How sustainable is your favorite food?

Test your food carbon footprint knowledge! #sustainability

The Carbon Footprint Of A Sandwich

The Surprising Science Making Food More Sustainable!

'Future Foods' |Science| G6-9 (en-US)

Ozan Ciftci

Assoc. Prof., Dep. of Food Science

Edgar Cahoon

Director, Center for Plant Science Innovation

Roberta Claro da Silva

Assoc. Prof., Dep. of Family and Consumer Sciences

Anna Wilkins

Fiona Småros

Bioprocess Engineer

Marco Troullier

Food Biotech Researcher, Food Design Team

Lisa PytlikZillig

Senior Research Manager, Public Policy Center

Janie Butler

Education and Workforce Development Specialist

Amy Huang

Scientific Ecosystems Leader

Acknowledgments

#### Connection to Research
 This unit is based on cutting-edge research by the FoodID team. “ID” stands for innovating and diversifying, which is how these scientists are working to build a more sustainable food system. First, however, they need to understand the inputs and outputs at each phase of food production, processing, and distribution, as well as their impacts on the planet. It’s a complex problem, and students will engage with this complexity by using data to calculate the carbon footprint of their favorite dish *and* unpack what it means. Like FoodID researchers, students will identify key points in the system where their “foodprint” might be reduced. Finally, they will flex their creativity and problem-solving savvy (the skills of future food engineers!) and consider  both social and technological solutions to develop a more sustainable version of their favorite dish.   
#### Research Background
 Everything we eat has a story. It starts long before the food appears on our table and continues even when the meal has faded from memory. Our systems for growing, harvesting, processing, transporting, packaging, preserving, distributing, and preparing food are continually remaking our planet, using land, energy, water, and other raw materials while generating byproducts at each stage. Incorporating renewable resources can make the food system more sustainable, but it also creates new technological, environmental, nutritional, and social challenges. In order to meet these challenges, the FoodID team is harnessing the power of plants and microbes to produce healthy food for everyone—a blueprint for a future food system scientists call the *bioeconomy*. 
To make foods that are delicious, affordable, and healthy for people and the planet, FoodID researchers are developing new ingredients  and new ways of producing and processing them.  To accomplish this, they are tackling several key challenges to the bioeconomy. Our research has four major aspects:    
- **Nutrition:** Proteins and lipids are two of the primary nutrients we get from food. Compared with the third major nutrient—carbohydrates—proteins and lipids are more resource-intensive and less efficient to produce, since they are more likely to come from animal sources. To meet the needs of a growing population in a changing climate, we need to diversify the food system with alternative sources of proteins and lipids. For example, microbes can be engineered to produce albumin, the main protein found in egg whites. FoodID researchers are using genetic selection and engineering, fermentation, and other novel, low-carbon methods to produce proteins and lipids, enhancing the nutritional properties of foods while reducing negative impacts on the planet.  
- **Scale:** The bioeconomy has the potential to expand access to high-quality foods by producing more with less. You may have noticed that new technologies and products tend to be more expensive at first. This is because, during initial development, they are produced in small quantities using lots of hands-on labor. Additional research and development are needed to scale up production systems, making the product more widely available and affordable. FoodID researchers are doing just that for alternative proteins and lipids—developing ways to produce them in large batches, unlocking their potential to create a more environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable future food system.   
- **Taste:** Access to nutritious foods is important, but it’s just as important that people actually want to eat these foods! Food preferences are subjective, of course, and they depend in part on cultural factors and the kinds of foods you grew up eating. FoodID researchers are designing novel foods that mimic the taste and texture of familiar foods, taking into account the sensory properties that make foods appealing (or not) to different people in different contexts. One of our favorites is  “mouthfeel”—if you’re someone who can’t stand the stickiness of peanut butter or the slipperiness of shellfish, you know just how important mouthfeel can be!  
- **Trust:** Taste, nutrition, and availability aren’t the only factors that might influence your food choices. You might also want to know: Is this food safe? Do I trust the way it was produced? Does it contain anything harmful? There are lots of myths about alternative and novel food ingredients, including that they are less “natural” or less well-understood than foods produced by traditional methods. Learning a little bit of the basic chemistry and engineering involved in producing both traditional *and* novel foods will grow curiosity and confidence in foods that can improve planetary health. Supercritical fluid technology, extraction of bioactive compounds, and biorefining are just some of the “green” technologies FoodID researchers are using to develop healthy plant-based and fermented foods. Scientific terms like these can be intimidating, so our social scientists are working on ways to tell the whole story of these innovations to help consumers make food choices that are safe and healthy for themselves and for the planet.

#### Further Reading:
Scientific Papers
- "Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers" J. Poore and T. Nemecek **Science** (2018): The scientific paper that produced the data students analyze in lessons 1&2 [journal link](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaq0216) [open-access link](https://www.uni-giessen.de/de/fbz/zentren/zeu/pics/news-pics/summerschool/downloads/Schader_Poore_Nemecek_2018.pdf)


Background

**Laura Perry** | Designed and developed all curricular materials  
**[Matt Wilkins](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattwilkinsphd/)** | Oversaw development of all materials, wrote script and directed videos  
**[Jocelyn Bosley](https://bsky.app/profile/scitalker.bsky.social)** | Defined outreach goals; provided feedback throughout development; provided scientific validation of lesson content  
**[Julia McQuillan](https://soc.unl.edu/person/julia-mcquillan/)** | Defined outreach goals; provided feedback throughout development; provided scientific validation of lesson content  
**[Tracy Niday](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracy-niday-21410a35/)** | Supported L3 and L4 by providing scientific input, providing video and helping craft teaching materials  
**[Stephanie Castillo](https://www.linkedin.com/in/castils/)** | Produced, edited, narrated, and scored supporting videos   
**[Natyeli Martinez-Neria](https://www.linkedin.com/in/natyeli/)** | Supported L3 and L4 by providing valuable feedback  

Credits

Metaphors help us make sense of the world by connecting new concepts and phenomena to familiar ones. “Footprint” is a metaphor for the amount of carbon a process or activity adds to the atmosphere. 

**How does the footprint metaphor help us make sense of greenhouse gas emissions?**  

- Example answer: Footprints give us information about how many people have walked in an area, and what their size and weight are. Similarly, our food choices leave an impact in the form of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The size of our carbon footprint reflects our overall contribution to climate change.

**Where did the carbon footprint idea come from?**  
- See: ["The carbon footprint sham" | *Mashable*](https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham)   

**What are the limitations of “carbon footprint” as a metaphor for understanding greenhouse gas emissions?**   

- Metaphors expand our thinking in some ways but can limit it in others. 
See: [“Metaphors open up our minds – but can also shut them down | *Psyche*](https://psyche.co/ideas/metaphors-open-up-our-minds-but-can-also-shut-them-down)   

**Can you think of other ways to describe how carbon in the atmosphere affects the health of our planet?**  


Extensions

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JobViz Career Connections

Can we reduce the carbon footprint of our favorite meals?

Science

#### Driving Question(s):
1. What is a carbon footprint?
2. What stages of production (from farm to table) have the biggest impact on the carbon footprint of foods?
3. What are possible solutions to minimize the impact of our food supply on climate change?
#### Hook(s):
Explore carbon footprints by focusing on YOUR favorite food.

Future Foods

Added banner and multimedia, corrected front matter

Overhaul to materials and background text

Added direct links to the scientific paper Lessons 1 & 2 are based on, following requests from teachers

Future Foods

The Gist

Driving Question(s):

Hook(s):

Supporting Multimedia

How sustainable is your favorite food?