... were very popular in my family. For me, these dishes are not just simple meals among many others, they evoke childhood memories, emotions and images of family celebrations and Christmas evenings. Our eating habits have a much greater meaning for many of us than just being the means of choice to satisfy hunger. They are linked to habits, events, traditions and culture. That is unfortunately why it is so difficult to change them. From a purely ecological perspective, however, this would be one of the most effective ways to properly polish up our individual climate balance. After all, food is the most expensive cost item in terms of our personal CO2 balance, just behind housing and mobility (1). The production of our food requires huge areas of land, which unfortunately all too often leads to the clearing of forests or the draining of swamps. It also requires vast amounts of water, creates dirt and emissions from packaging and transport, and often leaves pesticides, fertilisers and antibiotics in the soil or the product itself. And no matter how attached I am to roulades and cheese spaetzle, the fact that about 80% of CO2 emissions generated by food production are due to agricultural livestock alone forces me to rethink (2). By switching from an omnivorous diet with meat and dairy products to a vegan diet, individual emissions caused by food could be significantly reduced. To be more precise, even by up to 70% (3)! But don't worry - if you want to eat in a more climate-friendly way, you don't have to convert to veganism overnight. Even just switching to a vegetarian diet can save a lot of CO2 emissions, namely up to 45%-55%. In addition, giving up meat also has some health benefits. The risk of heart attacks, strokes, cancer and type-2-diabetes is significantly reduced (3).
If you still don't want to follow a new diet, you can try to reduce the basic amount of animal products you consume as a first step. For example, how about reintroducing the Sunday roast, which is also familiar from childhood days, and doing without meat for the rest of the week? In addition, one day a week could be made vegan, for example. Or you could start by avoiding red meat. The production of red meat produces the most emissions of all types of meat and is also the unhealthiest. If you reduce your consumption of meat and animal dairy products step by step, the change will be much easier. You can also collect some climate points when you do your weekly grocery shopping. If you buy regional, seasonal and preferably always organic, you avoid unnecessary emissions from long-distance transport, pesticides, preservatives and flavour enhancers and also support local farmers. Personally, I have decided to start a vegetarian diet and only buy organic fruit and vegetables. If you buy this from a discounter, the financial cost is still reasonable. Anyway, I don't have to stop eating my loved classic festive dishes. Last week, I cooked a mushroom cream sauce with "chicken ragout" and dumplings using soy cutlets and oat cream. With the saved greenhouse gases in my head, it tasted even better than before. ????
Interessante Literatur dazu / Some literature:
(1) Buhl, J., Liedtke, C., Teubler, J., & Bienge, K. (2019). The material footprint of private households in Germany: linking the natural resource use and socioeconomic characteristics of users from an online footprint calculator in Germany. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 20, 74–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2019.05.001
(2) Vermeulen, S. J., Campbell, B. M., & Ingram, J. S. I. (2012). Climate change and food systems. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 37, 195–222. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-020411-130608
(3) Springmann, M., Godfray, H., Rayner, M., & Scarborough, P. (2016). Analysis and valuation of the health and climate change cobenefits of dietary change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, 113(15), 4146-4151. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1523119113
Rezept Tipp: / Recipe suggestion:
Veganes Gulasch - https://www.slowlyveggie.de/rezepte/veganes-gulasch-das-beste-rezept
