Environmentally friendly food

Dur­ing the year of 2014 , Agri­cul­ture and Food Re­search, MTT im­ple­mented Cli­mate Lunch project in co-op­er­a­tion with lunch restau­rants.  It was funded by the Min­istry of the En­vi­ron­ment for Sus­tain­able Con­sump­tion and Pro­duc­tion ( KULTU ) pro­gram ” less wisely ‘ and the fol­low­ing restau­rant: Fazer Food Ser­vices , Restau­rant Perho and the Stu­dent Union Din­ing (HYY Restau­rants). ” The main goal was to get a work­ing con­cept by the end of 2014; a con­cept that can be taken into use in all types of lunch restau­rants.

The logo of the Cli­mate Lunch pro­gram is the  Cli­mate Choice Fork (Il­mas­to­val­in­ta­haarukka).   A fork with one leaf sym­bol­izes meals with 15 % less than the av­er­age ef­fect on the cli­mate.  A fork with three leaves sym­bol­izes 30 % less than the av­er­age ef­fect on the cli­mate.

” The project aims to pro­vide con­sumers with an easy way to do cli­mate and nu­tri­tional food choices . The long-term goal is to re­duce sig­nif­i­cantly the ef­fects of food for cli­mate change or car­bon foot­print by of­fer­ing to ex­ist­ing restau­rants a  suit­able  en­vi­ron­men­tally friendly lunch pro­gram as an an­other al­ter­na­tive choice for lunch meals. ”
(www.mtt.fi)

What is environmentally friendly food?

A sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of our car­bon diox­ide emis­sions are as­so­ci­ated with ev­ery­day food. Food cli­matic ef­fects are largely al­ready in the pro­duc­tion of food, but each of us has the op­por­tu­nity to in­flu­ence the car­bon foot­print through per­sonal con­sump­tion choices and other ev­ery­day prac­tices. The main food car­bon diox­ide emis­sions are caused by the pro­duc­tion of food in ad­di­tion to trans­porta­tion and food waste.

Cli­mate ef­fects caused by the food can be light­ened, for ex­am­ple, by re­duc­ing the con­sump­tion of prod­ucts of an­i­mal ori­gin, em­pha­siz­ing the role of veg­eta­bles in the diet, avoid­ing food waste gen­er­a­tion, sort­ing or­ganic waste prop­erly and by adop­tion of lo­cally grown and sea­sonal food.  Other im­por­tant is­sues should be also con­sid­ered, such as: food pro­duc­tion, prepa­ra­tion and preser­va­tion sys­tems, and en­ergy ef­fi­ciency.

Cli­mate guide: https://il­masto-opas.fi/en/il­mas­ton­muu­tos/hillinta  > Re­duc­ing emis­sions in Fin­land > Cli­mate-friendly food

Short video (in Finnish) about Cli­mate Choice Lunch project: http://www.hs.fi/ko­ti­maa/a1411576654080