Food processing comes in different forms: altering the color, taste, smell, texture, nutrition, shelf-life or stability of food products. But most importantly, all processing alters the nutritional values of our food, often towards the negative. Reading for this post I stumbled across some very technical explanations of chemical reactions caused by for example peptides and amino acids in meat flavor additives (chapter 3 in Shahidi et al. 2004) and trans fatty acid components in processed meat and cheese (Willard et al. 1954). But don't worry, these technicalities are beyond the scope of this blog and my ability to comprehensively write about chemistry. It should be however noted, that trans fats are largely responsible for contributing towards coronary heart disease and with evidence to other cardiovascular problems (Katan et al. 1995). Adding trans fats to our meat (especially fast food) through added hydrogen increases the 'efficiency of the product' by prolonging shelf-life. In addition, pumping meats with trans fats enables us to get 'more' (quantity not quality) out of our food products. Each step of the way on the processing cycle heats our climate: processed foods require more energy than whole foods. From chemical fertilisers and synthetic additives to freezing and canning, these foods carry a higher energy need than whole foods.
But let us look at a more topical example that is more connected to environmental health: palm oil. Palm oil is found in products ranging from food to cosmetics and comes with vast social and environmental costs. Primarily used for production of biofuels, products like KitKat, PotNoodle, Clover butter and Kellogg's Crunchy Nut all recuire palm oil for production. The reality is that most of today's palm oil is produced in an unsustainable and often illegal way. Negative impacts of palm oil can come in many forms: biodiversity and ecosystem loss, increased greenhouse gases though deforestation and others
(Source: http://buypalmoilfree.com)
Let us first look at the way palm oil production impacts the greenhouse gas balance of the planet. Palm oil plantations emerging all over Southeast Asia come in exchange of tropical rain forests that traditionally have acted as carbon storage sinks (Wakker et al. 2004). Wakker et al. estimate that palm oil is 'set to become the world's most produced, traded, and consumed edible oil, considerable expansion of the oil palm area is expected in the next 20 years'. They show the expansion of palm oil plantations in Indonesia below:
Total area of palm oil plantations established in Indonesia
(Source: Wakker et al. 2004)
Palm oil plantations contribute towards deforestation and therefore carbon release both directly and indirectly. If plantations are introduced on forest areas, burning is often used to clear the land. This leads to spreading of forest fires that extend beyond the planned areas and contribute further to deforestation. Forest fires are not common in areas with tropical rainforest but in 1997-98, much of rural Indonesia was suffering under forest fires that affected a total of 6% of the country's landmass. With the fires, thick smog emerged, covering Indonesia and neighboring Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei (Wakker et al. 2004). Looking at how palm oil industry is predicted to expand, the impacts to the environment are not promising. There is however an increasing movement to promote sustainable palm oil production with sound ethical and ecological standards (Greenpeace and others), but vast deforestation is still going on.
As palm oil is such an important ecological issue at the moment, I will return to it in my next post.
Till next time,
Laura
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