The Food Medic - S2 E9 - Sustainable Food

Episode Date: March 13, 2019

On this episode we are exploring the concept of food sustainability, and what a sustainable diet might look like. Dr Hazel sits down with Louise Symington, a Registered Dietitian specialising in sustainable food. They discuss topics such as veganism, the planetary health diet, the social and economical barriers to eating sustainably, and whether plant milk alternatives are actually suitable nutritional alternatives to milk. Find more from Louise here: http://sustainabledietitian.co.uk Did you enjoy the episode? Make sure to spread the love by giving The Food Medic podcast a 5 star rating! Don’t forget to check out @TheFoodMedic on social media and on the website www. thefoodmedic.co.uk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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exclusions and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over deliver. Hey everyone and welcome back to the Food Medic podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Hazel Wallace, founder and author of The Food Medic. Now, I hope you enjoyed last week's episode on sustainable seafood, because today we're following on from that theme of sustainability, but this time looking at the wider diet and exploring what a sustainable diet actually looks like. So I've enlisted the help of Louise Symington, who is a registered dietitian specialising in sustainable food. Louise has worked in both NHS and private practice and for

charities such as the National Trust, Sustain and the Sustainable Restaurant Association. On top of her dietetic work she also runs food growing and conservation projects at a community allotment. Now before we jump into the episode as always make sure to keep listening until the end of the episode so I can share this week's challenge, which actually isn't anything to do with food, but is going to help the environment. So make sure to keep listening and give you a tease to next week's guest, which I think is going to be a little bit of a plot twist for you. Louise, welcome to the Food Medic Show.

It's really great to have you on. Thank you for having me. So first of all, I would love if you could share with myself and the listeners a little bit about your career journey so far and what inspired you to focus on sustainability in particular. Yeah, well, I've always been interested in food and I always knew I wanted to go into the career of being a dietitian but what really captured my attention was the mad cow disease epidemic during the 90s because this led me to think what is happening why why are people consuming these animals and getting CJD and why are cows getting mad cow disease anyway why are they being fed spinal cords surely they should be being fed grass and then I looked into other animal welfare issues to do with eggs and poultry and it really really broke my heart and it was really disappointing to see this happen

but as a dietician it's your duty of care not to impose any moral or ethical values on your clients so even though I was advising people around food and diet I couldn't talk about free range or organic farming methods or anything that would be deemed a personal issue rather than a nutritional one. So as soon as I saw the first food sustainability course come out in 2008, I jumped on it quick as a flash. I really enjoyed my course and I left mainstream dietetics to work for charities such as the National Trust, Sustain and the Sustainable Restaurant Association. And now since having a child, I work freelance. I offer consultancy service to a plant-based baby food company. And I also run a food growing and nature groups for children because they're the

next generation. So inspiring. So, okay, now that we've got a bit of an overview as to what you do and what your specialty is, can you explain to people what we mean got a bit of an overview as to what you do and what your specialty is, can you explain to people what we mean by a sustainable diet? Because before you came on here, I actually asked my audience on Instagram if they had any questions. And there was some confusion as to what sustainability actually means. So I think it would be nice to set the scene and just explain. Absolutely, because the word sustainable can actually mean all sorts of different things. So when we think about a sustainable diet, we imagine it being underpinned by three pillars.

So you have economic sustainability, so how financially viable the food system is. We have social or ethical pillar, which includes things like animal welfare, fair treatment of humans, fair pay. And then we have the environmental pillar. And under the environmental pillar, this is measured by different metrics, such as the greenhouse gas intensity of the food, the water usage, biodiversity or land use. And I think perhaps in this podcast, we were thinking more along the lines of environmental sustainability. That's what's really capturing people's attention at the moment. What with the Eat Lancet report and fashions around veganism, that tends to be what's in vogue at the moment. I think social ethical sustainability is really important. But it sounds like that this is something that's going to be addressed in future years rather than at the moment. Okay and what are the components of a sustainable diet?

I know that we're not going to go into individual foods here but what are the general principles when we're trying to move towards eating in a more sustainable way? Well the first thing we have to remember is that different countries will have their own versions of a sustainable diet. In the UK we do know that livestock industry produces 15 to 30 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions which contribute to global warming. So in the UK we are thinking about reducing our meat and dairy consumption to be more sustainable, relying on more plant-based proteins, sourcing fish sustainably, as well as reducing soft drinks, sweets and all sorts of other things that might contribute to plastic in the environment. Okay and like you just said a

lot of people are moving towards a sustainable approach to their diet for environmental reasons, particularly the last year. Why is it important that we have a sustainable diet not just for the planet but for our own health for the human health well what's been really interestingly exciting is over the past five to ten years we've been marrying health and sustainability messages because where we're we've got a lot of livestock farming where a lot of meat and milk and dairy is being produced we're also over consuming on these nutrients. Now these nutrients are valuable, but in the right portions. And so the idea is that if we reduce the portions or the quantity of these foods, we can also reduce the risk of certain diseases such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease. The World Cancer Research Fund has done a lot of research on the effect of red meat

in the diet and especially processed red meats and the link with colorectal cancer for example so it could be a win-win situation if we reduce meat and dairy for health and planet yeah absolutely and there's been a lot of conversation around what the perfect diet looks like um you know what the perfect sustainable diet looks like and a lot of news reports came out last year to suggest that going vegan was the single most effective thing that we can do. So I'm interested to know from your perspective, is a vegan diet really the most sustainable way of eating for the planet? And if so, is it the best choice from a human health perspective? There are arguments for and against this. Good quality vegan diet where you're cooking from scratch,

you're having lots of whole grains and plant-based proteins, lots of fresh natural ingredients can be super healthy for the body. It's going to help prevent against all these diseases, keep your gut really, really healthy, which is important. But what's happening is that as there's been an exposure in the popularity of veganism, we're now seeing lots of vegan fast food so we need to make sure that the vegan diet is a healthy diet and it isn't reliant on burgers and nuggets and chips and processed vegan foods that could be as detrimental to our health as the

meat or dairy versions and we haven't got the population or long-term studies to look at this yet there is antidotal evidence from dieticians that there are people adopting vegan diets and i'm becoming quite unhealthy because of it so i think i think it's too easy to say vegan equals healthy we've got to look at the way people cook and eat yeah so i guess the same principles apply to a meat inclusive diet like you said like basing your meals around lots of plant-based foods trying to cook from scratch and trying to limit the amount of processed foods in the diet so we've discussed how having plants in the diet is ultimately a good move for the planet but are there certain plant-based foods that we should be eating less of from a

sustainable point of view so things like shipping avocados halfway across the world or, you know, all of these intensive almond farming methods. Yeah, it's a real tricky one because as dietitians and nutritionists, the fact that people are eating loads of avocados is brilliant from a health point of view because they've got a wonderful fatty acid profile. So it's a bit of a kibosh to then realise that this could be destroying the lives of farmers elsewhere in the world where there's massive plantations and they're using lots

of fertilizers and waters to grow things that aren't native to that area of the country i think i'd probably have to look at it from a perspective of if you're going out for brunch and you're having an avocado and sourdough toast that could be a good option as opposed to a bacon butty. But if you're having a really well-balanced diet, having avocados every day may not be a good thing. It's really important to diversify all the foods in your diet so you're not just having the same thing over and over again. In terms of grains, rice actually produces quite a lot of nitrous oxide and methane and is perhaps one of the most environmentally friendly grains that we're importing that doesn't actually get a lot of attention. But we have to be careful about rice. Quinoa also, there has been a lot in the news and media recently about the sourcing of quinoa and how it's affecting communities in Peru where they're selling the good quality quinoa and then eating poor quality diet as a result of that so we do have to look at where the quinoa is sourced to get a good idea of whether

it's ethical or not the great news is that quinoa is now being grown in Britain so if you can source in the UK then that's a really really good option oh wonderful are there any other grains or plant based foods I know you said variety is key really here when it comes to having a sustainable diet but are there any foods in particular that you would say maybe load up on these as opposed to these or get a bit more of a balance there i'd probably say in the uk things like the humble potato they're so native to our country and in the right portions they're really good sweet potato as well a lot of our native tubers are a good option if they're so native to our country and in the right portions they're really good sweet potato as well a lot of our native tubers are a good option if they're in season yeah and

just for people at home what exactly are tubers tubers are basically sort of root vegetables so we've got all your potatoes your turnips swede yeah which we can get a lot of here in the uk so definitely music to my ears as an irish woman to hear you say the humble spud is back on the menu not that it was ever off but i think for a long time we went for the more trendier carbohydrates but think about what we have in your locality yes i mean what we'd say and i think this is where dietetics comes into play if you're a vegan or a vegetarian all those high protein grains from abroad are really really good they're really vital but if you're someone that's eating a little bit of meat and dairy then actually you can have just things like the plain potato and all of the other plant-based

foods because you don't need to make up those amino acids elsewhere. Yeah. Okay, so like you just mentioned, a few weeks ago, the Eat Lancet report released a document outlining what a sustainable diet looks like from a planetary health perspective and a human health perspective. And they termed this diet the planetary health diet. So I was quite involved in reporting about this document,

but I'm interested to know, do you think the diet outlined in this report is representative of the steps that need to be taken for planetary health and sustainability? Or are there aspects that could have been considered and maybe weren't? I think the first thing to remember that this is the first draft of scientific global targets. These aren't national dietary guidelines i think it was really interesting i found it really exciting to see food being quantified and put into grams for the first time however as dietitians we have a toolkit called one blue dot

which is the uk sustainable food guidelines and they give practical solutions to appropriate portion sizes and meal ideas and recipes to help reduce your meat consumption meat and dairy and increase your plant proteins and that's in line with all the health and planetary advice i think with the lancet it doesn't take into account age so an 18 year old young man in uk compared to an elderly women in asia are going to have very different nutritional needs. It also by its own admission doesn't take into account the topography or nature of the the country and the type of food that it's producing because one food which is

sustainable in one part of the world isn't in the other part of the world. So I think it's a really good start but there is a bit of a way to go before we can confidently put it into national dietary guidelines. dietary recommendations as a whole because it does require an element of education access to resources like like a kitchen and also having I guess there's definitely a financial element to having a sustainable diet would you agree absolutely and I think just looking from the national diet and nutrition survey and looking at the intakes of all the macronutrients compared to where we should be with the Eat Well plate, there's already a disparity. So even though we've had the Eat Well plate, we're not eating enough fruit and veg. We are still having too much meat and dairy, far too many fatty and sugary foods. So then to move towards a sustainable diet, actually, we still got a long way to go to meet, you know, the general Eat Well recommendations.

And we do need to make healthy and sustainable food more available and accessible and affordable. I think there are going to be certain levers that we're going to have to use. I think campaigns are a really powerful tool. I love the Veg Power campaign. I love the fact that it's coming on at primetime tv and getting all of us including our children to eat more veg that's just a great start even before the sustainability message is coming that's so important and then there are other sort of what I'd call community-based campaigns so there's one called the part-time carnivore

and what they do is get communities to come together and eat less meat and dairy together and sort of start that movement that's really cool the economical side of things is really really interesting because we do need to make plant-based foods more affordable and more attractive and i did a little bit of nugget research and i don't know if you want to take part in a mini pop quiz oh yeah okay okay so pressure so just for a bit of fun I looked up the supermarket own brand chicken nuggets and they cost per kilo £3.25 now imagine getting a vegan meat alternative nugget. How much do you think per kilo that costs, given that chickens breed £3.25 a kilo? £5.50 per kilo? Very good, nearly. £6.58. Wow.

So that's over double. Over double. What about the branded spinach bites nugget things? Per kilo again? Mm-hmm. £6? Very good, nearly. £6.65. 65 okay so what this is showing us is two things it shows that meat is being produced very intensively and very cheaply detrimental probably

to the quality of it yeah and yet the plant-based foods which are low in carbon and should be more affordable are actually over twice as expensive so we've really got to think about changing the system here we need to sort of address what's going on in the food industry with this so that it makes it affordable to all yeah absolutely and i think we need to see it as a spectrum and not like an all or nothing type situation because when we were kind of talking about this a couple of weeks ago initially when when the Eat Lancet report came out, I was hosting kind of a radio surgery and had a few callers in who were very concerned. Someone was going to cap their meat consumption at a tablespoon a day. And they were like, like, how do I do that? think that was really important for me to understand from someone who's consuming meat

every day sometimes a couple of times a day that that would be extremely far from the diet that we're asking them to be at so I think for people who do eat a lot of meat or fish no one's asking anyone to do anything drastic overnight it's more of a can we do a meat-free day can we do two meat free days and like you said just trying to make veg the focus of the meal and community initiatives like you you mentioned are definitely a really good start because I know for me this year was my first year doing veganuary and that was a shock to the system and I eat a lot of plants I eat mostly plant-based diet anyway but just the different things of completely cutting out dairy completely removing oily fish from the diet and things like that and

since then I have brought back dairy and oily fish into my diet I wouldn't say I really missed meat and it was really useful for me to understand that actually I can go without meat pretty easily but I think for a lot of people we need to be really respectful and like you said not judging anyone because we're all in different circumstances and I think that goes back to sustainability meaning different things I totally agree with you Hazel because there's no point having someone in clinic who loves their meat and dairy and going right you can only have 15 grams a day. That's not going to work.

You've got to start off on a baseline and gradually reduce in tune with what they want to do as well. But I think the most important thing is that we do have the evidence now as dietitians, public health nutritionists, to actually be able to marry these two things together, health and planetary health. Yeah, which is really good now i'm not going to lie i absolutely love an oat milk flat white they are yeah they're so good but many people are choosing plant-based milks for the perceived health benefits and also like we said for environmental benefits but let's talk about how sustainable plant milks actually are and how healthy they actually are and what groups of individuals do we need to consider when making recommendations because for example is it suitable for kids or teenagers yes so plant milks i love them and i

hate them at the same time generally they are more sustainable in that they have a lower greenhouse gas intensity associated with them however there are types of plant milk so fresh oat drink and almond milk drinks in particular are incredibly water intensive some life cycle analysis studies have shown that almond plant milks are 21 times more water thirsty than conventional dairy milk so this goes back to sustainability and there being different ways to measure it and sometimes there's going to be a trade-off in terms of the health of them i do think that plant milk the description is a little bit deceiving because about 1.5 to 3 percent of that that milk is actually from the plant itself the nut or the soya bean the rest of it is all just fortified they put gums and sort of stabilizers in and if the plant milk is really really low in

fat and calories and you're drinking this it can still be quite filling without actually giving you much nutritional quality and so there have been some incidences where very young children where they filled up on these plant milks have actually become malnourished so generally we say that plant milks aren't suitable for babies and toddlers if they have to maybe have soya milk and that that can be used in cooking try to avoid it as a main drink you know for babies it's really breast milk up until one but these plant milks can be used in cooking okay i think it's just important to make up the calories elsewhere so nut butters seed butters oils things like that and there's a huge discrepancy in the amount of which different plant milks are fortified as well.

Yes, absolutely. There is a brand, Outpro, that I know does fortify many of its plant milks with iodine. And that's actually quite crucial. That's really good, yeah. Really crucial because that's, especially if you're going plant-based, that is one thing that is really difficult to work out how much you're getting because the iodine content varies within the food and between all the different food groups as well that's probably why I love them yeah so keep an eye out for your fortified milks

and we already talked about meat in the diet and different types of meat in the diet but does source of meat matter i.e whether it's grass-fed or not and how can we ensure that the meat that we're buying has been sustainably produced? Yes, so meat is produced conventionally using grain as a feed or raised outdoors being grass fed. With the grain fed beef, the fatty acid profile is supposed to be less favourable than grass fed beef in that it has a lot of monounsaturated fat. but the grass-fed beef has more what we call omega-3 fats and CLA, conjugated linoleic acid. So yes, I think there is a merit to having the grass-fed beef. And there are some certification schemes

which can promote grass-fed beef. So Pasture for Life is a certification scheme. That means that the cows have been grass fed throughout their life and not just through being a young cow because the trouble with the term grass fed is that it's not legally defined so you could have a baby cow grazing or little cow grazing up for a while and then it's fed grain intensively so that's a really good certification scheme and also soil association organic certification is good as well. And other organic certifications or leaf mark can be a really good indicator. Okay. Now, we may have

overwhelmed some people with the concept of being more sustainable when it comes to our diet. So what three things can we do today to have a more sustainable approach to the food that we eat? I find it is quite hard thinking of three because there are lots of things to do, but I want to be positive and say rather than eat less, just eat more. Eat more plant foods, especially lots more plant proteins and get cooking. Number two, actually without getting too bogged down with the sourcing of plant foods especially at the point of sale at a supermarket cut down on that packaging because that can have an immediate impact on the environment so choose foods that obviously aren't just pre-packed and then perhaps

more local and seasonal and number three i want to be a little bit maverick but i want to get people to think about food growing even if you've only got a windowsill or you haven't got a garden just start by growing some seeds yourself maybe you can join a community allotment or a green gym and kind of get into the mindset of being as a nation we can try and be more self-sufficient if you've got a garden maybe you just want to try and grow a few things yourself because this is a really good way to feed yourself sustainably. It's really good for mental health and it's really good for physical health getting out there as well. So that would be my third tip. Oh, lovely.

And if people want to find out more about you or are there any resources you can direct people to to find more about sustainability, even if they're dietitians listening who want to maybe move into this field, what advice can you give us yeah the great resource is the british dietetic association's one blue dot toolkit and you can find me on sustainable dietitian.co.uk wonderful well thank you so much for

joining us today on the podcast um i'm sure everyone learned loads. I know I did. Speak to you soon. Bye. Okay, guys, so that was Louise. I hope you really enjoyed the episode. I know I did, and I've picked up lots of tips. But before you go,

let's chat a little bit about plastic. So plastic bottles, disposable coffee cups, single-use takeaway packaging, cling film, these are just some of the everyday items many of us use and throw away without a second thought. The production and distribution of plastic has a huge carbon footprint, which is exacerbated because so many plastic products are designed to be disposable

and are destined for the landfill just after one use. And sadly, recycling is not the perfect solution either. And experts suggest that we can't simply just recycle our way out of this problem. So we need to find ways we can reduce the amount of plastic we use in the first place. Now, the main things that end up on UK beaches include plastic bottles, plastic food packets, cigarette stubs. Yes, there is plastic in cigarette stubs. That was news for me as well. Cotton buds, caps and lids, wet wipes, straws and cutlery. So I guess plastic is super pervasive in our society and it's a little bit overwhelming to try have a totally plastic free life. But what if we only had one plastic-free day? Or at least it would

be a start. So this week's challenge, I'm challenging you to have a one totally plastic-free day. So saying no to single-use plastics like straws, cups, grocery bags, and wrappers. Buying your fruit and veg in singles, so bind them loose, not in plastic packets. Bringing your own utensils if you're planning to eat somewhere that doesn't provide cutlery. And carrying a reusable water bottle and travel mug with you. I think it'll just be a really interesting challenge for all of us to give a go. It's just a day and hopefully there are some tips that we'll pick up along the way so we can reduce our plastic consumption moving forward. Now, before you go,

next week's guest, plot twist, is going to be me. So make sure you tune in to find out all about how the Food Medic started, a little bit more about my background, what inspires me, and then some of the questions that you guys sent in on Instagram.

I think it'll be a really interesting experience for both of us so make sure to tune in and i'll see you again next time