If you are provided information on resources used for dinner options, would you choose differently? A dinner envisioned by Samantha Hartzell of Porporato’s Research Group noted differences in water use by various crops, based on their photosynthesis pathways. From the piece:

The three photosynthesis pathways (C3, C4, and CAM) each have important contributions for sustainable agriculture. The C3 pathway, the most common and basic pathway, is the engine which produces most of the food that we eat today. The “carbon-concentrating” C4 pathway evolved to use sunlight and water more efficiently, and gives us corn, sugarcane, and other “grass-like” crops. The CAM pathway functions with extremely low water inputs (up to ten times less than the C3 pathway) and gives us niche foods like pineapple, nopales, and agave syrup. The dinner was a partnership between Princeton Environmental Institute, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Campus Dining.

From the piece:

The most important insight from this study: there are massive differences in the GHG emissions of different foods: producing a kilogram of beef emits 60 kilograms of greenhouse gases (CO₂-equivalents). While peas emits just 1 kilogram per kg.

Overall, animal-based foods tend to have a higher footprint than plant-based. Lamb and cheese both emit more than 20 kilograms CO₂-equivalents per kilogram. Poultry and pork have lower footprints but are still higher than most plant-based foods, at 6 and 7 kg CO₂-equivalents, respectively.

For most foods – and particularly the largest emitters – most GHG emissions result from land use change (shown in green), and from processes at the farm stage (brown). Farm-stage emissions include processes such as the application of fertilizers – both organic (“manure management”) and synthetic; and enteric fermentation (the production of methane in the stomachs of cattle). Combined, land use and farm-stage emissions account for more than 80% of the footprint for most foods.

Lunch and talk: Bridging the Gap between Science and Policy: Tales from a Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, with Ana María Loboguerrero Rodríguez, head of global policy research of the CGIAR Research Program for Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security: Monday Sep 30, 2019, 12:15 p.m., 300 Wallace Hall. Open to the public with rsvp to ccrosby@princeton.edu.

Guiding principles for Princeton Studies Food have inspired innovative frameworks for two schools—Princeton Public Schools and the Thaden School, a new independent school for grades 6-12 in Bentonville, AR—both under the direction of Princeton alumni. The schools, working with Princeton Studies Food co-founder Karla Cook, are looking to use their work to assist other schools, with one goal of templating and sharing a low-resource version of the National School Lunch Program, a $13.8 billion taxpayer-funded service that feeds 29.7 million children every school day.
Steve Cochrane ’81, superintendent of Princeton Public Schools, with the Board of Education, is elevating food and land use to the level of previous sustainable energy efforts in the cafeteria, operationally and in the curriculum. Here’s information on the new plants-rich framework for school meals at PPS. Follow him on Twitter @pps_super.
Clayton Marsh ’85, former deputy dean of the college, now founder of Thaden School, a grades 6-12 charter school in Bentonville, AR, has begun year three of operation. Thaden School has as one of its foundational pillars our Science, Society & Dinner course (story here) that was introduced on campus in 2016 and taught by Prof Kelly Caylor (now at UC-SB) and James Beard award-winning chef Craig Shelton. Follow Thaden School on Twitter @ThadenSchool.

Their work brings to mind the years-long K-12 efforts of:
Nancy Easton ’88, who founded Wellness in the Schools in 2005, a program that seeks to promote healthy eating and living, specifically targeting youth in the public school system. The program is now in at least 50 schools and continues to partner with various teachers, chefs, parents, and students to offer programs and opportunities for kids in public schools to access and learn about healthy food, the environment and fitness.

Tim Searchinger, a co-founder of Princeton Studies Food and host along with co-founder Gordon Douglas MD ’55, of our conferences, has with colleagues at the World Resources Institute finalized a years-long project, the ‘World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future’ . The report “offers a five-course menu of solutions that shows we can feed 10 billion people by 2050 without increasing emissions, fueling deforestation or exacerbating poverty.” Among the top solutions: Reduce food loss and waste; shift to healthier and more sustainable diets; avoid competition from bioenergy for food crops and land; and achieve replacement-level fertility rates, in part by increasing educational opportunities for girls. Click here to watch his segment of the WRI video introducing the final version of the report; here’s a Washington Post editorial about the work; here’s a Time piece that quotes him on the subject. Follow his Twitter feed @TSearchinger or email him.

Princeton scientists and scholars have long forecast that without focused and sustained action, we can expect a perfect storm come mid-century or before: water shortages, food scarcity, biodiversity collapse and a burgeoning population on the move, all exacerbated by extreme weather as our planet heats.

As the new IPCC report illustrates, many immediate actions are required at federal and international levels. Research shows, however, that institutions, municipalities, families and individuals, with informed choices, can effect change locally, and with that change, build momentum for broader actions.

Two powerful choices we can make as individuals and as small groups and as institutions are reducing food waste and switching to a mainly plants-rich, minimally processed food framework.

Reducing food waste is not news; New Jersey, in 2017, established a state-wide food waste reduction goal of 50 percent by 2030 and here’s the draft Food Waste Reduction Plan. The NJ goal is to reduce the quantity of food waste by reducing the volume of surplus food generated, feeding hungry people and feeding animals. There’s good news on plants-rich diet efforts, too; scroll down to read more on alumni efforts in the K-12 education sector.

At a more fundamental level, there is food-systems related academic progress, as well as operational progress on campus.

• PRINCETON ENVIRONMENTAL INSTITUTE, with its new Food+Environment track, is at work accumulating relevant courses for study. One standout introduced last spring is American Agrarians, which explores agrarian history, philosophy, theology, and literature and is a partnership between Tessa Desmond, research scholar and lecturer in American Studies, and Nate Stucky, director of the Farminary, a 21-acre farm that is part of the Princeton Theological Seminary. Another course under development is an undergraduate seminar by Professor D. Graham Burnett that examines history, history of science, and current scientific issues related to agriculture, food production, and the human “management” of nature. These join the Environmental Nexus course taught by professors Steve Pacala and Rob Nixon; the Agriculture, Human Diets and the Environment course led by Professor Dan Rubenstein with assistance from Campus Dining under the nascent Food and Agriculture Initiative; and a list of others.

• RECENT HIRES: There’s also an inspiring list of recent hires: Andrew Chignell, who has a developing interest in food ethics, and recently co-produced (with Will Starr at Cornell) a Massive Open Online Course on “The Ethics of Eating”;  Anu Ramaswami, who is helping to make the Minneapolis food system more sustainable and equitable; and Caroline Cheung, whose research focuses on the history of the Roman Empire and draws on material and textual evidence to study the socio-economic history of non-elites under Roman rule and ancient food and agriculture.

• THE OFFICE OF SUSTAINABILITY, under the direction of Shana Weber, has published a Sustainability Action Plan. Its 38 pages include these choice nuggets related to food:

• Added 262 filtered water stations;
• Though water use has increased over the past decade (goal is to reduce by 26 percent over 2008 levels by 2046), a success, considering the high water footprint of beef compared to plant-based options, is the Princeton Crafted Burger, a part-beef, part-plant entree.
• Recycling rate for consumer items (including mixed paper, cardboard, glass, metal and plastic) has gone down 23 percent since 2008, largely due to contamination of recycling stream with food scraps…but Princeton plans to reduce recycling contamination by expanding collection of food scraps beyond the current dining hall composting program to other locations on campus; and,
• Princeton plans to continue to divert edible food to the community in efforts to reduce food waste.

However, even more important than using excess food to feed hungry people is making the right amount of food instead of an excess, according to the EPA Food Recovery Hierarchy.  On that effort we support and advocate for the campus group Greening Dining and its analysis of food scrapings at dining halls and at eating clubs. We suggest expansion of the project to include calculating the general Life Cycle Analysis of each wasted food category, conducting interviews at scraping stations and in the production kitchens to determine, say, the top 10 reasons for wasted food, and, with zero waste as the goal, developing and implementing a plan to address all issues. Could this work be paired with the food waste reduction efforts under way at the state level or with the James Beard Foundation’s Food Waste Culinary Instructor Curriculum?

As progress is made toward the target of 50 percent reduction in wasted food, what of the dwindling amount of uneaten food that becomes “waste?” To reduce methane emissions, wasted food must be diverted from the landfill, if not for industrial uses to produce energy, then for composting. The best solution, in terms of waste diverted, emissions reduced and jobs created is centralized composting, according to research conducted by ReFed, a nonprofit that “takes a data-driven approach to move the food system from acting on instinct to insights to solve our national food waste problem.”

At the Office of Sustainability, Gina Talt ’15, food systems project specialist, leads the collection of a portion of food scraps produced on campus, then processes them into compost using an in-vessel biodigester. She plans to expand the program to include more campus locations and events.
Follow the Office of Sustainability on Twitter @TigersGoGreen.

• CAMPUS DINING SERVICES, under the direction of Smitha Haneef, lists culinary principles (see at right), and writes that it “sources grass-fed beef and antibiotic-free, humanely treated and locally produced chicken for all residential and retail operations” and is a business partner in the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program. Nearly 80 percent of its seafood purchases are categorized as sustainable in accordance with Seafood Watch principles.
Further, all coffee served in the residential college dining halls and in the Food Gallery at Frist has received Rain Forest Alliance certification….More than 60 percent of all food purchases are local, organic, fair trade, socially responsible, humanely treated or sustainable. Forty-six percent of all food purchases are produced within 250 miles of the university, including produce, baked goods, cheese, milk, beef, pork, poultry and eggs.”
Follow on Twitter @PrincetonDining.

We’re re-grouping for conference and date; Feb 22 isn’t available. Stay tuned for updates.