What nutritional contributions with global warming? by Dr Cocaul

THE’inertia general current leads us to a health disaster and of course ecological. The development of societal diseases is of concern. Our society generates new pathologies or amplifies them. We cannot continue to feed ourselves as we do.

Why do we need to change our food dogma?

THE’obesity, undernourishment and climate change are three facets of the same threatens for humanity: a “global syndemic” that must be combated globally. The medical journal The Lancet echoed this by developing the concept of One Health, “One health”. The disappearance of fauna, the global warming, obesity and malnutrition… everything is interconnected. We cannot talk about one without taking into account the other problems.

Common drivers of these three evils are powerful business interests, an inadequate and inappropriate political response, and a lack of civil society mobilization too focused on immediate economic growth. A preliminary observation: it is estimated that by 2050, global demand for food and feed will increase by 50 and 70% respectively.

Another observation: the number of obese people has more than doubled in 73 countries since 1980 and continues to grow in other nations, resulting in a sharp increase in overweight related diseases. Excess body weight is believed to affect 2 billion people worldwide, causing 4 million deaths, at an annual cost of US $ 2 billion, or 2.8% of GDP global.

The deforestation, the disappearance of cash, pollution and climate change are increasing concomitantly. The consequences will be particularly dramatic for the poorest countries and for the poorest populations.

Extreme weather events could both deprive some populations of food and push up the price of fruits and vegetables. This will increase the consumption of ultra-processed industrial foods with the corresponding increase in emissions of greenhouse gas. This will destabilize the natural balance of the planet by contributing significantly to global warming.

We can no longer pretend we don’t know, now we know that our food fashion directly influences our planet and therefore the survival of living things. We must therefore urgently change the food paradigm and stop our procrastination guilty. We are all guilty. The answer is not only political, it is societal.

What society do we want for ourselves and our descendants?

What are the consequences of global warming at the food level?

Climate instability is a major factor in increasing hunger in the world and is one of the main causes of serious food crises according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.Agriculture (FAO).

The food vulnerability levels of the populations are increasing significantly. Today more than 690 million people in the world suffer from hunger for various reasons and climate change is one of them. If left unchecked, an additional 600 million people could go hungry by 2080 from climate change. 183 million people are in food stress because they suffer from a serious food insecurity.

The tension on the water becomes untenable. As droughts worsen, farmers are demanding more water reservoirs, even if it means building them illegally. Our current eating style exerts a pressure additional on water tables and rivers. Solutions must be found combining beneficial effects for biodiversity and the mitigation of climate change. The giants of agro-food are in the process of appropriating groundwater, which will increase international political tensions in this area in the coming decades, contributing to further weaken precarious populations.

What are the nutritional means of combating global warming?

As surprising as it sounds, fighting obesity is one way to fight global warming. According to the authors of a study published in the Revue Obesity in 2019, the increase in the average weight of human beings (650 million people are obese, according to the UN) and thepopulation growth (we will be near 10 billion in 2050) cause a marked increase in greenhouse gases.

Changing your eating habits may be more complex than it seems. The respective proportions of protein animals and plants in the diet of the French are around 60/40, while the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) are 50/50. Even if it is obvious that we must reduce our share of animal protein too polluting and harmful for our health when these are consumed in excess, the switch to vegetable proteins is not necessarily more virtuous at the ecological level if we take the example of Amazon deforestation in order to free up space for the production of cake soy.

In any case, it is necessary eat local and as much as possible to hunt the air transport of foodstuffs that can be found near home.

A worrying sign for the future of mankind is that we are witnessing a constant increase in the consumption of meat around the world. Because all the populations of countries emerging signify their change of social rank by starting to consume what they could not see previously offered: meat foods and increasingly processed or ultra-processed.

How does weight intervene in the production of greenhouse gases?

the metabolism of obese people produce more CO₂ : 81 kg of CO₂ moreover each year, the overconsumption of food and beverages and modes of transport respectively 593 kg and 476 kg of CO₂ additional per year.

People with obesity need more food for sustenance, not to mention that their transport requires moreenergy and therefore an increased consumption of fuels fossils. Treating obesity can, in addition, bring beneficial effects on the morbidity, mortality and health care costs, have a positive effect on the environment

What avenues to suggest?

• While there are opportunities to change food paradigm, it seemed edifying to me that, during the successive confinements, no television campaign evoked the prevention by fighting against the sedentary lifestyle and weight gain of our fellow citizens. We could have offered alternatives to ready-made meals, by asking consumers to eat locally, to prepare inexpensive and balanced protein dishes, for example by promoting vegetable proteins less expensive than animal proteins for populations in an economically precarious situation such as students, the unemployed, migrants newly settled in France, the elderly …

It was a unique opportunity to promote a new mode of consumption but the Ministry of Health or an organization like Public Health France only focused on the Covid-19 by generating a weather particularly anxiety-provoking, therefore a source of food cracking. The proof, the French took on average 2.5 kilos during the first confinement.

• There is a need to move towards a combination of public health policies (promotion of healthy diets and activity physical) and budgetary and fiscal policies (financing of sustainable production methods, taxes to reduce the consumption of red meat or promote non-motorized transport, etc.).

• Our cultures must be more adapted to seasons and our soils. The land must also be allowed to rest by leaving it fallow. We are exhausting our soils and our water.
• Proteins of animal origin are found in meats, Pisces and seafood, eggs and dairy products. They provide, in balanced proportions, all the essential amino acids that the body needs. We must educate consumers to vary their sources of animal protein but not to sacrifice them by ignorance of equivalences. People wishing to change their dietary pattern (vegetarianism, veganism) must be accompanied and in any case educated.

• Proteins of plant origin cereals (corn, rice, But, barley, rye, etc.) and the products made from them (flour, bread, pasta, etc.), tubers (potatoes), pulses or legumes (split peas, chickpeas, lenses, beans, white beans, red beans …) are unbalanced in one or more essential amino acids. However, by judiciously combining foods, either of animal and vegetable origin (eg: pasta with Gruyère), or cereals and legumes (eg: rice and red beans, semolina and chickpeas, …), it is possible to constitute a supply of vegetable proteins of acceptable nutritional quality and inexpensive. Posters or campaigns promoting vegetable proteins would be welcome.

• Other sources of inexpensive protein and perfectly legitimate can be improved at the level of operating channels, I think with seaweed, France having one of the largest maritime areas in the world.
• THE’food education must begin from the conception of the child with pregnant women by evoking this differently according to the social environment, the origin, the economic means, the place of residence. We do not talk about nutrition to 67 million French people equally. The speech must adapt.
• It is essential to do this education the earliest possible in a transversal way by including all kinds of actors of civil life, whether they are doctors, dieticians, cooks, teachers, consumer associations, food manufacturers, associations charities, breeders, farmers, farmers, economists, politicians, athletes etc.