On the impact of food purchases

19 Sep 2007

Got questions about the environment? Ask Umbra.

Hi Umbra,

I practically live on Lean Cuisine (that brand specifically -- they are frequently on sale for $2 each). In my community, the plastic tray is recyclable, as is the cardboard box. The only thing that goes in the trash is the film that covers the tray. Microwave time averages five minutes per entree. Total dirty dishes: one fork.

I have a friend who swears I'm a hypocrite -- that cooking is "better" for the environment. I maintain that more packaging goes into the trash when cooking, and certainly the stove is burning for a lot longer than five minutes. (I assume economies of scale for cooking in bulk at the Lean Cuisine factory, as well as delivery and packaging of their ingredients!) Then we have hot water and dish soap for all the cooking pans, plus tableware.

Am I a hypocrite? Would the earth be happier if I made my lemongrass chicken and cheese ravioli from scratch? I'll be hungrily awaiting your reply!

Finicky in Fitchburg

Dearest Finicky,

I came, I thaw, I contherved.

Photo: iStockphoto

I have no quibble with your household energy and waste calculations about Lean Cuisine vs. cooking a meal from scratch. Microwaves are very efficient energy users, it's great that you don't need to run any hot water to clean up, and the Lean Cuisine factory may indeed be quite efficient as well. When you look at it that way, cooking isn't particularly better. But I'm appalled that you wrote me this letter, which appears to be a sincere question about the environmental impact of your food purchasing choices.

I must simply be appalled at the lack of clarity in my own messages about food choices to my dearest readers. Plus I must laugh very hard, because you do have a point and I will say yes, you are keeping your home energy use lower through using Lean Cuisine. Lean Cuisine for everyone! I don't know why I didn't think of it before, really.

Let me attempt higher clarity about food purchases. When we are overwhelmed by the purchasing choices that surround us, we should take refuge in focusing on food, transportation, and home efficiency. These are three important categories in which our shopping and daily habits have a meaningful impact. Therefore, we should think through our food habits in an effort to refine them and refine ourselves as environmental citizens.

Food production can generate a lot of environmental problems, some of which I detailed in a recent column. For example, it's best to eat little meat because so much meat is grown in crowded, awful enclosures, and the resultant effluent is concentrated yuckiness dumped in streams and rivers. Plus the food fed to confined animals is corn or soy or other crops grown in pesticide-intensive systems. From use of petroleum to pollution of waterways to air pollution (by smell and particle) to human-health impacts, conventional agriculture is really smacking nature around.

Ask Umbra continues below

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Although I honestly don't know firsthand the source of foods used in Lean Cuisine meals, only giant farms could provide the consistency and volume of product required by the economies of scale you mention. Lean Cuisine is a Nestle product, Nestle is one of the world's largest food companies, Lean Cuisine Café Classic meals alone had $241.1 million in sales last year. At that scale we can be fairly certain your lemongrass meal comes from chicken shoehorned in with 25,000 other chickens at a giant stinky chicken farm run by a contract farmer earning poverty-level wages. Who knows about the vegetables, they could come from Mexico or Chile or California, and their very existence is likely completely dependent on fertilizers and pesticides.

Prepared foods such as Lean Cuisine all have this sort of history. It's just the way it is, the food system that has developed since the Second World War. Our food shopping dollars help to support that food system, but we can also help to create a different food system -- one with an emphasis on sustainability. We can see the impact of consumer food purchasing in the growth of the organics industry.

From an environmental perspective, reducing our participation in the conventional food system is a higher priority than recycling, than washing fewer forks, than dish soap. There are multiple ways to reduce our participation in the conventional food system. A few easy ones are to buy less meat, to make at least some organic food part of our diet, and to buy fewer processed food products.

I would never tell you to completely stop eating Lean Cuisine -- well, I would. But you seem to love it, so I won't. Just be aware that a recyclable package is no compensation for the food chain that brought you your meal.

Clearly,
Umbra

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Please send Umbra any nagging question pertaining to the environment -- but first check out her FAQs!

The claims made in this column may not reflect the views of this magazine. Neither the magazine nor the author guarantees that any advice contained in this column is wise or safe. Please use this column at your own risk.

Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

Comments: (21 comments)

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Amy's is an alternative

I mainly avoid microwavable dishes, which is easier to do in the summer and fall when my local farmer's market is open, but when I do need something quick, companies like Amy's and Moosewoods serve some fairly tasty vegetarian and often vegan microwavables products that use a number of organic ingredients. Whole Foods also has a line of vegetarian/vegan and organic friendly quick meals.

by amc89 at 9:30 AM on 19 Sep 2007

Amy's Frozen Foods are great.

I was just going to say the same thing. Amy's (http://www.amyskitchen.com/) makes wonderful frozen vegetarian meals using natural and organic ingredients - and they are delicious. I keep some at the office so I can have something tasty and healthy when I can't leave for lunch.

They are a little bit more expensive than Lean Cuisine but the taste alone is worth it!

by kayakpatty at 12:04 PM on 19 Sep 2007

Make Your Own.

I'd say make your own frozen dinners if you can. Cooking for one can be time consuming and energy intensive, depending on what you cook. However when you cook larger amounts, you get economies of scale as well. Most prepared foods can be frozen in reusable containers for later use. One way to start this is to make double servings when you do cook. One for now and one for later. Freeze the second serving. Soon, you'll have a whole freezer full of "Finicky Cuisine" meals. Leftovers are great when they come from great food.

I would also suggest eating more raw foods such as salads and fruit with your meals. This will cut down on your energy requirements as well.

As far as Whole Foods, it would be nice if they were everywhere but sadly most people in the country do not have access to one. Tesco's however is building 400 smaller stores (10-15 thousand sq. ft.) in California, Nevada and Oregon this year and they will carry similar meals.

by wayneluke at 12:10 PM on 19 Sep 2007

"recyclable"

My 2 or 3 cents...I dislike plastic containers and just because it has the chasing arrows doesn't mean it is entirely recyclable. Many communities offer to "recycle" all numbers in an effort to get most of the plastic that is recyclable. Where I live, we have a stellar recycling facility that educates the community about what it can and cannot recycle. Even some 1's and 2's cannot be recycled in MN because they are molded plastic rather than blown plastic and the molds use fillers that are garbage plastic. It is also really energy intensive to make plastic and recycle it. I think Amy's uses paperboard which might be biodegradable (I haven't looked in awhile)...so that is swell! Just some thoughts.

by mckuhl at 12:42 PM on 19 Sep 2007

Kashi Natural Frozen Dinners

I love the Kashi Natural Frozen Dinners. They are healthy and low fat. There are several varieties, Black Bean Mango is one of my favorites.
http://www.kashi.com/products/kashi_entrees_black_bean_ma ...

Although they may also use plastic containers.

-July, ND, USA

by julygreen at 1:53 PM on 19 Sep 2007

Recyclable Part Deux

It looks like MN is doing a great job on letting us know the markets in our area. It is true that some states take all plastics, but in general, most plastics are not recyclable due to the lack of markets. Also, the cardboard box that Lean Cuisine uses is NOT recyclable, but IS compostable. Most people make the mistake that all cardboard boxes are paper recyclable, but any of boxes that go in the fridge or freezer (i.e. microwavable meals--organic or not) cannot be recycled due to the wax layer. So, the rule: if it goes in the cupboard or bathroom or closet, it's recyclable, if it goes in the fridge or freezer--not recyclable (BUT compostable)--this goes for 12/24 packs of soda too.

by logocat at 1:56 PM on 19 Sep 2007

Sodium

Another concern about frozen foods, is the large amounts of salt. If it's a frozen meal, it probably has way too much salt. Supposedly we should only be having 500mg of salt per day. And I'm sure that one meal has that much sodium or perhaps a little bit less.
Not only is it environmentally bad but it's not healthy in some aspects.

by truncoxx at 2:03 PM on 19 Sep 2007

Processed and frozen

I've been a vegetarian for some 20 years, but I'm a lazy vegetarian and have become dependent on products with names like "Chik Patties" I've recently been advised that the amount of energy involved in the processing, transport and freezing make my food choice a bad one for the planet. I'm having considerable trouble weaning myself away from the veggie burgers and soy sausages that I can just zap (please don't say "nuke") in the micro-wave and eat. I have no question or advice, I'm just complaining.

by Mary Gilbert at 2:46 PM on 19 Sep 2007

Fabulous food ideas....

Since setting my goal of fresh and local I have come to realize how WONDERFUL truly FRESH FOOD tastes. No excess fat from who knows where, no MSG, aspartame, high fructose corn syrup,red dye, excessive sodium etc, etc. Just try organic, wash your food or grow it yourself-if you don't spray weeds and pests near your property. Join a CSA if possible. Since weaning myself off all those truly UN-NECESSARY additives I find myself eating much less! Many of these additives are shown to increase our taste for more of the same sweeteners, sodium and fats. Skip going to the local ST....coffe shop for a 700+ calorie $8.00 drink full of all of the 'stuff' mentioned earlier. Saturday morning get out those fresh vegies and spend the day making wonderful vegetarian soups, etc. Freeze them in GLASS JARS in appropriate serving sizes. Buy your fresh spinach and/or romaine, clean it but do not chop it ahead. Wash thoroughly leaf by leaf, spin in the spinner and leave it there for use during the week as needed. Clean & cut into salad size bites your celery, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, red/green pepper. Have some nice VINE RIPENED tomatoes ready on your counter-DO NOT REFRIGERATE. Organic grilled chicken can be slivered and added to your salad as well. Some ORGANIC feta, blue cheese, raw milk cheddar etc. Make your own salad dressings. High fiber bread toasted w/roasted garlic. Saute some garlic and fresh spinach and serve with a scrambled egg or two for breakfast. It does NOT TAKE THAT LONG!! Fresh fruit in season or frozen served w/ Kefir over top makes a fabulous desert. You get the idea. Oh yes, don't forget to switch to coconut oil for cooking/sauteing. MAKE YOUR NEW HEALTHY DIET YOUR NEWEST ART FORM!!! Oh, I can't deny that I don't have St....Java Chip once or twice a year but truthfully, it just reminds me that my style of cooking and eating is so much better tasting. The internet or bookstore has more than enough resources to get you knee-deep in HEALTHY EATING AND ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND HOUSEHOLD AND PERSONAL HEALTH HABITS...Now, walk to the Organic Food store for your excercise. Oh, and stop useing that microwave...it changes the way your body utilizes the food.

by frantique1 at 3:39 PM on 19 Sep 2007

Microwaves Don't Mutate Your Food

Frantique, while I support most of your suggestions, (CSA, not refrigerating tomatoes, preparing your own food, etc.), your lack of paragraph breaks and random punctuation make my head hurt. And as for your last suggestion:

stop useing [sic] that microwave...it changes the way your body utilizes the food.

It does, but that's only because microwave ovens, just like conventional ovens or hot oil, heat the food contained therein. Microwaving does the exact same thing that any other dry-heat cooking method would do. Specifically, it denatures proteins (including enzymes) and breaks down the cell walls in plants that prevent us from absorbing all of the vitamins present in the food. Yes, it destroys a few vitamins and shuts down enzymatic action, but it usually unlocks more vitamins than it destroys (especially in cruciferous vegetables), making them available for us to use. And those enzymes, they weren't going to survive the trip anyway.

For further information, I'd suggest the Ask a Scientist column on the Newton website, an educational resource site run by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Among other things, they say:
Heat, of any sort above about 50 degrees C pretty much destroys any of the
enzymatic activity in most foods. This will occur when one either cooks by
microwave of normal oven, simmering, frying etc.

as well as:
There is nothing special about the microwave; it is just a convenient way to heat food quickly. If you want to preserve enzyme activity in food, do not heat it.

-- A.

Taking accounting to the extreme since 2004.

by akbeancounter at 5:14 PM on 19 Sep 2007

Appreciation for Umbra

I have only recently found this site & I LOVE IT! I also always read the comments as I always pick up more information.

Umbra I want to specifically thank you for answering this question (and many others). You are able to address issue with a multidimensional view that you find in very few other places. This was also a question I have wondered about.

I want to also thank akbeancounter. Any scientific description I here from reputable sources have mentioned that microwaving food is not a problem. The page that you referenced at Ask a Scientist was fantastic, and I have saved it as a favorite as I am sure I will reference it for others.

by AltNrg4U at 7:02 PM on 19 Sep 2007

Vegetarianism

Eating as low on the food chain as possible is, of course, best - which would involve becoming a vegetarian or, even better, a vegan. I have not given up dairy, eggs, and cheese completely, although I consume very small amounts. I, too, would recommend Amy's products and must confess that I use too many prepared vegetarian products rather than cooking from scratch. I would also advise making purchases from local organic stores rather than large chains if those are available. Here in Portland, Oregon, we are fortunate to have Market of Choice and New Seasons which are great alternatives to Whole Foods and Wild Oats. As you probably are aware, Whole Foods has taken over Wild Oats and the CEO of Whole Foods has made several repugnant statements about killing the competition. Horrors!!

Marylou

Marylou Noble

by marylounoble at 2:55 AM on 20 Sep 2007

Frozen food, however cleanly grown

Everybody from Wayneluke and the recommendations for frozen organic like Kashi are pretending that their freezers are not part of the problem -- and not only their freezer at home, but the freezing at the manufacturers' sites, the 'refrigerated trucks', the retailers' inefficient freezers where the door is opened every 5 minutes (if they're lucky and selling). The freezing itself, the energy involved (and the carbon cost -- high, as especially home freezers are not efficient), plus the high cost of manufacturing the freezer in the first place (about the worst appliance in your kitchen - forget kicking the microwave!), are issues that this conversation is turning a blind eye to. Don't give up 'a food source' -- actually, and though I don't want this to be read as an apology for manufactured food, one virtue of those pre-packed meals is that the manufacturers are more cost-conscious and avoid more food waste than we do when buying fresh food to assemble ourselves, eventually... But Do, please, give up your freezer, even if you're only using it to freeze the 2nd and 3rd servings of meals you've cooked yourself, and you're storing there for later. Until freezer-makers lose the domestic market, they won't try harder to find new tech tricks that maybe one day will make these machines less culpable.

by michelefield at 11:19 AM on 20 Sep 2007

Coconut oiil...uggg

Excellent Q&A.

But to respond to one of the comments above, where in the world did you get the idea that coconut oil is healthy???

by fern36 at 9:26 AM on 21 Sep 2007

Don't freeze food?

Wow, are you kidding me? What is your alternative? Canning? Do you think all the cooking, washing, materials, etc. don't make this energy-intensive as well?

Preserving food is a must, if we are going to try to return to eating locally and in season. Unless we want to eat produce shipped from a different hemisphere, or only eat snow and storage vegetables all winter, some form of preservation is necessary.

Yes, all forms of preservation are fairly energy-intensive (drying might be the least -- another question for Umbra!), but since I don't want to be completely dependent on the food processing industry, I'll stick with my freezer, thank you very much.

Energy Use comparisons (Energy Star models); values are quick and dirty means that I calculated from their data. (fun with Pivot Tables)

Refrigerators (bottom freezer, top freezer, side by side): 496 kWh/year; 24 kWh/yr/cu.ft.

Freezers: 457 kWh/year; 29.6 kWh/yr/cu.ft.

Dave

by dhwert at 10:05 AM on 21 Sep 2007
[ Parent ]

Coconut oil is healthy

Why do you think it's not?

http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/coconut-oil-stud ...

"In this study, virgin coconut oil ... had a beneficial effect in lowering total cholesterol, triglycerides, phospholipids and low density lipoproteins (LDL)."

"A few researchers have known for some time that a derivative of coconut oil, lauric acid and monolaurin, are safe antimicrobial agents that can either kill completely or stop the growth of some of the most dangerous viruses and bacteria."

by dhwert at 10:11 AM on 21 Sep 2007
[ Parent ]

Recycling, Part 3

Paperboard frozen food trays are NOT coated in wax. They are coated in a layer of plastic. All of them. Which means they are not recyclable AND I would not put them in my compost.

The black plastic trays that Lean Cuisine and other frozen meals come in have a recycling "chasing arrows" symbol, but that does not mean that they are actually recycled everywhere. Here in the Bay Area, they are not recycled by any of the cities where I live or work or my husband works.

And just because an area accepts an item for curbside pickup doesn't mean that the item actually gets recycled either. Some areas will accept everything so that residents don't have to figure out what not to put in, and then whatever they can't sell gets landfilled.

It was very hard, but I finally gave up frozen meals altogether. You can read about my research and experiences trying to find "green" frozen foods here:

http://www.fakeplasticfish.com/labels/frozen%20foods.html ...

Beth Terry http://www.fakeplasticfish.com

by Beth Terry at 2:15 PM on 21 Sep 2007

Freezers.

My freezer uses $20.00 a year in electricity. That is pretty darn efficient in my book. The microwave would use more. I am not pretending it isn't part of the part. There isn't another solution for my needs at this time. I have my meat raised locally. This means I get 300 lbs of pork at once. It isn't going to stay edible sitting in the refrigerator or on the counter. Nor can I shop on a daily basis to keep foods. We do major shopping once a month, fill-ins once a week. Blanch and freeze what we can. I make our bread and snacks. We only use 1 gallon of milk a month (2 half gallon bottles because 1 gallons would spoil and add more waste), etc...

Might as well launch the world's nukes if you're going to preach and absolutist solution to everything. You can advocate getting rid of things but in the real world people need to make compromises. We gave up other things so that we can keep the freezer because it is necessary for our lives right now.

by wayneluke at 8:19 AM on 22 Sep 2007

err...

That was supposed to be...

My freezer uses $30 a year in electricity. Need to proofread better without the benefit of an edit function.

by wayneluke at 8:28 AM on 22 Sep 2007

why always buy food?

i am currenty living in a developing afrikan country, and while i know this article is more related to yoiu folks living in the states, there seems to be a very unstated conception, that one must buy thier food.

we can argue all day long about the beneifits or cons of one type of purchased food or another, buy they all do help contribute to a system that inevatabloies causes harm to the environment and the biodiversity therein. growing food for yourself is beyond easy, and for the majority of the world, it is a fact of life. the ebst way to "reduce your impact" is to make no impact, grow your food, eat what you can grow. pretend that this imaginary system of life suddenly imploded upon itself and there were no stores selling food, would we all die?

anywho, please forgive my spelling. its just one of the ways i stick it to the man

by burntpig at 8:30 AM on 26 Sep 2007

more on meat & vegetarianism

Vegetarianism may not be sufficient, yet it may be a necessary step for environmental sustainablity.
Yes, we should eat more whole foods and fewer processed "foods", and we should also say yes to healthy, local, organic, etc. But we absolutely need to say NO to meat and YES to vegetarianism.
Aside from the MANY ethical and health-related arguments for vegetarianism, it is increasingly clear that the many eco-arguments for veg are overwhelming.
Eco-Eating: Eating as if the Earth Matters
www.brook.com/veg
Meat Eating and Global Warming
www.ivu.org/members/globalwarming.html
"The human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future: deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities, and the spread of disease."
World Watch, July/Aug 2004
"There is a direct relationship between eating meat and the environment."
Andrea Gordon, If You Recycle, Why Are You Eating Meat?

"If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you could do."
Paul McCartney

Eco-Eating: Eating as if the Earth Matters at www.brook.com/veg

by CyberBrook at 12:14 PM on 26 Sep 2007

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You Are What You Buy

On the impact of food purchases