Changing our diet will be as relevant against climate change as recycling

The food chainespecially in the globalized world and overexploitation of the countryside and the sea, leaves behind a huge carbon footprint and poverty water that sharpens a climate change that perhaps can be mitigated by eating more sustainably.

This is how chefs and scientists defended it in a meeting prior to the Science & Cooking World Congress (SCWC) to be held in the Spanish city of Barcelona (northeast)in which the organization wants to present a decalogue of good practices for chefs, kitchen lovers and actors in the food chain in general, as explained by the person in charge of the event and gastronomic popularizer Pere Castells on Tuesday.

How will climate change affect gastronomy? Are insects and algae the foods of the future? Should we go back to traditional cooking? These have been some of the questions they tried to solve the Chilean chef and expert in scientific dissemination Heinz Wurth; the R&D and Environment coordinator at Aponiente, Juan Martín Bermúdez; and the expert in sustainability and waste management Oriol Vilaseca.

The latter pointed out that according to the FAOthe crisis of access to food is the fourth global risk in the perception of citizens in 2023 because there are more and more people going hungry and food is becoming more and more inaccessible due to the increase in transportation costs and the lack of water resources for its cultivation, among many other causes.

More insects and algae, and less meat

According to the FAO, 30,000 species are threatened with extinction as a result of the climate crisissome of them edible.

In addition, animal products produce between 10 and 50 times more greenhouse gases than vegetables.

The overexploitation of the sea will also cause more and more closures of some fish.

Without forgetting that it is warned that some vegetables and cereals will require so much water for their cultivation that they will cease to be profitable.

So what can we eat?

Chef Wurth reflected on the opportunity to introduce low-pollution breeding animals such as insects into gastronomy, although he recognized that although they are increasingly accepted in Asia and Mexico, “much of the western world is disgusted by them.”

“How to cook insects in an attractive and appetizing way is undoubtedly a challenge that many of us have and will have ahead of us, since eating is a cultural act that seeks pleasure”he pointed.

For his part, Bermúdez recalled the work of innovation and gastronomy carried out by the restaurant from Gadinato Aponiente (southern Spain) for years to offer sustainable and nutrient-dense products hitherto little used from the sea in its menu.

“We must empower kitchens to demand a sustainable way of producing fish, livestock or crops, and reject the unsustainable”, added.

Bermúdez indicated the possibilities offered by science and nature to obtain proteins with low environmental cost and, in this sense, use protein with low environmental cost such as plankton that the chef of Aponiente, Ángel León, uses instead of using large overexploited fish such as grouper or turbot.

Also Evarist March, botanical collaborator of the Celler de Can Roca, highlighted the role that will acquire new plants and vegetables in the future of the diet, yes, food capable of growing and cultivating with the new temperatures.

Less variety, but proximity

The chefs and scientists agreed that seasonal and zero kilometer food, that is, closeness, are one of the basic premises of the new conscious diet due to the environmental and supply crisis.

According to Oriol Vilaseca, a food and environmental consultant, the production of strawberries in Doñana (southern Spain) will be reduced by 80% in the 2050 horizon due to the climate change and varying rain patterns.

“Well, perhaps it is that we should not eat strawberries all year round, or add avocado to salads when in the Mediterranean they were not in the original recipe, for example”stressed the expert.

Source: EFE