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Food
This year’s smaller gatherings due to the pandemic provide another opportunity to re-set holiday traditions for the better, writes Priya Krishna for the New York Times. She explains that sustainability is a part of Native American culture and as well as the heritage of many ethnic Americans. Yet, the way we usually prepare Thanksgiving’s big […]
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This week, McDonald’s announced that it was launching the McPlant burger, a completely vegan burger created by the fast-food chain and Beyond Meat. The release is a part of the company’s effort to reduce its carbon footprint, 29% of which can be attributed to the sourcing of beef.
Why This Matters: Food production accounts for about 30% of global emissions. Beef is the most climate-damaging food on the planet, producing carbon emissions at every step of the supply chain.
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The COVID-19 pandemic is “ratchet[ing] up the pressure” to automate harvesting processes, Civil Eats reported. Alongside the rising cost of labor and the increasingly dangerous conditions caused by wildfires, more and more farmers are considering this move to automate their harvests with robots replacing up to half the farmworkers currently needed.
Why This Matters: As Twilight Greenaway wrote for Civil Eats, “If the people doing the work on farms are getting sick, the logic goes, why not just replace them with machines?”
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The World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) recent 2020 Living Planet Report exposed that the most important direct driver of species loss is land-use change, in particular, the conversation of pristine native habitats into agricultural systems. Which is why what people eat makes such a difference in stopping the degradation of nature. This is the focus of a […]
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Last summer, 16 Bay Area ranchers joined forces to form the Bay Area Ranchers Co-op. BAR-C, a start-up hoping to challenge the unsustainable and monopolistic corporate meatpacking industry.
Why this matters: Changing the food industry in the U.S. will be a key to tackling the climate challenge.
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A recent study demonstrated that perennial vegetables are very important in preventing and mitigating soil erosion and climate change, Virginia Gewin reported last month for Civil Eats. This category of vegetables, which grow year-round, goes beyond simply artichokes and asparagus — they studied over 600 species. And they were able to demonstrate a “full accounting of their potential to pull carbon from the atmosphere.”
Why This Matters: As the authors of the study contend, “Perennial vegetables are a neglected and underutilized class of crops with potential to address 21st-century challenges.”
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