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We’re Still Eating The Wrong Things

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A new study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has found that despite efforts to increase public awareness of health issues related to diet, the amount of processed meat consumed by Americans has remained unchanged in the past 18 years.  Furthermore, our intake of fish and shellfish has not increased.  One quarter of US adults are still eating more unprocessed read meat than the recommended level, and less than 15% meet the current guidelines for fish and shellfish consumption.

About the only positive note is that Americans are eating less beef and more chicken than they did 18 years ago and, in fact, for the first time, the consumption of poultry exceeds that of unprocessed red meat.

Accumulating evidence has linked excessive consumption of processed meat to increased risk of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and some cancers.  The study’s authors speculate that public awareness of these linkages is not widespread enough to affect change and, in any case, factors other than health – social, cultural, and economic – have greater influence over Americans’ food choices.  The top five consumed processed meats are luncheon meat, sausage, hot dogs, ham, and bacon.

The low consumption of fish and shellfish among U.S. adults could be due to high retail prices, lack of awareness of the health benefits, and concerns about mercury contamination in certain types of fish.

Future research is needed to identify barriers to reducing processed meat consumption and increased seafood consumption.  Policies such as nutrition quality standards, excise taxes, health warning labels, and other interventions need to be explored.

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Americans still eat too much processed meat and too little fish

Photo, posted January 28, 2014, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Microplastic Diet

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According to a new study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, Americans consume more than 70,000 microplastic particles every year from the food they eat, the water they drink, and the air they breathe.

While the health impacts of ingesting these tiny particles are largely unknown, there is the potential for the plastic to enter human tissues and cause an immune response or perhaps release toxic chemicals into the body.

The analysis by biologists at the University of Victoria in Canada examined data from 26 previous studies on microplastic contamination.  It found that Americans eat and drink an estimated 39,000 to 52,000 microplastic particles each year, depending on their age and sex.  The numbers jump to 74,000 to 121,000 when inhalation of microplastics is included.

Americans who drink water solely from plastic bottles consume an additional 90,000 particles annually, compared to only 4,000 particles for people who only drink tap water.

The researchers warn that their findings are likely to be drastic underestimates of the problem.  Several major U.S. food groups – including poultry, beef, dairy, grains, and vegetables – have not been studied for their microplastic contamination.  Thus, the estimate of microparticle ingestion is associated with only 15% of an average person’s caloric intake.  Furthermore, there is no assessment currently available for how much plastic might be entering our bodies from food packaging.

The report’s findings suggest that microplastics will continue to be found in the majority if not all items intended for human consumption.  Realistically, the only way to reduce the human consumption of microplastics will be to reduce the production and use of plastics.

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Americans Consume Tens of Thousands of Microplastic Particles Every Year

Photo, posted June 18, 2016, courtesy of Sirirat Kornsongkaew via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Bees And Plastic

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Wild bees in Argentina have recently been found to be constructing nests entirely made of flimsy plastic material left on farms and scientists don’t know why.

In 2017 and 2018, researchers at Argentina’s National Agricultural Technology Institute built wooden, artificial nests for wild bees.  These bee species burrow into nests to individually lay larvae rather than having a large hive with queens and workers.  The artificial nests provide hollow openings that bees generally fill with cut leaves, twigs, and mud.

Sixty-three wooden nests were constructed and three were found lined entirely with plastic.  The bees carefully cut bits of plastic in the shape and size of fingernails and arranged them in an overlapping pattern in their nests.  The plastic seems to have come from plastic bags or films, which have a similar texture to the leaves bees ordinarily use to line their nests.  And, in fact, leaves were readily available to the bees making use of plastic.

This is the first time that bees have been seen making nests entirely out of plastic, but for years scientists have known bees were incorporating plastic into their building materials.  Research is needed to determine the potential impact plastic might have on bees, but the nest building shows that bees are highly adaptive to changing environments.

Plastic often forms a threat to wildlife in the form of microplastics that can be consumed.  But there is no evidence that bees are consuming plastic.  Some researchers have speculated that the plastic in bees’ nests may form a barrier against common nest issues like mold and parasites.

At this point, it is not clear whether it is a good thing or a bad thing that some bees are choosing plastic over natural materials, but it is certainly interesting.

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Wild bees are building their homes from plastic—and scientists aren’t sure why

Photo, posted December 12, 2014, courtesy of Judy Gallagher via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

100% Renewables Does Not Necessarily Mean Carbon-Free

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Hundreds of companies around the world have committed to use 100% renewable energy in order to fight climate change.  But a new study from Stanford University points out that 100% renewable energy does not necessarily mean 100% carbon-free energy.

The problem is that the carbon content of electricity can vary a lot over the course of a day in many locations.  Using yearly averages can overstate the carbon reductions associated with a particular power source, in some cases by significant amounts.

Suppose a California company purchases or generates enough solar power to match 100% or more of their electricity use over the course of the year.  In reality, it may generate far more electricity than it uses during the afternoon and sell the excess.  Then, at nighttime, it purchases power from the grid, which would be far more carbon-intensive if it involves the burning of fossil fuels.

But in Britain, for example, the situation is very different.  With a high reliance on wind power, grid carbon intensity is actually lower at night.  So very different consumption patterns over the course of a day would be less carbon-intensive.

If sufficient energy storage capacity can be implemented into the grid as well as suitable long-range transmission, these time-based fluctuations in the electricity supply could be ironed out.  Until such time, electricity consumers need to evaluate the environmental benefits of their renewable strategies on an hourly basis rather than using averages.  And the best strategies are entirely dependent upon the characteristics of the specific grid they interact with.  The need for this kind of analysis will only grow as renewable generation expands.  Transparent, precise and meaningful carbon accounting is necessary.

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100% renewables doesn’t equal zero-carbon energy, and the difference is growing

Photo, posted January 29, 2013, courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The U.S. Military And Climate Change

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According to new research by scientists from Durham University and Lancaster University, the United States military is one of the largest climate polluters.  The U.S. military consumes more liquid fuels and emits more greenhouse gases than most countries.  

The study, published in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, finds that if the U.S. military were a country, it would be the 47th largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, falling between Peru and Portugal.  And this only takes into account the emissions from its liquid fuel consumption.  For this study, the U.S. military’s 2015 consumption was compared with the 2014 World Bank country liquid fuel consumption. 

In 2017, the U.S. military purchased more than 269,000 barrels of oil a day, emitting more than 25,000 kt- CO2e by burning those fuels.  The Air Force accounted for $4.9 billion worth of this fuel, followed by the Navy at $2.8 billion, the Army at $947 million, and the Marines at $36 million. 

The Air Force and the Navy are not only the U.S. military’s largest purchasers of fuel, they also use the most polluting types of fuel.  The Air Force is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases at more than 13,000 kt CO2e, nearly double that of the Navy’s 7,800 kt CO2e. 

Despite this study’s findings and a general uptick in awareness, it’s unlikely that the U.S. military’s dependence on fossil fuels will change.  That’s because the military continues to pursue open-ended operations around the globe, and the lifecycle of its existing military equipment insures dependence on hydrocarbons for many years to come. 

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U.S. military consumes more hydrocarbons than most countries — massive hidden impact on climate

Photo, posted July 8, 2016, courtesy of Alan Wilson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Our Growing Appetite For Energy

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Energy consumption in the United States set a record high in 2018.  Overall, energy consumption reached 101.2 quadrillion BTUs or quads last year, breaking the previous record of 101.0 set in 2007.  Most of us are not too familiar with quadrillions of anything, nor with BTUs for that matter.  If it is any more illuminating, 101 quads are the equivalent of about 300 billion kilowatt hours.  Our energy use increased by 3.6% from 2017, which was the largest annual increase since 2010.

Wind, solar, and natural gas provided the largest increases in energy supply.  In 2018, solar and wind energy were both up by 0.18 quads, representing a 22% gain for solar and a 7.5% increase for wind.  Over the past ten years, overall renewable energy has doubled in the U.S., with wind increasing by a factor of 5 since 2008 and solar by an amazing factor of 48. 

Natural gas generation increased by 10.7%, or a total of 3 quads over the previous year.   The growth in natural gas use isn’t good news, but since much of it represents replacing coal, it at least corresponds to reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

The unfortunate part of our energy consumption is that the majority of it is still in the form of “rejected energy”.  It most often takes the form of waste heat, such as the warm exhaust from automobiles and furnaces.  The efficiency of our cars, lightbulbs and factories determines how much waste heat is produced and in turn how much fuel and electricity can be put to productive use.

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US energy consumption hits record high in 2018, solar/wind/natural gas grow

Photo, posted April 27, 2015, courtesy of Mathias Appel via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Meal Kits And The Environment

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Meal kit services have become extremely popular in recent years.  These are companies that deliver a box of pre-portioned ingredients and a chef-created recipe to your door to make home-cooked meals easy and practical for busy people.  Leading companies like Blue Apron, HelloFresh, and Plated have been joined by dozens of others competing in the meal kit market.  As of last year, annual sales for these things were over $3 billion and growing at more than a 20% annual rate.

A major rap against meal kits has been their environmental impact, mostly centered around the amount of packaging waste they generate.  While there is most certainly lots of packaging waste associated with meal kits, it turns out that their overall carbon footprint is actually rather good compared with conventional ways to make homecooked meals.

A study from the University of Michigan looked at the cradle-to-grave impact of meal kits, taking into account every major step in the lifetime of the food ingredients and the packaging – agricultural production, packaging production, distribution, supply chain losses, consumption, and waste generation.

Surprisingly, meal kits have a much lower overall carbon footprint than the same meals made from ingredients purchased at the grocery store – even including their packaging.  The main reason is that pre-portioned ingredients and a streamlined supply chain lower overall food losses and waste for meal kits compared to store-bought meals.  Pre-portioning simply results in fewer ingredients that end up being wasted.  Meal kits also have radically different supply chain structures than foods sold in supermarkets.

Whether the economics and culinary aspects of meals kits are advantageous for many people is an open question, but apparently from an environmental perspective, they are just fine.

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Climate change has worsened global economic inequality

Photo, posted June 11, 2018, courtesy of Marco Verch via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Japan And Whaling

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The commercial hunting of whales nearly drove the giant mammals to extinction.  By the 1960s, as hunting technologies improved and ships began to resemble floating factories, it became clear that whaling could not continue unchecked. 

But despite all this, commercial whaling was never actually banned.  Instead, in 1986, members of the International Whaling Committee (IWC) agreed to a whaling moratorium in order to allow whale stocks to recover.  Pro-whaling nations like Japan, Iceland, and Norway expected the moratorium to be temporary until the whales stocks recovered, and a consensus on catch quotas could be established.  But the temporary moratorium became a quasi-permanent ban, much to the delight of conservationists and to the dismay of whaling nations. 

As a result, Japan recently announced it is leaving the international agreement and plans to resume commercial whaling.  The agreement though never really stopped Japanese whaling in the first place, because it allowed the country to kill whales for scientific research.  Japan has had an annual Antarctic catch quota of 333 minke whales, producing notoriously little in terms of whale science while producing  lots of whale meat.  As part of its withdrawal from the IWC, Japan will cease its Antarctic hunts and limit whalers to its own waters.  Commercial Japanese whaling will resume in July. 

Once popular in Japan, whale meat consumption has plummeted, falling 98% between 1962 and 2016. The industry employs fewer than 1,000 people and is dependent on government subsidies. 

Many governments and conservationist groups condemned Japan’s withdrawal, declaring the move out of step with the international community.  They argue that, rather than hunting whales, urgent action is needed to conserve marine ecosystems. 

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Japan to Resume Commercial Whaling, Defying International Ban

Photo, posted February 5, 2009, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Bitter Truth About Caffeine

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Black coffee has a bitter taste. Bitterness evolved as a natural warning system to protect the body from harmful substances.  By the logic of evolution, we should therefore want to spit coffee out, but obviously it doesn’t work that way.

Caffeine itself has a particularly bitter taste.  Surprisingly, a new study at Northwestern University has found that the more sensitive people are to the bitter taste of caffeine, the more coffee they drink. That sensitivity is actually a genetic variant.

So, one would think that people who are especially sensitive to the bitter taste of caffeine would drink less coffee.  The counter intuitive result suggests that coffee consumers acquire a taste or an ability to detect caffeine as a result of the learned positive reinforcement (in other words, the buzz) elicited by caffeine.  People with a heightened ability to taste coffee’s bitterness learn to associate good things with it.

The study also found in contrast that people sensitive to the bitter flavor of a different compound called 6-n-propylthiouracil (known as PROP)avoided coffee as well as red wine.

The study made use of applied Mendelian randomization, a technique commonly used in disease epidemiology, to test the causal relationship between bitter taste and beverage consumption in more than 400,000 men and women in the United Kingdom.

These results shed some light on the disdain many coffee drinkers have for decaf coffee.  It may not be just the lack of buzz that turns them off.  Some of them with the right genes may be missing that extra bit of bitterness that alerts them that something good is about to happen.

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Why we shouldn’t like coffee, but we do

Photo, posted May 22, 2009, courtesy of Olle Svensson via Flickr.  

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Australian Plastic Bag Ban

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Last summer, the two largest supermarket chains in Australia – Coles and Woolworth’s – decided to stop offering single-use disposable plastic bags to customers.  The initial public reaction was decidedly negative.   However, within just three months after the radical change, the country’s National Retail Association reported an 80% drop in the consumption of plastic bags nationwide.

In that three-month period, it is estimated that 1.5 billion bags have been prevented from use.   Some retailers are reporting reduction rates as high as 90% in the use of the bags.  The move by the big supermarkets has paved the way for smaller businesses to follow suit. The smaller businesses typically can’t afford to risk the wrath of their customers with a major change like this. Customers have to learn to bring their own bags or buy reusable bags at the store.

In much of Australia, the phase-out of plastic bags has been legislated, but the state of New South Wales, home to Sydney, the country’s largest city, has not enacted such legislation. So, supermarkets themselves are doing the work of getting rid of the bags.

The change has not been without hiccups.  For the first couple of months after the plastic bag ban was put in place, Woolworth’s saw poor sales in its stores.  However, customers eventually got used to the new way of doing things and sales levels returned.

Disposable plastic bags often find their way into the oceans where they break down into microparticles. Studies have shown that these plastic bits are ingested by a wide variety of marine life.  For example, a UK study found that 100% of sea turtles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans as well as the Mediterranean Sea had plastic in their digestive systems.

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Australia-wide ban leads to ’80 per cent drop’ in plastic bag consumption

Photo, posted September 18, 2018, courtesy of Matthew Paul Argall via Flickr.  

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Microplastics And Humans

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Microplastics are everywhere.  The tiny plastic particles pose a massive environmental challenge.  Microplastics are polluting oceans at an alarming rate.  Much of the oceanic microplastics result from the breakdown of plastic litter.  Another source of microplastics pollution is microbeads.  Microbeads, which are commonly added to cleansing and exfoliating personal care products, pollute the environment when they get flushed down the drain.   

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The Earliest Overshoot Day Ever

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Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humankind’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what our planet can regenerate in that year.  The deficit for the remainder of the year means we are liquidating stocks of ecological resources and accumulating waste, primarily carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

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Dietary Diversity And Health

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For decades, we have heard from public health sources that we should eat a variety of foods.  Dietary diversity is touted as important for health.  However, there has never really been a consensus about what so-called dietary diversity actually  is, how it is measured, or how it necessarily is healthy.

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Trouble With China And Climate Progress

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With the United States backing away from the Paris climate agreement and with Europe taking a less active role in climate negotiations, China has become the bellwether on global climate change.  Recent climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany were rather acrimonious as countries accused other countries of not doing their part or keeping their promises.

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New Energy Goals For New York

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Since 2015, New York has had in place an energy plan aimed at building a clean, resilient and cost-effective energy system for the state.  A key part of that plan is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% from 1990 levels by the year 2030.  Another major goal is to have 50% of the state’s electricity produced from renewable sources by the same year.

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Shielding From Food Waste

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Food waste is one of the most disheartening problems we face.  Fully one-third of all food produced globally for human consumption is wasted.  Fruits, vegetables and tubers are even worse off:  fully half of these things are wasted.  It is a loss at an economic, social and environmental level.

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A Ton Of Plastic Per Person

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A study by the American Association for the Advancement of Science has produced an estimate of the total amount of plastic manufactured worldwide since the 1950s.  The researchers then measured that data against statistics on recycling, incineration and discard rates.  The results are sobering.

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WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states (more...)