Dishes made from meat, legumes or rice tend to have a greater footprint on biodiversity, study finds

Dishes like Brazilian steak and Indian red bean curry have a particularly large footprint, or impact on biodiversity, according to a study published in the open access journal. PLOS ONE by Elissa Cheng of the National University of Singapore, Singapore, and colleagues.

Food choices can have significant environmental impacts. Previous research has begun to develop datasets identifying the encroachment of specific crops on the ranges of birds, mammals and amphibians. Based on this data, Cheng and his colleagues estimated the impact of 151 different popular dishes from around the world on biodiversity.

The authors used lists of popular dishes taken from CNN.com and TasteAtlas.com, standardizing each dish to 825 kCal.

They calculated the biodiversity footprint of each dish’s ingredient by looking at the richness, conservation status and range of wild mammals, birds and amphibians on the agricultural land used for the specific product, and added the footprint of each ingredient to generate an overall biodiversity footprint. for each dish. Footprint scores varied depending on whether the ingredient was locally or globally sourced, and whether it was grown industrially or on a small scale.

The 20 dishes with the largest biodiversity footprints included several Brazilian steak dishes (picanha, churrasco, fraldinha) and other meat dishes like pork salsa verde, yukgaejang (a Korean spicy beef and vegetable stew) and caldo de pollo (chicken soup) – but also vegan dishes like dal (lentil soup), rajma (a red bean curry), chana masala (chickpea curry) and idli (a salty fermented rice cake).

Overall, these tended to be beef and chicken dishes, as well as legumes and rice. For vegan and vegetarian dishes from the Indian subcontinent, industrially grown rice and legumes tend to have a particularly high impact on endangered species and range biodiversity indicators.

Brazilian beef and lamb dishes have also had a significant impact on biodiversity due to the conversion of the Amazon rainforest and other diverse ecosystems to pastures. The 20 dishes with the smallest biodiversity footprints were generally vegetarian/vegan, starchy, and grain or potato-based – fry-type recipes like pomme frites and triple-cooked chips, kartoffelpuffer (an apple pancake of German soil) and baguettes, for example. .

The authors note that they did not differentiate between wildlife capable of surviving in cultivated habitats and wildlife with specific natural habitat needs – and looked specifically at mammals, birds and amphibians. They also note that the dishes reviewed here are not necessarily representative and focus on dishes from high-GDP countries, and that variation in recipes may lead to different results.

Regardless, this study highlights the importance of specific ingredients and production areas in terms of their impact on biodiversity.

The authors add: “Small changes in what we choose to eat and where ingredients come from can go a long way to preventing species extinction. In addition to the large footprint of beef and lamb dishes from countries containing biodiversity hotspots, vegetarian dishes from countries with high biodiversity and high human pressure such as India, may also be very detrimental to biodiversity.