Browsing by Author "Styles, David"
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- Comparative life cycle assessment of plant and beef-based patties, including carbon opportunity costsPublication . Saget, Sophie; Costa, Marcela Porto; Santos, Carla Sancho; Vasconcelos, Marta; Styles, David; Williams, MikeLegume-derived foods have been shown to have comparatively low greenhouse gas (GHG) intensities whilst providing high amounts of nutrients. However, processing legumes into meat analogues can incur significant energy costs. Here, we undertake a comprehensive life cycle assessment of plant-based and (Brazilian and Irish) beef burger patties. Sixteen impact categories are supplemented with the carbon opportunity cost of land occupation, and benchmarked against nutrient density units (NDU) to provide holistic evidence on the potential contribution of plant-based patties to environmentally-sustainable nutritional density. Plant-based patties have a smaller environmental footprint across most categories, including a 77% smaller climate change burden, but incur 8% more energy use compared with Brazilian beef patties. Normalised scores (person equivalents) were significantly larger (p < 0.05) for the beef products across key categories including land use, acidification, and marine and terrestrial eutrophication. Sensitivity analyses indicated significant variance across impact categories if beef cattle are reared in South Africa, France or the United States, including a 16-fold difference in land occupation. Biophysical allocation of co-products reduced environmental burdens of beef burgers. However, owing to a 68% higher NDU per serving, reflecting higher fibre and essential fatty acid content, plant-based patties are associated with 81–87% less climate change and 92–95% less marine eutrophication per NDU compared with beef burger patties. Accounting for carbon opportunity cost of land further increased the climate change advantage of plant-based patties by 25–44%. A simple extrapolation indicates that switching from beef to vegetable patties in the UK could save between 9.5 and 11 million tonnes CO2e annually, representing up to 2.4% of territorial GHG emissions.
- A multifunctional solution for wicked problems: value-chain wide facilitation of legumes cultivated at bioregional scales is necessary to address the climate-biodiversity-nutrition nexusPublication . Iannetta, Pietro P. M.; Hawes, Cathy; Begg, Graham S.; Maaß, Henrik; Ntatsi, Georgia; Savvas, Dimitrios; Vasconcelos, Marta; Hamann, Karen; Williams, Michael; Styles, David; Toma, Luiza; Shrestha, Shailesh; Balázs, Bálint; Kelemen, Eszter; Debeljak, Marko; Trajanov, Aneta; Vickers, R.; Rees, Robert M.Well-managed legume-based food systems are uniquely positioned to curtail the existential challenge posed by climate change through the significant contribution that legumes can make toward limiting Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. This potential is enabled by the specific functional attributes offered only by legumes, which deliver multiple co-benefits through improved ecosystem functions, including reduced farmland biodiversity loss, and better human-health and -nutrition provisioning. These three critical societal challenges are referred to collectively here as the “climate-biodiversity-nutrition nexus.” Despite the unparalleled potential of the provisions offered by legumes, this diverse crop group remains characterized as underutilized throughout Europe, and in many regions world-wide. This commentary highlights that integrated, diverse, legume-based, regenerative agricultural practices should be allied with more-concerted action on ex-farm gate factors at appropriate bioregional scales. Also, that this can be achieved whilst optimizing production, safeguarding food-security, and minimizing additional land-use requirements. To help avoid forfeiting the benefits of legume cultivation for system function, a specific and practical methodological and decision-aid framework is offered. This is based upon the identification and management of sustainable-development indicators for legume-based value chains, to help manage the key facilitative capacities and dependencies. Solving the wicked problems of the climate-biodiversity-nutrition nexus demands complex solutions and multiple benefits and this legume-focus must be allied with more-concerted policy action, including improved facilitation of the catalytic provisions provided by collaborative capacity builders—to ensure that the knowledge networks are established, that there is unhindered information flow, and that new transformative value-chain capacities and business models are established.
- Nutritional value and environmental footprint of muffins made with green-lentil flourPublication . Geraldo, Rafaela; Santos, Carla S.; Styles, David; Sousa, Sérgio; Pinto, Elisabete; Neves, Delminda; Vasconcelos, Marta W.The growing interest in environmentally friendly and protein-rich food choices has prompted the food industry to explore alternative protein sources. Lentils have garnered attention due to their versatile culinary applications and the range of health benefits associated with their nutritional composition. Furthermore, lentils offer an environmentally sustainable solution as they require fewer resources than animal protein sources. In this study, a new muffin recipe was developed, using high-polyphenol green lentil flour as a partial substitute for oatmeal flour. The main goal was to compare the lentil-based muffin's nutritional attributes with a muffin made exclusively from oatmeal flour, and to evaluate their environmental impact, using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Research on incorporating lentil flour into muffins, particularly considering its environmental impact is limited, highlighting the importance of this study. Regarding the results, compared with the oatmeal muffin, the lentil-based muffin exhibited improved nutritional properties, including a reduction in fat, an increase in protein, and fibre, and the presence of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids. The LCA revealed that the lentil-based muffin had a lower environmental impact across various categories than the oatmeal muffin. Overall, incorporating lentil flour into muffin recipes not only results in a gluten-free product but also enhances its overall nutritional profile and offers a sustainable alternative for environmentally conscious consumers. The study contributes to the expanding field of sustainable and nutritious food alternatives, providing valuable insights for both consumers and the food industry.
- Nutritional, rheological, sensory characteristics and environmental impact of a yogurt-like dairy drink for children enriched with lupin flourPublication . Vieira, Evla D. F.; Styles, David; Sousa, Sérgio; Santos, Carla; Gil, Ana M.; Gomes, Ana M.; Vasconcelos, Marta W.Studies have demonstrated that the addition of pulses to foods can make them more nutritious. We hypothesize that lupin flour adds nutritional benefits to yogurts. This study aimed to characterize a lupin-enriched yogurt in nutritional, rheological, and sensorial terms by a trained panel, and assess its environmental impact using the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. For comparison, natural yogurt and a commercial formula were used as controls. The developed yogurt is “high in protein” (7g/100g), “source of fiber” (1.9g/100g), and “source of omega 3” (53 mg/100g). The lupin yogurt was the stiffest with the highest viscosity than controls according to rheological parameters. There were no significant sensory differences between the lupin-enriched yogurt and the controls, although some undesirable sensory characteristics such as bitterness, granularity, and after-taste were observed. The environmental impact per 100 g serving was similar to natural yogurt and slightly worse regarding commercial yogurt but better when expressed per Nutritional Density Unit (NDU). Using lupin flour to enrich yogurts for children can be an alternative to producing more nutritious products.
- Substituting wheat with chickpea flour in pasta production delivers more nutrition at a lower environmental costPublication . Saget, Sophie; Costa, Marcela; Barilli, Eleonora; Vasconcelos, Marta Wilton de; Santos, Carla Sancho; Styles, David; Williams, MikeThe modern food system is characterised by 1) unsustainable agricultural practices, heavily dependent on agrochemical inputs and leaking large amounts of reactive nitrogen (N) whilst degrading soils, and 2) the consumption of energy-rich but nutrient-poor foods, contributing to non-communicable diseases related to malnutrition. Substituting cereals with low-input, protein- and fibre-rich legumes in the production of mainstream foods offers a promising solution to both issues. Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is a leguminous crop that can be grown with little or no synthetic N fertiliser. We performed life cycle assessment (LCA) to compare the environmental footprint of pasta made from chickpeas with conventional pasta made from durum wheat (Triticum durum) from cradle to fork. Two functional units were used, an 80g serving of pasta, and a Nutrient Density Unit (NDU). Environmental burdens per serving were smaller for chickpea pasta across at least 10 of the 16 impact categories evaluated. Global warming, resource use minerals and metals, freshwater eutrophication, marine eutrophication, and terrestrial eutrophication burdens were smaller than those of durum wheat pasta by up to 45%, 55%, 50%, 86%, and 76%, respectively. Cooked chickpea pasta contains 1.5 more protein, 3.2 times more fibre and 8 times more essential fatty acids than cooked durum wheat pasta per kcal energy content. Thus, the environmental advantage of chickpea pasta extended to 15 of the 16 impact categories when footprints were compared per unit of nutrition. Global warming, resource use and eutrophication burdens per NDU were 79–95% smaller for chickpea pasta than for durum wheat pasta. The one major trade-off was land use, where chickpea pasta had a burden 200% higher per serving, or 17% higher per NDU, than wheat pasta. We conclude that there is high potential to simultaneously improve the environmental sustainability and nutritional quality of food chains through simple substitution of cereals with legumes in staple foods such as pasta. Breeding and agronomic management improvements for legumes could reduce the yield gap with cereals, mitigating the land use penalty. Meanwhile, the higher protein content of chickpea pasta could contribute towards wider environmental benefits via animal protein substitution in diets, and merits further investigation. Consumers who look for the traditional taste and texture of wheat pasta can achieve these aspects by cooking the chickpea pasta al dente and combining it with a typical pasta sauce, which will hide its subtle nutty taste.
- Substitution of beef with pea protein reduces the environmental footprint of meat balls whilst supporting health and climate stabilisation goalsPublication . Saget, Sophie; Costa, Marcela; Santos, Carla Sancho; Vasconcelos, Marta Wilton; Gibbon, James; Styles, David; Williams, MichaelRecent environmental footprint comparisons between meat and plant-based meat analogues do not consider nutritional density holistically, nor the high carbon opportunity costs (COC) of land requirements, which are critical in terms of climate stabilisation targets. We performed an attributional life cycle assessment (LCA) of a 100 g serving of cooked protein balls (PPBs) made from peas (Pisum sativum), and Swedish-style beef meatballs (MBs) made from Irish or Brazilian beef. Per serving, PPB production and consumption was associated with lower environmental burdens across all 16 categories assessed. Global warming, acidification, and land use burdens of PPBs were at least 85%, 81%, and 89% smaller, respectively, than MBs. The scale of environmental advantage was sensitive to the allocation method, with biophysical allocation across cattle co-products decreasing MB burdens by at least 35%, 38%, and 46% in the acidification, climate change, and land use categories, respectively. Furthermore, PPBs have a higher nutritional density than MBs, and hence their environmental footprint per unit of nutrition was considerably lower across all 16 impact categories. Per Nutrient Density Unit, global warming, acidification, and land use burdens of PPBs were at least 89%, 87%, and 93% smaller, respectively, than MBs. Results were tested with Monte Carlo simulations and a modified null hypothesis significance test, which supported the main findings. Finally, when COC of land was factored in, the climate advantage of PPBs extended greatly. Assuming MBs equivalent to just 5% of German beef consumption are replaced by PPBs, total carbon savings including COC could amount to 8 million tonnes CO2e annually, an amount equal to 1% of Germany's annual GHG emissions. Therefore, this study highlights the potential of PPBs to meet health and climate neutrality objectives.