find figures:
according to data based on research by the Censuswide, which asked consumers how much food they threw away
so it's based on completely unreliable data. From the repeated mantion of Sainsburys, I'd guess that it's a story written as a result of a press release from Sainsburys.

Elsewhere in the Guardian: We’re pricing the poor out of food in the UK – that’s why I’m launching my own price index, so the naive reader might end up believing that many people are too poor to buy food in order to throw it away.

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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun Jan 23, 2022 10:33 am

Either that, or not everybody is so poor they struggle to buy food. :roll:

It's the typical inequality story: some fighting to survive, others wasteful and ignorant of their effects on others.
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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by Pishwish » Mon Jan 24, 2022 1:11 am

Articles like that Sainsbury's survey one annoy me. £1.2 billion wasted? Is that a lot?
Close to 76m items – an average of nearly three a household – are thrown away every week, according to data based on research by the Censuswide, which asked consumers how much food they threw away. The scale of the waste is staggering, with 914m potatoes, 733m tomatoes and 728m carrots ending up in dustbins each year.
Easily done, I forgot I bought a bag of microwaveable salad potatoes a month ago and left them in the bottom of the fridge. Every time I buy a bag of small oranges, a couple will either go off or shrivel before I finish the bag.

Happily, the Guardian also had an older article that had some more relevant information.
“The UK has really taken a leading role in food waste reduction and is one of very few countries that has achieved a great reduction,” she added. Between 2007 and 2018, edible household food waste was cut by almost a third, according to Wrap, though overall food waste was still 19% in November 2020.
Food waste had been thought of as a problem mostly affecting rich countries. But the UN report found levels of waste were surprisingly similar in all nations, though data is scarce in the poorest countries.
As for that stuff about people not knowing what to cook, not everyone has the skills, time or inclination to figure out how to make a meal out of the random ingredients left in their fridge; it's just easier to cook what you're used to.
Government and corporate action was needed, but individual action was important, the experts said, such as measuring portions of rice and pasta, checking the fridge before shopping and increasing cooking skills to use what was available. The greater time available for planning and cooking in homes during coronavirus lockdowns in the UK appears to have reduced waste by 20%.

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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by Bird on a Fire » Mon Jan 24, 2022 2:21 am

£1.2 billion comes out as about £17 each or about £40 quid per household.

In a supposedly rich/civilised country where 2.5 million people needed a food bank, I'd say it's indicative of various wider problems in society.

Not knowing how to cook is not great. Most people eat about three times a day, so you either cook, live on raw food, or pay someone to cook for you. If a huge number of people don't have the knowledge/time to prepare their own meals that's pretty sad, unless you live in a nation where everyone can afford nightly deliveroos (which is sooo not the UK).

And I think if you have some people who buy food but can't figure out how to cook it so they throw it away, but large numbers of others who can't afford to eat full stop, society has gone badly adrift.
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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by dyqik » Mon Jan 24, 2022 2:49 am

Pishwish wrote:
Mon Jan 24, 2022 1:11 am

As for that stuff about people not knowing what to cook, not everyone has the skills, time or inclination to figure out how to make a meal out of the random ingredients left in their fridge; it's just easier to cook what you're used to.
Or they find that they just don't have the spoons to cook with certain things before they go off, even when they were bought with the best intentions and would normally be used.

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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by Grumble » Mon Jan 24, 2022 8:44 am

I didn’t used to waste any food, but then I had children.
where once I used to scintillate
now I sin till ten past three

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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by Bird on a Fire » Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:26 pm

Interesting one.

A Norwegian supermarket started printing "carbon receipts" telling customers the carbon footprint of the products they'd bought. Apparently customers liked it, and started avoiding unsustainable products:
Customer feedback has, reportedly, been positive and a surge in plant-based groceries has been identified. “One in every five burgers sold is now vegetarian and the popularity of vegetarian meals generally has grown. Lentil soup was one of our top ten sold recipes last year – the previous years it was nowhere near the top ten,” Fuchs confirmed.

Oda has revealed that its customers buy more than 50 percent more fresh produce than average Norwegian consumers. Meat alternatives have seen an 80 percent increase in popularity. Both revelations have come about since the launch of its climate receipt initiative. Now, other companies are looking to create similar transparency.
I'm normally sceptical of individualist consumer-based measures, but if carbon/ecological (e.g. water consumption) labelling were as mandatory as nutritional labelling and it helps send market signals to an entire sector it could be powerful.

And crucially this isn't even a Pigovian tax. Prices haven't changed. Consumers have just been informed. And lentils are cheaper protein than red meat anyway.

What do folk think?

Oh yeah linky, the pithy quote is from https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/red-meat- ... da-norway/ but the Metro piece is better https://metro.co.uk/2021/11/11/will-cli ... -15561420/
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Re: Carbon and food production, split from packaging

Post by Fishnut » Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:55 pm

That is interesting. Like you, I've skeptical of individualistic approaches. The food traffic light ratings apparently nudge people to make better choices but it's not clear how significant or meaningful that nudge is and, as this piece highlights, their simplicity means that the important nuances of nutrition are often overlooked (for example, making it seem like fruit juice and fizzy drinks are nutritionally equivalent).

My immediate cynicism wonders how the carbon receipts will get laundered to make it seem that products carbon use is lower than it is in reality. I do also worry that it will somehow be used to shame people or let companies off the hook (e.g. "we've told customers the carbon usage, it's up to them whether or not they buy the product"). More optimistically, it might mean that companies are forced to change their production practices in order to reduce their now-public wasteful ones.
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