Footprints

Does what you choose to eat really matter?

Food for me has been the gateway to learning about sustainability. Since climate change (or global warming, depending on who you think popularised that term) and sustainability as a whole is such a particularly large hyper-object there are any number of lenses through which I could have initially seen this problem. But for me, it was food.

Caring about what I eat opened the door to artisanal food which introduced me to the notion of traceable food. The cultural shift in coffee consumption (the third wave) since the 1980s follows a similar trend. If food wasn’t local, so local you could recognise the soil on the stem or the cow on the bottle than at least we could trace its origins to, ideally, a single farm. That way we could at least interact with global food in the same way as local.

For coffee, this is sometimes framed as a sustainability concern but just as often it’s in search of the highest quality. As I’ve seen in other areas of food production, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Whether quality products taste better because of a higher nutrient density, lack of questionable practices or palatable placebo the fact is they often do.

There was a time, at least for local food, where all food was like this. When it wasn’t possible or feasible to ship produce from another continent to your local supermarket, no one needed to research where the food came from since it was obvious. Even the most devout local foodies will often concede that it can be allowed to trade for items which can’t be produced locally; the high cost and potentially dubious origins of these products acting as another check and balance in their desirability.

Spending time tracing the origin of your food has a distinctly new-liberal vibe. It feels like the sort of thing an active consumer would do to ensure they are getting the best product. New liberalism (neo-liberalism, if you like modern latin) is based on these kinds of beliefs and practices. It’s the idea that we are responsible for ourselves; for our needs to be met and our goals achieved it is most important that we strive as individuals. Capital economists and conservative politics love these perspectives because it basically means if you want something it’s up to you (not the government) to provide for that need and if you fail it is also on your shoulders.

I’ve realised in writing this that I can’t delve too deeply into the political aspect of footprints without coming a bit off topic. Simply put, I don’t think this idea makes much sense right now. This is because ‘right now’ we live on a finite planet with little or no ability beyond imagination of how to source resources from elsewhere. As well, ‘right now’ is the historical moment preceded by all the other inequalities and chance which led to today. It might apply to a group of individuals who began with equal opportunities who live in a boundless universe, but it didn’t and we don’t.

Returning to food.

When we knew that food came from the farm, the front or back yard, the forest or the ocean, in summary: the earth, it was also clear that all food chains begin with sunlight. The purest and most efficient form of caloric energy available is from photons. Even organisms which don’t feed directly off radiation (fungi, animals) mostly get their energy from the bodies of the life which fed from sunlight.

Maybe this sounds familiar, that all food chains begin with plants. Broadly, the way a circular energy system on earth functions is that plants make caloric energy from sunlight and carbon, animals consume plants or other animals (who have consumed plants) for carbon and fungi consume plants and animals for carbon, on a matrix of which we call soil so plants can grow. Of course, it is much much much more complicated than this. But if that’s all you know, you can understand this argument.

The main distinction between phases of this cycle is what we call the carbon and how it’s arranged in molecules. You might also remember that plants need carbon dioxide to breathe, much like we need oxygen. This is where they consume carbon.

An argument I’ve heard against carbon dioxide sequestering is that since it’s what plants breathe maybe it’s actually a good thing there’s more carbon in the atmosphere even if there’s less in the soil. The reason this doesn’t work is twofold.

Firstly, just as an example, we breathe oxygen at 21% and it’s good for us, 50% and it’s toxic. As with any system, there is such a thing as not enough and too much.

Second, plants use carbon like we use carbon, as sugar. They create carbohydrates using carbon dioxide and solar energy. More carbon means more carbohydrates. This goes towards building their bodies the same way it does towards animals. More carbohydrates (more carbon) means a larger organism.

If you still think that’s a good thing, consider that of all the identifiable parts of food which we need to survive, carbohydrates are the most superfluous. Of the macronutrients, protein and fats are more essential in that order and increased carbohydrates likely either dilute or diminish micronutrient density. So larger, not more nutritious, organisms. And while nutrition science might be in it’s infancy less nutritious plants and resulting humans appears to mean less healthy ones. Micheal Pollan has noted repeatedly that it shouldn’t be a surprise that we’re unwell as a species when we eat so few plants and those we do eat are so nutrient poor?

Decreasing plant nutrient density has also been linked to soil degradation, a subject gaining increasing and worrying attention. Since instead of healthy organic matter we’re increasingly growing food organisms in essentially inorganic rock washed with just three macronutrients: Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium (NPK).

You might argue that certain plants are grown specifically for carbohydrates. Who cares about how much healthy protein and fat is in a carrot?

Even as a boon to carbohydrate production the argument lacks merit. Think of Dan Barber’s famous zero brix carrot from the book The Third Plate. The leaves of the carrot are fat with cellulose and carbohydrates because there is so much carbon in the air. Why store any in the root? That carrot, much like the people who eat it, is mostly water. The cellulose (a plant fibre) we can’t digest. So a modern industrial carrot is basically pre-hydrated fibre supplement. You’re paying for a lot of water weight and fibre but very little flavour.

If all this makes you mad, you’re not alone. For me it’s at least a reminder of why I choose to shop the way that I do. But that’s where it comes back around to choices. My food choices vs the corporation’s. My footprint vs theirs.

There’s an unhealthy debate in our community about personal versus political responsibility. Some believe that since individual action accounts for so little a portion of global consumption, it’s best to just ignore personal choices and instead focus on changing political and corporate behaviour. Others see the world as a capitalist market system, where individual choice is, in an ideal scenario, all that matters and that if we want change we need to vote with our dollars.

It’s often pointed out that the notion of a personal carbon footprint instead of a collective carbon economy was proposed by BP (a British Petroleum company) in a marketing campaign designed to point the finger at consumers. After all, they aren’t making gas (petrol) for nobody. We all seem to want their product. But while the origin of the idea might be dubious we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

As with so many complex issues, it seems to me that an approach marrying the two is most sensible. We don’t need to be afraid of being hypocrites to speak up politically and we don’t need to be perfect politically to have some influence at home or work. But of course in the media nuance is boring and doesn’t get clicks.

Honestly I’m not pessimistic personally; I’ve just grown up around marketing and often get paid as a copywriter.

Instead of carbon or carb-o footprints perhaps we can think of consumption like a donut. As Kate Raworth points out, there is a sweet spot in terms of economic participation where you have everything you need but not more or less. I’ve personally started to phrase this notion to myself as the “enough” principle. With any system, there is such a thing as not enough and too much. Why should economics be any different? Whether micro or macro (home or global), doubly so.